He was very sensitive of injury, though quite as alive to kindness;
a thorough-going enemy and a thorough-going friend. In the earlier
part of his life he had been driven from his own country for
killing a man, called Big Richard of Slwch, in the High Street of
Aber Honddu or Brecon, and had found refuge in England and kind
treatment in the house of John of Gaunt, for whose son Henry,
generally called Bolingbroke, he formed one of his violent
friendships. Bolingbroke, on becoming King Henry the Fourth, not
only restored the crooked little Welshman to his possessions, but
gave him employments of great trust and profit in Herefordshire.
The insurrection of Glendower against Henry was quite sufficient to
kindle against him the deadly hatred of Dafydd, who swore "by the
nails of God" that he would stab his countryman for daring to rebel
against his friend King Henry, the son of the man who had received
him in his house and comforted him when his own countrymen were
threatening his destruction. He therefore went to Machynlleth with
the full intention of stabbing Glendower, perfectly indifferent as
to what might subsequently be his own fate. Glendower, however,
who had heard of his threat, caused him to be seized and conducted
in chains to a prison which he had in the mountains of Sycharth.
Shortly afterwards, passing through Breconshire with his host, he
burnt Dafydd's house - a fair edifice called the Cyrnigwen,
situated on a hillock near the river Honddu - to the ground, and
seeing one of Gam's dependents gazing mournfully on the smouldering
ruins he uttered the following taunting englyn:-
"Shouldst thou a little red man descry
Asking about his dwelling fair,
Tell him it under the bank doth lie,
And its brow the mark of the coal doth bear."
Dafydd remained confined till the fall of Glendower, shortly after
which event he followed Henry the Fifth to France, where he
achieved that glory which will for ever bloom, dying, covered with
wounds, on the field of Agincourt after saving the life of the
king, to whom in the dreadest and most critical moment of the fight
he stuck closer than a brother, not from any abstract feeling of
loyalty, but from the consideration that King Henry the Fifth was
the son of King Henry the Fourth, who was the son of the man who
received and comforted him in his house, after his own countrymen
had hunted him from house and land.
Connected with Machynlleth is a name not so widely celebrated as
those of Glendower and Dafydd Gam, but well known to and cherished
by the lovers of Welsh song. It is that of Lawdden, a Welsh bard
in holy orders, who officiated as priest at Machynlleth from 1440
to 1460. But though Machynlleth was his place of residence for
many years, it was not the place of his birth, Lychwr in
Carmarthenshire being the spot where he first saw the light. He
was an excellent poet, and displayed in his compositions such
elegance of language, and such a knowledge of prosody, that it was
customary, long after his death, when any masterpiece of vocal song
or eloquence was produced, to say that it bore the traces of
Lawdden's hatchet. At the request of Griffith ap Nicholas, a
powerful chieftain of South Wales, and a great patron of the Muse,
he drew up a statute relating to poets and poetry, and at the great
Eisteddfodd, or poetical congress, held at Carmarthen in the year
1450, under the auspices of Griffith, which was attended by the
most celebrated bards of the north and south, he officiated as
judge, in conjunction with the chieftain, upon the compositions of
the bards who competed for the prize - a little silver chair. Not
without reason, therefore, do the inhabitants of Machynlleth
consider the residence of such a man within their walls, though at
a far by-gone period, as conferring a lustre on their town, and
Lewis Meredith has probability on his side when, in his pretty poem
on Glen Dyfi, he says:-
"Whilst fair Machynlleth decks thy quiet plain,
Conjoined with it shall Lawdden's name remain."
CHAPTER LXXX
The Old Ostler - Directions - Church of England Man - The Deep
Dingle - The Two Women - The Cutty Pipe - Waen y Bwlch - The Deaf
and Dumb - The Glazed Hat.
I ROSE on the morning of the 2nd of November intending to proceed
to the Devil's Bridge, where I proposed halting a day or two, in
order that I might have an opportunity of surveying the far-famed
scenery of that locality. After paying my bill I went into the
yard to my friend the old ostler, to make inquiries with respect to
the road.
"What kind of road," said I, "is it to the Devil's Bridge?"
"There are two roads, sir, to the Pont y Gwr Drwg; which do you
mean to take?"
"Why do you call the Devil's Bridge the Pont y Gwr Drwg, or the
bridge of the evil man?"
"That we may not bring a certain gentleman upon us, sir, who
doesn't like to have his name taken in vain."
"Is their much difference between the roads?"
"A great deal, sir; one is over the hills, and the other round by
the valleys."
"Which is the shortest?"
"Oh, that over the hills, sir; it is about twenty miles from here
to the Pont y Gwr Drwg over the hills, but more than twice that by
the valleys."
"Well, I suppose you would advise me to go by the hills?"
"Certainly, sir - that is, if you wish to break your neck, or to
sink in a bog, or to lose your way, or perhaps, if night comes on,
to meet the Gwr Drwg himself taking a stroll. But to talk soberly.
The way over the hills is an awful road, and, indeed, for the
greater part is no road at all."
"Well, I shall go by it.
