He was dressed in
a pepper-and-salt coat of the Newmarket cut, breeches of corduroy
and brown top boots, and had on his head a broad, black, coarse,
low-crowned hat. In his left hand he held a heavy whale-bone whip
with a brass head. I sat down on a bench nearly opposite to him
and the landlord.
"Well," said Mr Pritchard; "did you find your way to Llanfair?"
"Yes," said I.
"And did you execute the business satisfactorily which led you
there?" said Mr Pritchard.
"Perfectly," said I.
"Well, what did you give a stone for your live pork?" said his
companion glancing up at me, and speaking in a gruff voice.
"I did not buy any live pork," said I; "do you take me for a pig-
jobber?"
"Of course," said the man, in pepper-and-salt; "who but a pig
jobber could have business at Llanfair?"
"Does Llanfair produce nothing but pigs?" said I.
"Nothing at all," said the man in the pepper-and-salt, "that is,
nothing worth mentioning. You wouldn't go there for runts, that
is, if you were in your right senses; if you were in want of runts
you would have gone to my parish and have applied to me, Mr Bos;
that is if you were in your senses. Wouldn't he, John Pritchard?"
Mr Pritchard thus appealed to took the pipe out of his mouth, and
with some hesitations said that he believed the gentleman neither
went to Llanfair for pigs nor black cattle but upon some particular
business.
"Well," said Mr Bos, "it may be so, but I can't conceive how any
person, either gentle or simple, could have any business in
Anglesey save that business was pigs or cattle."
"The truth is," said I, "I went to Llanfair to see the birth-place
of a great man - the cleverest Anglesey ever produced."
"Then you went wrong," said Mr Bos, "you went to the wrong parish,
you should have gone to Penmynnydd; the clebber man of Anglesey was
born and buried at Penmynnydd, you may see his tomb in the church."
"You are alluding to Black Robin," said I, "who wrote the ode in
praise of Anglesey - yes, he was a very clever young fellow, but
excuse me, he was not half such a poet as Gronwy Owen."
"Black Robin," said Mr Bos, "and Gronow Owen, who the Devil were
they? I never heard of either. I wasn't talking of them, but of
the clebberest man the world ever saw. Did you never hear of Owen
Tiddir? If you didn't, where did you get your education?"
"I have heard of Owen Tudor," said I, "but never understood that he
was particularly clever; handsome he undoubtedly was - but clever -
"
"How not clebber?" interrupted Mr Bos.
