No, no! ale like that, your honour,
was never brewed in that trumpery hole Llangollen."
"You seem to have a very low opinion of Llangollen?" said I.
"How can I have anything but a low opinion of it, your honour? A
trumpery hole it is, and ever will remain so."
"Many people of the first quality go to visit it," said I.
"That is because it lies so handy for England, your honour. If it
did not, nobody would go to see it. What is there to see in
Llangollen?"
"There is not much to see in the town, I admit," said I, "but the
scenery about it is beautiful: what mountains!"
"Mountains, your honour, mountains! well, we have mountains too,
and as beautiful as those of Llangollen. Then we have our lake,
our Llyn Tegid, the lake of beauty. Show me anything like that
near Llangollen?"
"Then," said I, "there is your mound, your Tomen Bala. The
Llangollen people can show nothing like that."
Tom Jenkins looked at me for a moment with some surprise, and then
said: "I see you have been here before, sir."
"No," said I, "never, but I have read about the Tomen Bala in
books, both Welsh and English."
"You have, sir," said Tom. "Well, I am rejoiced to see so book-
learned a gentleman in our house. The Tomen Bala has puzzled many
a head. What do the books which mention it say about it, your
honour?"
"Very little," said I, "beyond mentioning it; what do the people
here say of it?"
"All kinds of strange things, your honour."
"Do they say who built it?"
"Some say the Tylwyth Teg built it, others that it was cast up over
a dead king by his people. The truth is, nobody here knows who
built it, or anything about it, save that it is a wonder. Ah,
those people of Llangollen can show nothing like it."
"Come," said I, "you must not be so hard upon the people of
Llangollen. They appear to me upon the whole to be an eminently
respectable body."
The Celtic waiter gave a genuine French shrug. "Excuse me, your
honour, for being of a different opinion. They are all drunkards."
"I have occasionally seen drunken people at Llangollen," said I,
"but I have likewise seen a great many sober."
"That is, your honour, you have seen them in their sober moments;
but if you had watched, your honour, if you had kept your eye on
them, you would have seen them reeling too."
"That I can hardly believe," said I.
"Your honour can't! but I can who know them. They are all
drunkards, and nobody can live among them without being a drunkard.
There was my nephew - "
"What of him?" said I.
"Why he went to Llangollen, your honour, and died of a drunken
fever in less than a month."
"Well, but might he not have died of the same, if he had remained
at home?"
"No, your honour, no!
