Set out for Wrexham—Craig y Forwyn—Uncertainty—The Collier—Cadogan
Hall—Methodistical Volume.
Having learnt from a newspaper that a Welsh book on Welsh Methodism had
been just published at Wrexham, I determined to walk to that place and
purchase it. I could easily have procured the work through a bookseller
at Llangollen, but I wished to explore the hill-road which led to
Wrexham, what the farmer under the Eglwysig rocks had said of its
wildness having excited my curiosity, which the procuring of the book
afforded me a plausible excuse for gratifying. If one wants to take any
particular walk, it is always well to have some business, however
trifling, to transact at the end of it; so having determined to go to
Wrexham by the mountain road, I set out on the Saturday next after the
one on which I had met the farmer who had told me of it.
The day was gloomy, with some tendency to rain. I passed under the hill
of Dinas Bran. About a furlong from its western base I turned round and
surveyed it—and perhaps the best view of the noble mountain is to be
obtained from the place where I turned round. How grand, though sad,
from there it looked, that grey morning, with its fine ruin on its brow,
above which a little cloud hovered! It put me in mind of some old king,
unfortunate and melancholy, but a king still, with the look of a king,
and the ancestral crown still on his furrowed forehead. I proceeded on
my way, all was wild and solitary, and the yellow leaves were falling
from the trees of the groves. I passed by the farmyard, where I had held
discourse with the farmer on the preceding Saturday, and soon entered the
glen, the appearance of which had so much attracted my curiosity. A
torrent, rushing down from the north, was on my right. It soon began to
drizzle, and mist so filled the glen that I could only distinguish
objects a short way before me, and on either side. I wandered on a
considerable way, crossing the torrent several times by rustic bridges.
I passed two lone farm-houses, and at last saw another on my left
hand—the mist had now cleared up, but it still slightly rained—the
scenery was wild to a degree—a little way before me was a tremendous
pass, near it an enormous crag, of a strange form, rising to the very
heavens, the upper part of it of a dull white colour. Seeing a
respectable-looking man near the house, I went up to him. “Am I in the
right way to Wrexham?” said I, addressing him in English.
“You can get to Wrexham this way, sir,” he replied.
“Can you tell me the name of that crag?” said I, pointing to the large
one.
“That crag, sir, is called Craig y Forwyn.”
“The maiden’s crag,” said I; “why is it called so?”
“I do not know, sir; some people say that it is called so because its
head is like that of a woman, others because a young girl in love leaped
from the top of it and was killed.”
“And what is the name of this house?” said I.
“This house, sir, is called Plas Uchaf.”
“Is it called Plas Uchaf,” said I, “because it is the highest house in
the valley?”
“It is, sir; it is the highest of three homesteads; the next below it is
Plas Canol—and the one below that Plas Isaf.”
“Middle place and lower place,” said I. “It is very odd that I know in
England three people who derive their names from places so situated. One
is Houghton, another Middleton, and the third Lowdon; in modern English,
Hightown, Middletown, and Lowtown.”
“You appear to be a person of great intelligence, sir.”
“No, I am not—but I am rather fond of analysing words, particularly the
names of persons and places. Is the road to Wrexham hard to find?”
“Not very, sir; that is, in the day-time. Do you live at Wrexham?”
“No,” I replied, “I am stopping at Llangollen.”
“But you won’t return there to-night?”
“O yes, I shall!”
“By this road?”
“No, by the common road. This is not a road to travel by night.”
“Nor is the common road, sir, for a respectable person on foot; that is,
on a Saturday night. You will perhaps meet drunken colliers, who may
knock you down.”
“I will take my chance for that,” said I, and bade him farewell. I
entered the pass, passing under the strange-looking crag. After I had
walked about half-a-mile the pass widened considerably, and a little way
farther on debouched on some wild, moory ground. Here the road became
very indistinct. At length I stopped in a state of uncertainty. A
well-defined path presented itself, leading to the east, whilst northward
before me there seemed scarcely any path at all. After some hesitation I
turned to the east by the well-defined path, and by so doing went wrong,
as I soon found.
I mounted the side of a brown hill covered with moss-like grass, and here
and there heather. By the time I arrived at the top of the hill the sun
shone out, and I saw Rhiwabon and Cefn Mawr before me in the distance.
“I am going wrong,” said I; “I should have kept on due north. However, I
will not go back, but will steeplechase it across the country to Wrexham,
which must be towards the north-east.” So turning aside from the path, I
dashed across the hills in that direction; sometimes the heather was up
to my knees, and sometimes I was up to the knees in quags. At length I
came to a deep ravine, which I descended; at the bottom was a quagmire,
which, however, I contrived to cross by means of certain stepping-stones,
and came to a cart-path up a heathery hill, which I followed. I soon
reached the top of the hill, and the path still continuing, I followed it
till I saw some small grimy-looking huts, which I supposed were those of
colliers. At the door of the first I saw a girl. I spoke to her in
Welsh, and found she had little or none. I passed on, and seeing the
door of a cabin open, I looked in—and saw no adult person, but several
grimy but chubby children. I spoke to them in English, and found they
could only speak Welsh. Presently I observed a robust woman advancing
towards me; she was barefooted, and bore on her head an immense lump of
coal. I spoke to her in Welsh, and found she could only speak English.
“Truly,” said I to myself, “I am on the borders. What a mixture of races
and languages!” The next person I met was a man in a collier’s dress; he
was a stout-built fellow of the middle age, with a coal-dusty, surly
countenance. I asked him in Welsh if I was in the right direction for
Wrexham, he answered in a surly manner in English that I was. I again
spoke to him in Welsh, making some indifferent observation on the
weather, and he answered in English yet more gruffly than before. For
the third time I spoke to him in Welsh, whereupon, looking at me with a
grin of savage contempt, and showing a set of teeth like those of a
mastiff, he said, “How’s this? why, you haven’t a word of English! A
pretty fellow, you, with a long coat on your back, and no English on your
tongue; an’t you ashamed of yourself? Why, here am I in a short coat,
yet I’d have you to know that I can speak English as well as Welsh, aye,
and a good deal better.” “All people are not equally clebber,” said I,
still speaking Welsh. “Clebber,” said he, “clebber! what is clebber? why
can’t you say clever? Why, I never saw such a low, illiterate fellow in
my life;” and with these words he turned away, with every mark of
disdain, and entered a cottage near at hand.
“Here I have had,” said I to myself, as I proceeded on my way, “to pay
for the over-praise which I lately received. The farmer on the other
side of the mountain called me a person of great intelligence, which I
never pretended to be, and now this collier calls me a low, illiterate
fellow, which I really don’t think I am. There is certainly a Nemesis
mixed up with the affairs of this world; every good thing which you get,
beyond what is strictly your due, is sure to be required from you with a
vengeance. A little over-praise by a great deal of under-rating—a gleam
of good fortune by a night of misery.”
I now saw Wrexham Church at about the distance of three miles, and
presently entered a lane which led gently down from the hills, which were
the same heights I had seen on my right hand, some months previously, on
my way from Wrexham to Rhiwabon. The scenery now became very
pretty—hedge-rows were on either side, a luxuriance of trees, and plenty
of green fields. I reached the bottom of the lane, beyond which I saw a
strange-looking house upon a slope on the right hand. It was very large,
ruinous, and seemingly deserted. A little beyond it was a farm-house,
connected with which was a long row of farming buildings along the
roadside. Seeing a woman seated knitting at the door of a little
cottage, I asked her in English the name of the old ruinous house.
“Cadogan Hall, sir,” she replied.
“And whom does it belong to?” said I.
“I don’t know exactly,” replied the woman, “but Mr. Morris at the farm
holds it, and stows his things in it.”
“Can you tell me anything about it?” said I.
“Nothing farther,” said the woman, “than that it is said to be haunted,
and to have been a barrack many years ago.”
“Can you speak Welsh?” said I.
“No,” said the woman; “I are Welsh, but have no Welsh language.”
Leaving the woman, I put on my best speed, and in about half-an-hour
reached Wrexham.
The first thing I did on my arrival was to go to the bookshop and
purchase the Welsh methodistic book. It cost me seven shillings, and was
a thick, bulky octavo, with a cut-and-come-again expression about it,
which was anything but disagreeable to me, for I hate your flimsy
publications. The evening was now beginning to set in, and feeling
somewhat hungry, I hurried off to the Wynstay Arms, through streets
crowded with market people. On arriving at the inn, I entered the grand
room and ordered dinner. The waiters, observing me splashed with mud
from head to foot, looked at me dubiously; seeing, however, the
respectable-looking volume which I bore in my hand—none of your railroad
stuff—they became more assured, and I presently heard one say to the
other, “It’s all right—that’s Mr. So-and-so, the great Baptist preacher.
He has been preaching amongst the hills—don’t you see his Bible?”
Seating myself at a table, I inspected the volume. And here, perhaps,
the reader expects that I shall regale him with an analysis of the
methodistical volume at least as long as that of the life of Tom O’ the
Dingle. In that case, however, he will be disappointed; all that I shall
at present say of it is, that it contained a history of Methodism in
Wales, with the lives of the principal Welsh Methodists. That it was
fraught with curious and original matter, was written in a
straightforward, methodical style, and that I have no doubt it will some
day or other be extensively known and highly prized.
After dinner I called for half a pint of wine. Whilst I was trifling
over it, a commercial traveller entered into conversation with me. After
some time he asked me if I was going further that night.
“To Llangollen,” said I.
“By the ten o’clock train?” said he.
“No,” I replied, “I am going on foot.”
“On foot!” said he; “I would not go on foot there this night for fifty
pounds.”
“Why not?” said I.
“For fear of being knocked down by the colliers, who will be all out and
drunk.”
“If not more than two attack me,” said I, “I shan’t much mind. With this
book I am sure I can knock down one, and I think I can find play for the
other with my fists.”
The commercial traveller looked at me. “A strange kind of Baptist
minister,” I thought I heard him say.