Here ensued a pause, which was broken by the man of the hat saying
in English, to the man of the cap:
"Who can this strange fellow be? he has not a word of English, and
though he speaks Welsh his Welsh sounds very different from ours.
Who can he be?"
"I am sure I don't know," said the other.
"I know who he is," said the first, "he comes from Llydaw, or
Armorica, which was peopled from Britain estalom, and where I am
told the real old Welsh language is still spoken."
"I think I heard you mention the word Llydaw?" said I, to the man
of the hat.
"Ah," said the man of the hat, speaking Welsh, "I was right after
all; oh, I could have sworn you were Llydaweg. Well, how are the
descendants of the ancient Britons getting on in Llydaw?"
"They are getting on tolerably well," said I, "when I last saw
them, though all things do not go exactly as they could wish."
"Of course not," said he of the hat. "We too have much to complain
of here; the lands are almost entirely taken possession of by
Saxons, wherever you go you will find them settled, and a Saxon
bird of the roof must build its nest in Gwyn dy."
"You call a sparrow in your Welsh a bird of the roof, do you not?"
said I.
"We do," said he of the hat. "You speak Welsh very well
considering you were not born in Wales. It is really surprising
that the men of Llydaw should speak the iaith so pure as they do."
"The Welsh when they went over there," said I, "took effectual
means that their descendants should speak good Welsh, if all tales
be true."
"What means?" said he of the hat.
"Why," said I; "after conquering the country they put all the men
to death, and married the women, but before a child was born they
cut out all the women's tongues, so that the only language the
children heard when they were born was pure Cumraeg. What do you
think of that?"
"Why, that it was a cute trick," said he of the hat.
"A more clever trick I never heard," said the man of the cap.
"Have you any memorials in the neighbourhood of the old Welsh?"
said I.
"What do you mean?" said the man of the hat.
"Any altars of the Druids?" said I; "any stone tables?"
"None," said the man of the hat.
"What may those stones be?" said I, pointing to the stones which
had struck my attention.
"Mere common rocks," said the man.
"May I go and examine them?" said I.
"Oh yes!" said he of the hat, "and we will go with you."
We went to the stones, which were indeed common rocks, and which
when I reached them presented quite a different appearance from
that which they presented to my eye when I viewed them from afar.
