If I Have Been Deceived In The Cheese, I Have At Any Rate Not
Been Deceived In The Ale, Which I Expected To Find Execrable.
Patience!
I shall not fall into a passion, more especially as there
are things I can fall back upon. Wife! I will trouble you for a
cup of tea. Henrietta! have the kindness to cut me a slice of
bread and butter."
Upon the whole we found ourselves very comfortable in the old-
fashioned inn, which was kept by a nice old-fashioned gentlewoman,
with the assistance of three servants, namely, a "boots" and two
strapping chambermaids, one of which was a Welsh girl, with whom I
soon scraped acquaintance, not, I assure the reader, for the sake
of the pretty Welsh eyes which she carried in her head, but for the
sake of the pretty Welsh tongue which she carried in her mouth,
from which I confess occasionally proceeded sounds which, however
pretty, I was quite unable to understand.
CHAPTER III
Chester - The Rows - Lewis Glyn Cothi - Tragedy of Mold - Native of
Antigua - Slavery and the Americans - The Tents - Saturday Night.
ON the morning after our arrival we went out together, and walked
up and down several streets; my wife and daughter, however, soon
leaving me to go into a shop, I strolled about by myself. Chester
is an ancient town with walls and gates, a prison called a castle,
built on the site of an ancient keep, an unpretending-looking red
sandstone cathedral, two or three handsome churches, several good
streets, and certain curious places called rows. The Chester row
is a broad arched stone gallery running parallel with the street
within the facades of the houses; it is partly open on the side of
the street, and just one story above it. Within the rows, of which
there are three or four, are shops, every shop being on that side
which is farthest from the street. All the best shops in Chester
are to be found in the rows. These rows, to which you ascend by
stairs up narrow passages, were originally built for the security
of the wares of the principal merchants against the Welsh. Should
the mountaineers break into the town, as they frequently did, they
might rifle some of the common shops, where their booty would be
slight, but those which contained the more costly articles would be
beyond their reach; for at the first alarm the doors of the
passages, up which the stairs led, would be closed, and all access
to the upper streets cut off, from the open arches of which
missiles of all kinds, kept ready for such occasions, could be
discharged upon the intruders, who would be soon glad to beat a
retreat. These rows and the walls are certainly the most
remarkable memorials of old times which Chester has to boast of.
Upon the walls it is possible to make the whole compass of the
city, there being a good but narrow walk upon them.
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