Having
walked now twenty miles in a broiling day I thought it high time to
take some refreshment, and inquired the way to the inn. The inn,
or rather the hotel, for it was a very magnificent edifice, stood
at the entrance of a pass leading to Snowdon, on the southern side
of the valley, in a totally different direction from the road
leading to Bangor, to which place I was bound. There I dined in a
grand saloon amidst a great deal of fashionable company, who,
probably conceiving from my heated and dusty appearance that I was
some poor fellow travelling on foot from motives of economy,
surveyed me with looks of the most supercilious disdain, which,
however, neither deprived me of my appetite nor operated
uncomfortably on my feelings.
My dinner finished, I paid my bill, and having sauntered a little
about the hotel garden, which is situated on the border of a small
lake and from which, through the vista of the pass, Snowdon may be
seen towering in majesty at the distance of about six miles, I
started for Bangor, which is fourteen miles from Capel Curig.
The road to Bangor from Capel Curig is almost due west. An hour's
walking brought me to a bleak moor, extending for a long way amidst
wild sterile hills.
The first of a chain on the left, was a huge lumpy hill with a
precipice towards the road probably three hundred feet high. When
I had come nearly parallel with the commencement of this precipice,
I saw on the left-hand side of the road two children looking over a
low wall behind which at a little distance stood a wretched hovel.
On coming up I stopped and looked at them; they were a boy and
girl; the first about twelve, the latter a year or two younger;
both wretchedly dressed and looking very sickly.
"Have you any English?" said I, addressing the boy in Welsh.
"Dim gair," said the boy; "not a word; there is no Saesneg near
here."
"What is the name of this place?"
"The name of our house is Helyg."
"And what is the name of that hill?" said I, pointing to the hill
of the precipice.
"Allt y Gog - the high place of the cuckoo."
"Have you a father and mother?"
"We have."
"Are they in the house?"
"They are gone to Capel Curig."
"And they left you alone?"
"They did. With the cat and the trin-wire."
"Do your father and mother make wire-work?"
"They do. They live by making it."
"What is the wire-work for?"
"It is for hedges to fence the fields with."
"Do you help your father and mother?"
"We do; as far as we can."
"You both look unwell."
"We have lately had the cryd" (ague).
"Is there much cryd about here?"
"Plenty."
"Do you live well?"
"When we have bread we live well."
"If I give you a penny will you bring me some water?"
"We will, whether you give us a penny or not. Come, sister, let us
go and fetch the gentleman water."
They ran into the house and presently returned, the girl bearing a
pan of water. After I had drunk I gave each of the children a
penny, and received in return from each a diolch or thanks.
"Can either of you read?"
"Neither one nor the other."
"Can your father and mother read?"
"My father cannot, my mother can a little."
"Are there books in the house?"
"There are not."
"No Bible?"
"There is no book at all."
"Do you go to church?"
"We do not."
"To chapel?"
"In fine weather."
"Are you happy?"
"When there is bread in the house and no cryd we are all happy."
"Farewell to you, children."
"Farewell to you, gentleman!" exclaimed both.
"I have learnt something," said I, "of Welsh cottage life and
feeling from that poor sickly child."
I had passed the first and second of the hills which stood on the
left, and a huge long mountain on the right which confronted both,
when a young man came down from a gully on my left hand, and
proceeded in the same direction as myself. He was dressed in a
blue coat and corduroy trowsers, and appeared to be of a condition
a little above that of a labourer. He shook his head and scowled
when I spoke to him in English, but smiled on my speaking Welsh,
and said: "Ah, you speak Cumraeg: I thought no Sais could speak
Cumraeg." I asked him if he was going far.
"About four miles," he replied.
"On the Bangor road?"
"Yes," said he; "down the Bangor road."
I learned that he was a carpenter, and that he had been up the
gully to see an acquaintance - perhaps a sweetheart. We passed a
lake on our right which he told me was called Llyn Ogwen, and that
it abounded with fish. He was very amusing, and expressed great
delight at having found an Englishman who could speak Welsh; "it
will be a thing to talk of," said he, "for the rest of my life."
He entered two or three cottages by the side of the road, and each
time he came out I heard him say: "I am with a Sais who can speak
Cumraeg." At length we came to a gloomy-looking valley trending
due north; down this valley the road ran, having an enormous wall
of rocks on its right and a precipitous hollow on the left, beyond
which was a wall equally high as the other one.
