"No, by the common road. This is not a road to travel by night."
"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.
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