CHAPTER I.

FAIR WALES.

ENOCH HUGHES was a love-child, but he was

not born in Anglesey. The nook where he was born was nearer England, and its inhabitants talked finer Welsh, and, in their own opinion, were more cultivated and polished, though they were not more religious. The bells were not rung at his birth, and no signs of rejoicing of any sort were seen or heard. Even the fact that he was a boy, and not a girl, did not bring so much as a smile to the face of any of his relations when they were told of his arrival in the world. Indeed, some of the neighbours maintained that so little interest was felt in him that it was not known, for some days, to which gender he belonged, and that it was quite by accident that the matter became evident -and that by the carelessness of Enoch himself. The reason for all this unconcern about the new arrival was this,--no one expected him or wanted to see him. I have said too much; there was one who did expect him. How many sleepless nights, how much grief and anguish and torment of mind, how much bitter and true repentance, of self loathing that almost bordered on distraction, this expectation had cost, God alone knows. I know this is a tender and touchy matter to hint about. I know that it would be pleasanter to one's feelings to be listening to one with a good voice singing," Fair Wales, land of song," and to encore it, and for him to give us in response,

"White gloves are e'er her offer, A glorious land is Wales."

But the man who thought that he had got the whole history of Wales in those two songs would be an idiot. I recollect, when I was a lad, that that good man Abel Hughes, when quite lost in the service in chapel, used to shut his eyes, especially when singing, and that I got to believe that shutting the eyes was a sure sign of godliness. I have changed my opinion. Shutting the eyes is

no sign of sanctity. And to be fair to Abel Hughes, he never used to shut his eyes except when in the hwyl. He was as keen sighted as anyone, and he called things by their right names too. No doubt, if he was alive now, he would be considered a plain-spoken, harsh man. It is certain that Abel Hughes, like old fellows generally, was a little too plain in his speech; but it is to be feared that, in these present days, our danger is affectation and over nicety, not calling things by their Welsh names, and even not calling them by any names at all. Have the things themselves ceased to exist? Or have we got some new light on them? Does such a place as hell exist in these days? Such a place used to be spoken of some time ago, but you seldom hear such a place mentioned now,-except by some rather old fashioned person. Is there such a thing as incontinence? One hears now and then about "disagreeable circumstances.' But no doubt the world has become more mannerly, and care must be taken how it is conversed with.

There was only one, as has been said, who expected Enoch to come into the world, and there was not one who wanted him in the world. He was looked upon as an intruder. Enoch, poor fellow, knew nothing of this; and if he had known that his appearance would have created so much consternation, and have occasioned so many discomforts and bitter feelings, it is doubtful whether he would not have committed suicide rather than face so inhospitable a world. But Enoch faced it quite innocently and defencelessly. The doctor testified that Enoch was one of the finest boys he had ever seen, and that there was only one imperfection in him, which was this, that three of the toes of his left foot were stuck together, like a

Hwyl. As far as I know there is no English word that gives the exact meaning of “ hwyl." It describes a state of fervour in public worship, when the worshipper has forgotten himself in the exquisite enjoyment of a purely spiritual world. It is also used of a preacher whose voice has become mellow under the influence of overpowering emotion.-ED.

duck's.

Whether this denoted that Enoch would

be a good swimmer, the doctor did not attempt to determine. But this was neither here nor there.

Before Enoch was a month old,-if his senses had developed enough, and if he had not been comfortably asleep by the side of his mother, he might have been an eye witness of a sight that he would never have forgotten. The bedroom was large and comfortable, which denoted that its owner was in better circumstances than usual. It was a Saturday night, or rather Sunday morning, for the clock had just struck midnight. The doctor had just left the room, intending to return soon with some medicine to help Enoch's mother to cross the river-or, in other words, to die. Before leaving the house the doctor said to her father, who was a very proud man,-"I will come back in a few minutes Mr. Davies, but I am afraid that poor Ellen will not see the dawn. You had better go and see her. Go, Mr. Davies; go, or you will be sorry for it after this."

Mr. Davies had not seen Ellen since the day Enoch was born. Ellen was his only child, his only comfort, his idol. But on the day Enoch was born, Mr. Davies took an oath that he would never speak to his daughter again. However, when the doctor said to him that Ellen would not see another morning, he felt his heart give a turn, and his blood as it were freezing within him. He walked up and down the parlour half a dozen times, and the twitchings of his face showed the deep torments of his proud heart. He started up the stairs, and then turned back; started again, and turned back again. Yes, he had taken an oath that he would never speak to her again. But he remembered and he was glad to remember itthat he had not said that he would not see her. He started up the stairs again, and this time did not turn back. Mr. Davies was a handsome and strong man, and he had never before now felt any difficulty in going up the stairs. But this time he felt his legs almost giving way. There were two nurses in the room talking in low voices, and they were frightened at Mr. Davies' unexpected appearance, but neither of them uttered a word. Ellen's eyes were shut, her face was as white as the pillow under her head, and her long hair, which was as black as her sin, was strewed loosely and carelessly about her. Mr. Davies clutched the bedpost, as though from necessity, and looked fixedly at the face of his dear daughter. What a change he saw! Was this Ellen, his dear Ellen? Incredible! She was only a shadow of what she had been. Yet, thought Mr. Davies, in spite of all the change, she had lost none of the beauty that he had always felt so proud of. And, indeed, Ellen was more like her

Her

mother-whom he had buried about a year previous to this than he had ever seen her. He looked fixedly at her pallid face, and his heart began to soften. But he turned his eyes and saw Enoch, with his pink face, flat nose, and bald head, and Mr. Davies' anger and wounded pride returned, and he sighed heavily. Ellen opened her eyelids and disclosed a pair of eyes that her father had looked at thousands of times with admiration. father was not the only person who had admired those eyes. From the whiteness of her face Ellen's eyes seemed to her father to be blacker, brighter, and more beautiful than ever. But Ellen, his dear Ellen, whom he had looked upon as a model of perfection, without a flaw or a wrinkle in it, like the very light itself, had sinned. And in all fairness to the father, it was her sin and not the disgrace, though he felt that deeply,-that was like a canker gnawing at his heart-for Mr. Davies was a particular, religious, and godly man in his own way. Ellen opened her eyes, as has been said, and looked imploringly, though silently, into her father's eyes. After a minute's silence she said brokenly,— "Father, wont you speak to me?"

Mr. Davies did not answer a word, but the workings of his face and throat showed that he was the chief sufferer.

"Father," repeated Ellen, "I have asked Jesus Christ a thousand times to forgive me. Do you think he will, father?"

Mr. Davies looked at Enoch, and clutched the bedpost still more tightly, but he did not break Ellen said a second time,

his oath.

"If mother was alive, and she is alive, I saw her last night-and she has forgiven me. Wont you forgive me, darling father? I have been a bad, bad, bad daughter; but wont you forgive me, darling father?"

Mr. Davies let go the bedpost, swayed like a drunken man, took a step forward, kissed his daughter once and again, and returned to his old place without taking his eyes off her; but he never uttered a word. Ellen smiled happily and then turned her eyes to Enoch. As though guided by instinct, one of the nurses, who was a mother, understood her wish, and put the baby's face to his mother's cold lips. Enoch only grunted sleepily when he was kissed for the last time by his mother. After doing this Ellen looked as though she had done with everybody and everything, and gazed upwards without cessation. Mr. Davies did not take his eyes off her; and even when the doctor came in, he did not appear conscious of his arrival. The doctor perceived at once that poor Ellen was on the point of departing this life, and did not try to make her take the medicine. For some minutes

Ellen continued to gaze upwards, then she said audibly,

"I am coming now, mother, now." After one convulsive twitch, one long sigh, her spirit took wing.

"She has gone" said the doctor quietly, and at the same time he took hold of Mr. Davies' arm and led him down stairs. The doctor was glad to get to the bottom in safety, for Mr. Davies leaned heavily on him. The father's anguish was terrible, and when he fell heavily into his chair, he pressed his head between his hands and groaned aloud,

"Oh Ellen! Ellen! my darling Ellen!"

Suddenly he jumped excitedly to his feet, struck the table several times till the blood spurted from his knuckles; and, as though addressing the table, he said fiercely,

"Enoch Hughes, if you are not already in hell, may the curse of God follow you every step of your life."

He repeated the mad words several times. The doctor stayed with him till he quieted down. Mr. Davies was comparatively young, scarcely forty years old. He was looked upon, in the village where he lived, as being in comfortable circum

stances, and was highly respected. His daughter Ellen, before the circuinstances we have touched upon, was a favourite, even with her own sex, which is saying a good deal. Her fall was a blow to scores of her friends and acquaintances, and no one, so far as I know, showed any joy at her disgrace. It is not always thus, worse luck. And of all disgraceful things, the most disgraceful is for any one to rejoice in the misfortune of his friend. The sympathy for Mr. Davies, in his bitter trial, was deep and true, and its manifestation copious. But he never held up his head again. The arrow had gone straight to his heart, and no one could draw it out. He sold all his goods and chattels; and the last of his old neighbours that Mr. Davies spoke to was David Jones, the man who used to cut letters on the gravestones.

"David Jones," said he, "put these words on the stone that is over my wife, never mind the age and date,

Also

ELLEN DAVIES,

'The pitcher was broken at the well.''

And without so much as wishing good bye to his friends, Mr. Davies left the country.

EVER since the English people have become conscious of their unity as a nation, there is a tendency in English literature to contrast England with Wales, and the Englishman with the Welshman. To the Norman, the Welsh were foxes; to the Englishman they have been, at different times, gentlemen and buffoons. During

the sixteenth century, when the Welsh chieftains crowded into the court of the Tudors, and found favour in the eyes of sovereigns of their own race, the Welshman was regarded as a gentleman. Shakespeare saw the greatness of Glendower through the prejudices of Lancastrian times,

"In faith he is a worthy gentleman,
Exceedingly well read, and profited

In strange concealments, valiant as a lion,
And wondrous affable, and as bountiful
As mines of India."

The greatest of English dramatists hon

oured the Welshman's observance of an ancient tradition, began upon an honourable respect, and worn as a memorable trophy of predeceased valour. In Ben Jonson and in the minor Elizabethan dramatists, Wales is held in equally high honour.

During the seventeenth century the reputation of Welshmen began to decline. Their loyalty, it is true, endeared them to the Royalist; their superstition aroused the pity rather than the contempt of the Puritan. But, in the eyes of all parties, they lost their old reputation for valour in war. The battles of Tewkesbury and St. Fagan's took away from the Welshman what the battles of Cressy and Agincourt had given him.

It was during the eighteenth century that the Welshman sunk lowest in English eyes. All the modern misconceptions concerning the Welsh character, often affecting

an Englishman's judgment, can be traced back to some book or song written during the eighteenth century. Pilfering is almost unknown in Wales, still there is a vague belief among Englishmen that Taffy is a thief. Truth is undoubtedly as highly honoured in Wales as in any country, still I have met Englishmen who insist on believing a statement made by some heated politician that all Welshmen are liars. A "Welsh jury," to the minds of some, means a body of men bent upon defeating the ends of justice; and it is readily taken for granted, in ignorance of all English history, that an English juryman has always been the incarnation of immaculate impartiality.

These misconceptions are all due to eighteenth century writers, and I have gone to the trouble of finding the origin of all the stock libels about Wales. I shall publish them, month after month, in order that it may be seen from what hole of a pit they are dug.

At the beginning of the eighteenth century the scenery and the people of Wales were barbarous to English eyes. I need not say that, at that time, the delight in wild scenery was no part of English thought. The beauty of mountain and moor and sea had not been discovered, though we find the germs of it in Addison when he says that the scenery of Lausanne filled him with "an agreeable kind of horror." At the beginning of the eighteenth century the English traveller found delight in "the trim and neat" fields of England, and thought that the Welsh mountains were unsightly masses of rock which could not be turned to account. any The people were no less strange than the country to English eyes. It has been the misfortune of Wales that Englishmen began to travel in it at a time when English and Welsh were most unlike each other. During the eighteenth century the Englishman disliked and despised sentiment, and believed in the fashionable theory of the equality of men; the Welshman was full of sentimental conceits, and talked by the hour about his pedigree. During the same century the Welsh peasants were not so far advanced in matters of sanitation as the English middle class travellers.

A sparing use of water and ignorance of the functions of soap are unpardonable to an Englishman. I know a lady who found that a maid in a continental hotel was ignorant enough about soap to take a bite out of her unscented Pears, thinking it was toffee. It is in vain that I have tried to persuade that lady to believe there ever was civilization in Italy or thought in Germany.

In reading the English descriptions of Wales I am giving, let not the Welshman suppose that he has been more tolerant than the Englishman. In order to illustrate this warning I translate, at the outset, a few Welsh triads,

Three things there are that can never be found out,-God's counsels, the first drop of the sea, and an Englishman's wiles.

Three things will penetrate to the ends of the world, sunlight, the praise of a fine fellow, and an Englishman's boasting.

Three things the further they are the better,— mad dogs, God's curse, and an Englishman.

Three things are easy to see, the mid-day sun, water in the Severn, and an Englishman's brutality.

Three things are difficult to get,-gold from a miser, love from the devil, and courtesy from an Englishman.

Three fickle things,--the new moon, a weathercock, and English fidelity.

The three hardest things,-a granite block, a miser's barley loaf, and an Englishman's heart.

The three chief enemies of a Welshman,-his own credulous heart, a winged devil from the nether regions, and an Englishman.

Three things necessary in a song for the devil,— the dying squcal of a sow, a cursing priest, and English.

Three things are best when hung,-salt fish, a wet hat, and an Englishman.

Three things will take a long time to do,drying the Atlantic, climbing to the sun, and unvillaining an Englishman.

Three things will not soon be seen,-the seacrow covering Snowdon, reaping wheat on the Atlantic, and truth in an Englishman.

Three things attack the weak, the cat, the sea-crow, and the Englishman.

Three things difficult to find,-a salmon in an oak, a miser's chest unlocked, and impartiality in an Englishman.

Three things my heart loves to see,--honey on my bread, the face of the girl I love, and a halter round an Englishman's neck.

I

KNOW not by what fatality it came to pass that I was bred up to the study of the law, but surely the importunity of others had a greater hand in it than any inclination of my own; for I was ever of opinion a young barrister without an estate, my case, made as awkward a figure as a dancing-master in the habit of a non-con parson, in regard such rarely get their bread till they have lost their teeth to eat it. However, being called to the Bar, I began to consider what way I might best settle myself into business with the least certainty of expense and the greatest probability of advantage. Amongst all the numerous projects that filled my head I could think of none like going a Welsh circuit. For happening one day,-in Trinity term,―to dine at a Welsh judge's house, with whom I was acquainted, I met there some attornies of that country, who, in less time than a man might say over a Paternoster, made all that was set upon the table invisible, and then, to make us amends, entertained us with a romantic harangue of the felicities of North Wales, which they talked of as if they had been describing the land of promise that flowed with milk and honey; nay, they wanted little of persuading me that broad cloth of twelve. shillings a yard grew upon the hedges; and every now and then a request was wedged in that I would come and practise amongst them. There needed not half so many arguments to put me upon a thing I was naturally forward enough to undertake. So the bargain was quickly struck up, and I fully determined to visit Wales the very next circuit.

But, before I proceed any further, I will first premise some account of the place and inhabitants, and then speak of my own treatment there.

Wales then, anciently called Cimbria, -is divided into North and South Wales. 'Tis the former of these I propose to say

somewhat of. This consists of six entire, though small, counties, viz. Montgomery, Flint, Denbigh, Merioneth, Carnarvon, and the Isle of Anglesea, and is separated from England by the rivers Dee and Severn.

The air is the best thing it has to boast of, and will sooner procure you an appetite than furnish you with means to supply it. The country looks like the fag end of the creation, the very rubbish of Noah's flood, and will,-if any thing,-serve to confirm an Epicurean in his creed that the world was made by chance. The highest hills that ever I saw in England, such as Penygant, Ingleborough, and the like, are mere cherry-stones to the British Alps; and no more to be compared with them, for stature, than a grasshopper with Goliath of Gath. So that there is not, in the whole world, a people that live so near to, and yet so far from heaven, as the Welsh do. You cannot travel from town to town but you must needs take the clouds in your way, who so gratefully resent your civility in calling upon them, that you will have no occasion to complain they send you away dry; for you may, at your journey's end, beshake your clothes with as good a grace as any water-dog does his shaggy pantaloons.

A tree challenges as many lookers on here, as a blazing star or an African monster does elsewhere. And for green things,

leeks only excepted,-you might have seen as many in Egypt when the locusts had been rapareeing the country.

Coaches in many parts were never so much as heard of, nor can the natives form any ideas of them that are not as disproportioned to the truth as Montezuma's conception of the sea, who had never seen anything longer than a horse-pond. Carts are about the size, and somewhat of the

shape, of brewers' drays. Horses are no rarities, but very easily mistaken for mastiff dogs, unless viewed attentively; they will live half a week upon the juice