of the glen; there was a paling before it with a gate, at which a pig was screaming, as if anxious to get in. “It wants its dinner,” said John Jones, and opened the gate for me to pass, taking precautions that the screamer did not enter at the same time. We entered the cottage, very glad to get into it, a storm of wind and rain having just come on. Nobody was in the kitchen when we entered. It looked comfortable enough, however; there was an excellent fire of wood and coals, and a very snug chimney-corner. John Jones called aloud, but for some time no one answered; at last a rather good-looking woman, seemingly about thirty, made her appearance at a door at the farther end of the kitchen. “Is the mistress at home,” said Jones, “or the master?”
“They are neither at home,” said the woman; “the master is abroad at his work, and the mistress is at the farm-house of – three miles off, to pick feathers (trwsio plu).” She asked us to sit down.
“And who are you?” said I.
“I am only a lodger,” said she; “I lodge here with my husband, who is a clog-maker.”
“Can you speak English?” said I.
“O yes,” said she, “I lived eleven years in England, at a place called Bolton, where I married my husband, who is an Englishman.”
“Can he speak Welsh?” said I.
“Not a word,” said she. “We always speak English together.”
John Jones sat down, and I looked about the room. It exhibited no appearance of poverty; there was plenty of rude but good furniture in it; several pewter plates and trenchers in a rack, two or three prints in frames against the wall, one of which was the likeness of no less a person than the Rev. Joseph Sanders; on the table was a newspaper. “Is that in Welsh?” said I.
“No,” replied the woman, “it is the Bolton Chronicle; my husband reads it.”
I sat down in the chimney-corner. The wind was now howling abroad, and the rain was beating against the cottage panes – presently a gust of wind came down the chimney, scattering sparks all about. “A cataract of sparks!” said I, using the word Rhaiadr.
“What is Rhaiadr?” said the woman; “I never heard the word before.”
“Rhaiadr means water tumbling over a rock,” said John Jones – “did you never see water tumble over the top of a rock?”
“Frequently,” said she.
“Well,” said he, “even as the water with its froth tumbles over the rock, so did sparks and fire tumble over the front of that grate when the wind blew down the chimney. It was a happy comparison of the Gwr Boneddig, and with respect to Rhaiadr it is a good old word, though not a common one; some of the Saxons who have read the old writings, though they cannot speak the language as fast as we, understand many words and things which we do not.”
“I forgot much of my Welsh, in the land of the Saxons,” said the woman, “and so have many others; there are plenty of Welsh at Bolton, but their Welsh is sadly corrupted.”
She then went out and presently returned with an infant in her arms and sat down. “Was that child born in Wales?” I demanded.
“No,” said she, “he was born at Bolton about eighteen months ago – we have been here only a year.”
“Do many English,” said I, “marry Welsh wives?”
“A great many,” said she. “Plenty of Welsh girls are married to Englishmen at Bolton.”
“Do the Englishmen make good husbands?” said I.
The woman smiled and presently sighed.
“Her husband,” said Jones, “is fond of a glass of ale and is often at the public-house.”
“I make no complaint,” said the woman, looking somewhat angrily at John Jones.
“Is your husband a tall bulky man?” said I.
“Just so,” said the woman.
“The largest of the two men we saw the other night at the public-house at Llansanfraid,” said I to John Jones.
“I don’t know him,” said Jones, “though I have heard of him, but I have no doubt that was he.”
I asked the woman how her husband could carry on the trade of a clog-maker in such a remote place – and also whether he hawked his clogs about the country.
“We call him a clog-maker,” said the woman, “but the truth is that he merely cuts down the wood and fashions it into squares; these are taken by an under-master who sends them to the manufacturer at Bolton, who employs hands, who make them into clogs.”
“Some of the English,” said Jones, “are so poor that they cannot afford to buy shoes; a pair of shoes cost ten or twelve shillings, whereas a pair of clogs cost only two.”
“I suppose,” said I, “that what you call clogs are wooden shoes.”
“Just so,” said Jones – “they are principally used in the neighbourhood of Manchester.”
“I have seen them at Huddersfield,” said I, “when I was a boy at school there; of what wood are they made?”
“Of the gwern, or alder tree,” said the woman, “of which there is plenty on both sides of the brook.”
John Jones now asked her if she could give him a tamaid of bread; she said she could, “and some butter with it.”
She then went out, and presently returned with a loaf and some butter.
“Had you not better wait,” said I, “till we get to the inn at Llansanfraid?”
The woman, however, begged him to eat some bread and butter where he was, and cutting a plateful, placed it before him, having first offered me some, which I declined.
“But you have nothing to drink with it,” said I to him.
“If you please,” said the woman, “I will go for a pint of ale to the public-house at the Pandy; there is better ale there than at the inn at Llansanfraid. When my husband goes to Llansanfraid he goes less for the ale than for the conversation, because there is little English spoken at the Pandy, however good the ale.”
John Jones said he wanted no ale – and attacking the bread and butter speedily made an end of it; by the time he had done the storm was over, and getting up I gave the child twopence, and left the cottage with Jones. We proceeded some way farther up the valley, till we came to a place where the ground descended a little. Here Jones, touching me on the shoulder, pointed across the stream. Following with my eye the direction of his finger, I saw two or three small sheds with a number of small reddish blocks, in regular piles beneath them. Several trees felled from the side of the torrent were lying near, some of them stripped of their arms and bark. A small tree formed a bridge across the brook to the sheds.
“It is there,” said John Jones, “that the husband of the woman with whom we have been speaking works, felling trees from the alder swamp and cutting them up into blocks. I see there is no work going on at present or we would go over – the woman told me that her husband was at Llangollen.”
“What a strange place to come to work at,” said I, “out of crowded
