Spanish Proverb—The Short Cut—Predestination—Rhys Goch—Old
Crusty—Undercharging—The Cavalier.
The Spaniards have a proverb: “No hay atajo sin trabajo,” there is no
short cut without a deal of labour. This proverb is very true, as I know
by my own experience, for I never took a short cut in my life, and I have
taken many in my wanderings, without falling down, getting into a slough,
or losing my way. On the present occasion I lost my way, and wandered
about for nearly two hours amidst rocks, thickets, and precipices,
without being able to find it. The temperance woman, however, spoke
nothing but the truth, when she said I should see some fine scenery.
From a rock I obtained a wonderful view of the Wyddfa towering in sublime
grandeur in the west, and of the beautiful, but spectral, Knicht shooting
up high in the north; and from the top of a bare hill I obtained a
prospect to the south, noble indeed—waters, forests, hoary mountains, and
in the far distance the sea. But all these fine prospects were a poor
compensation for what I underwent: I was scorched by the sun, which was
insufferably hot, and my feet were bleeding from the sharp points of the
rocks, which cut through my boots like razors. At length, coming to a
stone wall, I flung myself down under it, and almost thought that I
should give up the ghost. After some time, however, I recovered, and,
getting up, tried to find my way out of the anialwch. Sheer good fortune
caused me to stumble upon a path, by following which I came to a lone
farm-house, where a good-natured woman gave me certain directions, by
means of which I at last got out of the hot, stony wilderness—for such it
was—upon a smooth, royal road.
“Trust me again taking any short cuts,” said I, “after the specimen I
have just had.” This, however, I had frequently said before, and have
said since after taking short cuts—and probably shall often say again
before I come to my great journey’s end.
I turned to the east, which I knew to be my proper direction, and being
now on smooth ground, put my legs to their best speed. The road by a
rapid descent conducted me to a beautiful valley, with a small town at
its southern end. I soon reached the town, and on inquiring its name,
found I was in Tan y Bwlch, which interpreted signifieth “Below the
Pass.” Feeling much exhausted, I entered the Grapes Inn.
On my calling for brandy-and-water, I was shown into a handsome parlour.
The brandy-and-water soon restored the vigour which I had lost in the
wilderness. In the parlour was a serious-looking gentleman, with a glass
of something before him. With him, as I sipped my brandy-and-water, I
got into discourse. The discourse soon took a religious turn, and
terminated in a dispute. He told me he believed in Divine
predestination; I told him I did not, but that I believed in divine
prescience. He asked me whether I hoped to be saved; I told him I did,
and asked him whether he hoped to be saved. He told me he did not, and
as he said so, he tapped with a silver tea-spoon on the rim of his glass.
I said that he seemed to take very coolly the prospect of damnation; he
replied that it was of no use taking what was inevitable otherwise than
coolly. I asked him on what ground he imagined he should be lost; he
replied on the ground of being predestined to be lost. I asked him how
he knew he was predestined to be lost; whereupon he asked me how I knew I
was to be saved; I told him I did not know I was to be saved, but trusted
I should be so by belief in Christ, who came into the world to save
sinners, and that if he believed in Christ he might be as easily saved as
myself, or any other sinner who believed in Him. Our dispute continued a
considerable time longer; at last, finding him silent, and having
finished my brandy-and-water, I got up, rang the bell, paid for what I
had had, and left him looking very miserable, perhaps at finding that he
was not quite so certain of eternal damnation as he had hitherto
supposed. There can be no doubt that the idea of damnation is anything
but disagreeable to some people; it gives them a kind of gloomy
consequence in their own eyes. We must be something particular, they
think, or God would hardly think it worth His while to torment us for
ever.
I inquired the way to Festiniog, and finding that I had passed by it on
my way to the town, I went back, and, as directed, turned to the east up
a wide pass, down which flowed a river. I soon found myself in another
and very noble valley intersected by the river, which was fed by numerous
streams rolling down the sides of the hills. The road which I followed
in the direction of the east, lay on the southern side of the valley, and
led upward by a steep ascent. On I went, a mighty hill close on my
right. My mind was full of enthusiastic fancies; I was approaching
Festiniog, the birthplace of Rhys Goch, who styled himself Rhys Goch of
Eryri, or Red Rhys of Snowdon, a celebrated bard, and a partisan of Owen
Glendower, who lived to an immense age, and who, as I had read, was in
the habit of composing his pieces seated on a stone which formed part of
a Druidical circle, for which reason the stone was called the chair of
Rhys Goch; yes, my mind was full of enthusiastic fancies, all connected
with this Rhys Goch, and as I went along slowly I repeated stanzas of
furious war songs of his, exciting his countrymen to exterminate the
English, and likewise snatches of an abusive ode composed by him against
a fox who had run away with his favourite peacock, a piece so abounding
with hard words, that it was termed the Drunkard’s chokepear, as no
drunkard was ever able to recite it, and ever and anon I wished I could
come in contact with some native of the region, with whom I could talk
about Rhys Goch, and who could tell me whereabouts stood his chair.
Strolling along in this manner, I was overtaken by an old fellow with a
stick in his hand, walking very briskly. He had a crusty, and rather
conceited look. I spoke to him in Welsh, and he answered in English,
saying, that I need not trouble myself by speaking Welsh, as he had
plenty of English, and of the very best. We were from first to last at
cross purposes. I asked him about Rhys Goch and his chair. He told me
that he knew nothing of either, and began to talk of Her Majesty’s
ministers, and the fine sights of London. I asked him the name of a
stream which, descending a gorge on our right, ran down the side of a
valley, to join the river at its bottom. He told me that he did not
know, and asked me the name of the Queen’s eldest daughter. I told him I
did not know, and remarked that it was very odd that he could not tell me
the name of a stream in his own vale. He replied that it was not a bit
more odd than that I could not tell him the name of the eldest daughter
of the Queen of England; I told him that when I was in Wales I wanted to
talk about Welsh matters, and he told me that when he was with English he
wanted to talk about English matters. I returned to the subject of Rhys
Goch and his chair, and he returned to the subject of Her Majesty’s
ministers, and the fine folks of London. I told him that I cared not a
straw about Her Majesty’s ministers and the fine folks of London, and he
replied that he cared not a straw for Rhys Goch, his chair, or old
women’s stories of any kind.
Regularly incensed against the old fellow, I told him he was a bad
Welshman, and he retorted by saying I was a bad Englishman. I said he
appeared to know next to nothing. He retorted by saying I knew less than
nothing, and, almost inarticulate with passion, added that he scorned to
walk in such illiterate company, and suiting the action to the word,
sprang up a steep and rocky footpath on the right, probably a short cut
to his domicile, and was out of sight in a twinkling. We were both
wrong; I most so. He was crusty and conceited, but I ought to have
humoured him, and then I might have got out of him anything he knew,
always supposing that he knew anything.
About an hour’s walk from Tan y Bwlch brought me to Festiniog, which is
situated on the top of a lofty hill looking down from the south-east, on
the valley which I have described, and which, as I know not its name, I
shall style the Valley of the numerous streams. I went to the inn, a
large old-fashioned house, standing near the church; the mistress of it
was a queer-looking old woman, antiquated in her dress, and rather blunt
in her manner. Of her, after ordering dinner, I made inquiries
respecting the chair of Rhys Goch, but she said that she had never heard
of such a thing; and after glancing at me askew for a moment, with a
curiously formed left eye which she had, went away muttering chair,
chair, leaving me in a large and rather dreary parlour, to which she had
shown me. I felt very fatigued, rather I believe from that unlucky short
cut than from the length of the way, for I had not come more than
eighteen miles. Drawing a chair towards a table, I sat down, and placing
my elbows upon the board, I leaned my face upon my upturned hands, and
presently fell into a sweet sleep, from which I awoke exceedingly
refreshed, just as a maid opened the room door to lay the cloth.
After dinner I got up, went out, and strolled about the place. It was
small, and presented nothing very remarkable. Tired of strolling, I went
and leaned my back against the wall of the churchyard, and enjoyed the
cool of the evening, for evening, with its coolness and shadows, had now
come on.
As I leaned against the wall, an elderly man came up and entered into
discourse with me. He told me he was a barber by profession, had
travelled all over Wales, and had seen London. I asked him about the
chair of Rhys Goch. He told me that he had heard of some such chair a
long time ago, but could give me no information as to where it stood. I
know not how it happened that he came to speak about my landlady, but
speak about her he did. He said that she was a good kind of woman, but
totally unqualified for business, as she knew not how to charge. On my
observing that that was a piece of ignorance with which few landladies,
or landlords either, were taxable, he said that, however other publicans
might overcharge, undercharging was her foible, and that she had brought
herself very low in the world by it—that to his certain knowledge she
might have been worth thousands instead of the trifle which she was
possessed of, and that she was particularly notorious for undercharging
the English, a thing never before dreamt of in Wales. I told him that I
was very glad that I had come under the roof of such a landlady; the old
barber, however, said that she was setting a bad example, that such
goings on could not last long, that he knew how things would end, and
finally working himself up into a regular tiff, left me abruptly without
wishing me good night.
I returned to the inn, and called for lights; the lights were placed upon
the table in the old-fashioned parlour, and I was left to myself. I
walked up and down the room some time, at length, seeing some old books
lying in a corner, I laid hold of them, carried them to the table, sat
down, and began to inspect them; they were the three volumes of Scott’s
“Cavalier”—I had seen this work when a youth, and thought it a tiresome,
trashy publication. Looking over it now, when I was grown old, I thought
so still, but I now detected in it what from want of knowledge I had not
detected in my early years, what the highest genius, had it been
manifested in every page, could not have compensated for—base, fulsome
adulation of the worthless great, and most unprincipled libelling of the
truly noble ones of the earth, because they, the sons of peasants and
handycraftsmen, stood up for the rights of outraged humanity, and
proclaimed that it is worth makes the man, and not embroidered clothing.
The heartless, unprincipled son of the tyrant was transformed, in that
worthless book, into a slightly dissipated, it is true, but upon the
whole brave, generous, and amiable being; and Harrison, the English
Regulus, honest, brave, unflinching Harrison, into a pseudo-fanatic, a
mixture of the rogue and fool, Harrison probably the man of the most
noble and courageous heart that England ever produced; who, when all was
lost, scorned to flee, like the second Charles from Worcester, but braved
infamous judges and the gallows; who, when reproached on his mock trial
with complicity in the death of the king, gave the noble answer that “It
was a thing not done in a corner,” and when in the cart on the way to
Tyburn, on being asked jeeringly by a lord’s bastard in the crowd, “Where
is the good old cause now?” thrice struck his strong fist on the breast
which contained his courageous heart, exclaiming, “Here, here, here!”
Yet for that “Cavalier,” that trumpery publication, the booksellers of
England, on its first appearance, gave an order to the amount of six
thousand pounds. But they were wise in their generation; they knew that
the book would please the base, slavish taste of the age, a taste which
the author of the work had had no slight share in forming.
Tired after a while with turning over the pages of the trashy “Cavalier,”
I returned the volumes to their place in the corner, blew out one candle,
and taking the other in my hand marched off to bed.