Kitabı oku: «Wild Wales: The People, Language, & Scenery», sayfa 49
“And what did you reply?”
“Why I said to him, yere hanner, that I would tell the congregation, at which he laughed and said that he wished I would, for that the congregation would say they didn’t believe me, though at heart they would, and would like him all the better for it.”
“Well, and what did you say then?”
“Nothing at all, yere hanner; but I spat in his face and went home and told my uncle Tourlough, who forthwith took out a knife and began to sharp it on a whetstone, and I make no doubt would have gone and stuck the fellow like a pig, had not my poor aunt begged him not on her knees. After that we had nothing more to do with the Methodists as far as religion went.”
“Did this affair occur in England or Wales?”
“In the heart of England, yere hanner; we have never been to the Welsh chapels, for we know little of the language.”
“Well, I am glad it didn’t happen in Wales; I have rather a high opinion of the Welsh Methodists. The worthiest creature I ever knew was a Welsh Methodist. And now I must leave you and make the best of my way to Chepstow.”
“Can’t yere hanner give me God before ye go?”
“I can give you half-a-crown to help you on your way to America.”
“I want no half-crowns, yere hanner; but if ye would give me God I’d bless ye.”
“What do you mean by giving you God?”
“Putting Him in my heart by some good counsel which will guide me through life.”
“The only good counsel I can give you is to keep the commandments; one of them it seems you have always kept. Follow the rest and you can’t go very wrong.”
“I wish I knew them better than I do, yere hanner.”
“Can’t you read?”
“O no, yere hanner, I can’t read, neither can Tourlough nor his wife.”
“Well, learn to read as soon as possible. When you have got to America and settled down you will have time enough to learn to read.”
“Shall we be better, yere hanner, after we have learnt to read?”
“Let’s hope you will.”
“One of the things, yere hanner, that have made us stumble is that some of the holy women, who have come to our tent and read the Bible to us, have afterwards asked my aunt and me to tell them their fortunes.”
“If they have the more shame for them, for they can have no excuse. Well, whether you learn to read or not still eschew striopachas, don’t steal, don’t deceive, and worship God in spirit, not in image. That’s the best counsel I can give you.”
“And very good counsel it is, yere hanner, and I will try to follow it, and now, yere hanner, let us go our two ways.”
We placed our glasses upon the bar and went out. In the middle of the road we shook hands and parted, she going towards Newport and I towards Chepstow. After walking a few yards I turned round and looked after her. There she was in the damp lowering afternoon wending her way slowly through mud and puddle, her upper form huddled in the rough frieze mantle, and her coarse legs bare to the top of the calves. “Surely,” said I to myself, “there never was an object less promising in appearance. Who would think that there could be all the good sense and proper feeling in that uncouth girl which there really is?”
CHAPTER CIX
Arrival at Chepstow – Stirring Lyric – Conclusion.
I passed through Caer Went, once an important Roman station, and for a long time after the departure of the Romans a celebrated British city, now a poor desolate place consisting of a few old-fashioned houses and a strange-looking dilapidated church. No Welsh is spoken at Caer Went, nor to the east of it, nor indeed for two or three miles before you reach it from the west.
The country between it and Chepstow, from which it is distant about four miles, is delightfully green, but somewhat tame.
Chepstow stands on the lower part of a hill, near to where the beautiful Wye joins the noble Severn. The British name of the place is Aber Wye or the disemboguement of the Wye. The Saxons gave it the name of Chepstow, which in their language signifies a place where a market is held, because even in the time of the Britons it was the site of a great cheap or market. After the Norman Conquest it became the property of De Clare, one of William’s followers, who built near it an enormous castle, which enjoyed considerable celebrity during several centuries from having been the birthplace of Strongbow, the conqueror of Ireland, but which is at present chiefly illustrious from the mention which is made of it in one of the most stirring lyrics of modern times, a piece by Walter Scott, called the “Norman Horseshoe,” commemorative of an expedition made by a De Clare of Chepstow with the view of insulting with the print of his courser’s shoe the green meads of Glamorgan, and which commences thus: —
“Red glows the forge” —
I went to the principal inn, where I engaged a private room and ordered the best dinner which the people could provide. Then leaving my satchel behind me I went to the castle, amongst the ruins of which I groped and wandered for nearly an hour, occasionally repeating verses of the “Norman Horseshoe.” I then went to the Wye and drank of the waters at its mouth, even as sometime before I had drunk of the waters at its source. Then returning to my inn I got my dinner, after which I called for a bottle of port, and placing my feet against the sides of the grate I passed my time drinking wine and singing Welsh songs till ten o’clock at night, when I paid my reckoning, amounting to something considerable. Then shouldering my satchel I proceeded to the railroad station, where I purchased a first-class ticket, and ensconcing myself in a comfortable carriage was soon on the way to London, where I arrived at about four o’clock in the morning, having had during the whole of my journey a most uproarious set of neighbours a few carriages behind me, namely some hundred and fifty of Napier’s tars returning from their expedition to the Baltic.
