Well does the Scripture say 'Dim prophwyd yw yn cael barch
yn ei dir ei hunan.'"
This last sentence tickled the fancy of my worthy friend, the
Calvinistic-Methodist, he laughed aloud and repeated it over and
over again to the females, with amplifications.
"Is the chair really here," said I, "or has it been destroyed? if
such a thing has been done it is a disgrace to Wales."
"The chair is really here," said the old lady, "and though Huw
Morus was no prophet, we love and reverence everything belonging to
him. Get on Llances, the chair can't be far off;" the girl moved
on, and presently the old lady exclaimed, "There's the chair,
Diolch i Duw!"
I was the last of the file, but I now rushed past John Jones, who
was before me, and next to the old lady, and sure enough there was
the chair, in the wall, of him who was called in his day, and still
is called by the mountaineers of Wales, though his body has been
below the earth in the quiet church-yard one hundred and forty
years, Eos Ceiriog, the Nightingale of Ceiriog, the sweet caroller
Huw Morus, the enthusiastic partizan of Charles and the Church of
England, and the never-tiring lampooner of Oliver and the
Independents. There it was, a kind of hollow in the stone wall, in
the hen ffordd, fronting to the west, just above the gorge at the
bottom of which murmurs the brook Ceiriog, there it was, something
like a half barrel chair in a garden, a mouldering stone slab
forming the seat, and a large slate stone, the back, on which were
cut these letters -
H. M. B.
signifying Huw Morus Bard.
"Sit down in the chair, Gwr Boneddig," said John Jones, "you have
taken trouble enough to get to it."
"Do, gentleman," said the old lady; "but first let me wipe it with
my apron, for it is very wet and dirty."
"Let it be," said I; then taking off my hat I stood uncovered
before the chair, and said in the best Welsh I could command,
"Shade of Huw Morus, supposing your shade haunts the place which
you loved so well when alive - a Saxon, one of the seed of the
Coiling Serpent, has come to this place to pay that respect to true
genius, the Dawn Duw, which he is ever ready to pay. He read the
songs of the Nightingale of Ceiriog in the most distant part of
Lloegr, when he was a brown-haired boy, and now that he is a grey-
haired man he is come to say in this place that they frequently
made his eyes overflow with tears of rapture."
I then sat down in the chair, and commenced repeating verses of Huw
Morris.
