RICHES
It is true that God gives unto each from his birth
Some task to perform while he wends upon earth,
But He gives correspondent wisdom and force
To the weight of the task, and the length of the course.
[Exit.
POVERTY
I hope there are some, who 'twixt me and the youth
Have heard this discourse, whose sole aim is the truth,
Will see and acknowledge, as homeward they plod,
Each thing is arrang'd by the wisdom of God.
There can be no doubt that Tom was a poet, or he could never have
treated the hackneyed subjects of Riches and Poverty in a manner so
original and at the same time so masterly as he has done in the
interlude above analyzed: I cannot, however, help thinking that he
was greater as a man than a poet, and that his fame depends more on
the cleverness, courage and energy, which it is evident by his
biography that he possessed, than on his interludes. A time will
come when his interludes will cease to be read, but his making ink
out of elderberries, his battle with the "cruel fighter," his
teaching his horses to turn the crane, and his getting the ship to
the water, will be talked of in Wales till the peak of Snowdon
shall fall down.
CHAPTER LXI
Set out for Wrexham - Craig y Forwyn - Uncertainty - The Collier -
Cadogan Hall - Methodistical Volume.
HAVING learnt from a newspaper that a Welsh book on Welsh Methodism
had been just published at Wrexham, I determined to walk to that
place and purchase it. I could easily have procured the work
through a bookseller at Llangollen, but I wished to explore the
hill-road which led to Wrexham, what the farmer under the Eglwysig
rocks had said of its wildness having excited my curiosity, which
the procuring of the book afforded me a plausible excuse for
gratifying. If one wants to take any particular walk it is always
well to have some business, however trifling, to transact at the
end of it; so having determined to go to Wrexham by the mountain
road, I set out on the Saturday next after the one on which I had
met the farmer who had told me of it.
The day was gloomy, with some tendency to rain. I passed under the
hill of Dinas Bran. About a furlong from its western base I turned
round and surveyed it - and perhaps the best view of the noble
mountain is to be obtained from the place where I turned round.
How grand though sad from there it looked, that grey morning, with
its fine ruin on its brow above which a little cloud hovered! It
put me in mind of some old king, unfortunate and melancholy but a
king still, with the look of a king, and the ancestral crown still
on his furrowed forehead. I proceeded on my way, all was wild and
solitary, and the yellow leaves were falling from the trees of the
groves. I passed by the farmyard, where I had held discourse with
the farmer on the preceding Saturday, and soon entered the glen,
the appearance of which had so much attracted my curiosity. A
torrent, rushing down from the north, was on my right. It soon
began to drizzle, and mist so filled the glen that I could only
distinguish objects a short way before me, and on either side. I
wandered on a considerable way, crossing the torrent several times
by rustic bridges. I passed two lone farm-houses and at last saw
another on my left hand. The mist had now cleared up, but it still
slightly rained - the scenery was wild to a degree - a little way
before me was a tremendous pass, near it an enormous crag of a
strange form rising to the very heavens, the upper part of it of a
dull white colour. Seeing a respectable-looking man near the house
I went up to him.
"Am I in the right way to Wrexham?" said I, addressing him in
English.
"You can get to Wrexham this way, sir," he replied.
"Can you tell me the name of that crag?" said I, pointing to the
large one.
"That crag, sir, is called Craig y Forwyn."
"The maiden's crag," said I; "why is it called so?"
"I do not know sir; some people say that it is called so because
its head is like that of a woman, others because a young girl in
love leaped from the top of it and was killed."
"And what is the name of this house?" said I.
"This house, sir, is called Plas Uchaf."
"Is it called Plas Uchaf," said I, "because it is the highest house
in the valley?"
"It is, sir; it is the highest of three homesteads; the next below
it is Plas Canol - and the one below that Plas Isaf."
"Middle place and lower place," said I. "It is very odd that I
know in England three people who derive their names from places so
situated. One is Houghton, another Middleton, and the third
Lowdon; in modern English, Hightown, Middletown, and Lowtown."
"You appear to be a person of great intelligence, sir."
"No, I am not - but I am rather fond of analysing words,
particularly the names of persons and places. Is the road to
Wrexham hard to find?"
"Not very, sir; that is, in the day-time. Do you live at Wrexham?"
"No," I replied, "I am stopping at Llangollen."
"But you won't return there to-night?"
"Oh yes, I shall!"
"By this road?"
"No, by the common road.
