"Nor is the common road, sir, for a respectable person on foot;
that is, on a Saturday night.
You will perhaps meet drunken
colliers who may knock you down."
"I will take my chance for that," said I, and bade him farewell. I
entered the pass, passing under the strange-looking crag. After I
had walked about half a mile the pass widened considerably and a
little way further on debauched on some wild moory ground. Here
the road became very indistinct. At length I stopped in a state of
uncertainty. A well-defined path presented itself, leading to the
east, whilst northward before me there seemed scarcely any path at
all. After some hesitation I turned to the east by the well-
defined path, and by so doing went wrong, as I soon found.
I mounted the side of a brown hill covered with moss-like grass,
and here and there heather. By the time I arrived at the top of
the hill the sun shone out, and I saw Rhiwabon and Cefn Mawr before
me in the distance. "I am going wrong," said I; "I should have
kept on due north. However, I will not go back, but will steeple-
chase it across the country to Wrexham, which must be towards the
north-east." So turning aside from the path, I dashed across the
hills in that direction; sometimes the heather was up to my knees,
and sometimes I was up to the knees in quags. At length I came to
a deep ravine which I descended; at the bottom was a quagmire,
which, however, I contrived to cross by means of certain stepping-
stones, and came to a cart path up a heathery hill which I
followed. I soon reached the top of the hill, and the path still
continuing, I followed it till I saw some small grimy-looking huts,
which I supposed were those of colliers. At the door of the first
I saw a girl. I spoke to her in Welsh, and found she had little or
none. I passed on, and seeing the door of a cabin open I looked in
- and saw no adult person, but several grimy but chubby children.
I spoke to them in English, and found they could only speak Welsh.
Presently I observed a robust woman advancing towards me; she was
barefooted and bore on her head an immense lump of coal. I spoke
to her in Welsh, and found she could only speak English. "Truly,"
said I to myself, "I am on the borders. What a mixture of races
and languages!" The next person I met was a man in a collier's
dress; he was a stout-built fellow of the middle age, with a coal-
dusty surly countenance. I asked him in Welsh if I was in the
right direction for Wrexham, he answered in a surly manner in
English, that I was. I again spoke to him in Welsh, making some
indifferent observation on the weather, and he answered in English
yet more gruffly than before. For the third time I spoke to him in
Welsh, whereupon looking at me with a grin of savage contempt, and
showing a set of teeth like those of a mastiff, he said, "How's
this? why you haven't a word of English? A pretty fellow you, with
a long coat on your back and no English on your tongue, an't you
ashamed of yourself? Why, here am I in a short coat, yet I'd have
you to know that I can speak English as well as Welsh, aye and a
good deal better." "All people are not equally clebber," said I,
still speaking Welsh. "Clebber," said he, "clebber! what is
clebber? why can't you say clever! Why, I never saw such a low,
illiterate fellow in my life;" and with these words he turned away
with every mark of disdain, and entered a cottage near at hand.
"Here I have had," said I to myself, as I proceeded on my way, "to
pay for the over-praise which I lately received. The farmer on the
other side of the mountain called me a person of great
intelligence, which I never pretended to be, and now this collier
calls me a low, illiterate fellow, which I really don't think I am.
There is certainly a Nemesis mixed up with the affairs of this
world; every good thing which you get, beyond what is strictly your
due, is sure to be required from you with a vengeance. A little
over-praise by a great deal of underrating - a gleam of good
fortune by a night of misery."
I now saw Wrexham Church at about the distance of three miles, and
presently entered a lane which led gently down from the hills,
which were the same heights I had seen on my right hand, some
months previously, on my way from Wrexham to Rhiwabon. The scenery
now became very pretty - hedge-rows were on either side, a
luxuriance of trees and plenty of green fields. I reached the
bottom of the lane, beyond which I saw a strange-looking house upon
a slope on the right hand. It was very large, ruinous, and
seemingly deserted. A little beyond it was a farm-house, connected
with which was a long row of farming buildings along the road-side.
Seeing a woman seated knitting at the door of a little cottage, I
asked her in English the name of the old, ruinous house?
"Cadogan Hall, sir," she replied.
"And whom does it belong to?" said I.
"I don't know exactly," replied the woman, "but Mr Morris at the
farm holds it, and stows his things in it."
"Can you tell me anything about it?" said I.
"Nothing farther," said the woman, "than that it is said to be
haunted, and to have been a barrack many years ago."
"Can you speak Welsh?" said I.
"No," said the woman, "I are Welsh but have no Welsh language."
Leaving the woman I put on my best speed and in about half an hour
reached Wrexham.
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