'Who
has got notice to quit, now, I wonder?' Well, brother, he didn't
say anything, nor did any of them, but after a little time they all
took themselves off, with a cart they had, to the south. Just as
they got to the edge of the green, however, they turned round and
gave a yell which made all our blood run cold. I knew what it
meant, and said, 'This is no place for us.' So we got everything
together and came away and, though the horses were tired, never
stopped till we had got ten miles from the place; and well it was
we acted as we did, for, had we stayed, I have no doubt that a
whole Hindity clan would have been down upon us before morning and
cut our throats."
"Well," said I, "farewell. I can't stay any longer. As it is, I
shall be late at Gutter Vawr."
"Farewell, brother!" said Captain Bosvile; and, giving a cry, he
cracked, his whip and set his horses in motion.
"Won't you give us sixpence to drink?" cried Mrs Bosvile, with a
rather shrill voice.
"Hold your tongue, you she-dog," said Captain Bosvile. "Is that
the way in which you take leave of an old friend? Hold your
tongue, and let the Ingrine gentleman jaw on his way."
I proceeded on my way as fast as I could, for the day was now
closing in. My progress, however, was not very great; for the road
was steep, and was continually becoming more so. In about half-an-
hour I came to a little village, consisting of three or four
houses; one of them, at the door of which several carts were
standing, bore the sign of a tavern.
"What is the name of this place?" said I to a man who was breaking
stones on the road.
"Capel Gwynfa," said he.
Rather surprised at the name, which signifies in English the Chapel
of the place of bliss, I asked the man why it was called so.
"I don't know," said the man.
"Was there ever a chapel here?" said I.
"I don't know, sir; there is none now."
"I daresay there was in the old time," said I to myself, as I went
on, "in which some holy hermit prayed and told his beads, and
occasionally received benighted strangers. What a poetical word
that Gwynfa, place of bliss, is. Owen Pugh uses it in his
translation of 'Paradise Lost' to express Paradise, for he has
rendered the words Paradise Lost by Col Gwynfa - the loss of the
place of bliss. I wonder whether the old scholar picked up the
word here.
