Pen y Glas—Salt of the Earth—The Quakers’ Yard—The Rhugylgroen.
As I proceeded on my way the scenery to the south on the farther side of
the river became surprisingly beautiful. On that side noble mountains
met the view, green fields and majestic woods, the latter brown it is
true, for their leaves were gone, but not the less majestic for being
brown. Here and there were white farm-houses: one of them, which I was
told was called Pen y Glas, was a truly lovely little place. It stood on
the side of a green hill with a noble forest above it, and put me
wonderfully in mind of the hunting lodge, which Ifor Hael allotted as a
retreat to Ab Gwilym and Morfydd, when they fled to him from Cardigan to
avoid the rage of the Bow Bach, and whose charming appearance made him
say to his love:
“More bliss for us our fate propounds
On Taf’s green banks than Teivy’s bounds.”
On I wandered. After some time the valley assumed the form of an immense
basin, enormous mountains composed its sides. In the middle rose hills
of some altitude, but completely overcrowned by the mountains around.
These hills exhibited pleasant inclosures, and were beautifully dotted
with white farm-houses. Down below meandered the Taf, its reaches
shining with a silver-like splendour. The whole together formed an
exquisite picture, in which there was much sublimity, much still, quiet
life, and not a little of fantastic fairy loveliness.
The sun was hastening towards the west as I passed a little cascade on
the left, the waters of which, after running under the road, tumbled down
a gulley into the river. Shortly afterwards meeting a man I asked him
how far it was to Caerfili.
“When you come to the Quakers’ Yard, which is a little way further on,
you will be seven miles from Caerfili.”
“What is the Quakers’ Yard?”
“A place where the people called Quakers bury their dead.”
“Is there a village near it?”
“There is, and the village is called by the same name.”
“Are there any Quakers in it?”
“Not one, nor in the neighbourhood, but there are some, I believe, in
Cardiff.”
“Why do they bury their dead there?”
“You should ask them, not me. I know nothing about them, and don’t want;
they are a bad set of people.”
“Did they ever do you any harm?”
“Can’t say they did. Indeed I never saw one in the whole of my life.”
“Then why do you call them bad?”
“Because everybody says they are.”
“Not everybody. I don’t; I have always found them the salt of the
earth.”
“Then it is salt that has lost its savour. But perhaps you are one of
them?”
“No, I belong to the Church of England.”
“O you do. Then good night to you. I am a Methodist. I thought at
first that you were one of our ministers, and had hoped to hear from you
something profitable and conducive to salvation, but—”
“Well, so you shall. Never speak ill of people of whom you know nothing.
If that isn’t a saying conducive to salvation I know not what is. Good
evening to you.”
I soon reached the village. Singularly enough, the people of the very
first house, at which I inquired about the Quakers’ Yard, were entrusted
with the care of it. On my expressing a wish to see it a young woman
took down a key, and said that if I would follow her she would show it
me. The Quakers’ burying-place is situated on a little peninsula or
tongue of land, having a brook on its eastern and northern sides, and on
its western the Taf. It is a little oblong yard, with low walls, partly
overhung with ivy. The entrance is a porch to the south. The Quakers
are no friends to tombstones, and the only visible evidence that this was
a place of burial was a single flagstone, with a half-obliterated
inscription, which with some difficulty I deciphered, and was as
follows:—
To the Memory of Thomas Edmunds
Who died April the ninth 1802 aged 60
years
And of Mary Edmunds
Who died January the fourth 1810 aged 70.
The beams of the descending sun gilded the Quakers’ burial-ground as I
trod its precincts. A lovely resting-place looked that little oblong
yard on the peninsula, by the confluence of the waters, and quite in
keeping with the character of the quiet Christian people who sleep within
it. The Quakers have for some time past been a decaying sect, but they
have done good work in their day, and when they are extinct they are not
destined to be soon forgotten. Soon forgotten! How should a sect ever
be forgotten, to which have belonged three such men as George Fox,
William Penn and Joseph Gurney?
Shortly after I left the Quakers’ Yard the sun went down and twilight
settled upon the earth. Pursuing my course I reached some woodlands, and
on inquiring of a man, whom I saw standing at the door of a cottage, the
name of the district, was told that it was called Ystrad Manach—the
Monks’ Strath or valley. This name it probably acquired from having
belonged in times of old to some monkish establishment. The moon now
arose, and the night was delightful. As I was wandering along I heard
again the same wild noise which I had heard the night before, on the
other side of Merthyr Tydvil. The cry of the owl afar off in the
woodlands. O that strange bird! O that strange cry! The Welsh as I
have said on a former occasion call the owl Dylluan. Amongst the cowydds
of Ab Gwilym there is one to the dylluan. It is full of abuse against
the bird, with whom the poet is very angry for having with its cry
frightened Morfydd back, who was coming to the wood to keep an
assignation with him, but not a little of this abuse is wonderfully
expressive and truthful. He calls the owl a grey thief—the haunter of
the ivy bush—the chick of the oak, a blinking-eyed witch, greedy of mice,
with a visage like the bald forehead of a big ram, or the dirty face of
an old abbess, which bears no little resemblance to the chine of an ape.
Of its cry he says that it is as great a torment as an agonising
recollection, a cold shrill laugh from the midst of a kettle of ice; the
rattling of sea-pebbles in an old sheep-skin, on which account many call
the owl the hag of the Rhugylgroen. The Rhugylgroen, it will be as well
to observe, is a dry sheep-skin containing a number of pebbles, and is
used as a rattle for frightening crows. The likening the visage of the
owl to the dirty face of an old abbess is capital, and the likening the
cry to the noise of the Rhugylgroen is anything but unfortunate. For,
after all, what does the voice of the owl so much resemble as a
diabolical rattle! I’m sure I don’t know. Reader, do you?
I reached Caerfili at about seven o’clock, and went to the “Boar’s Head,”
near the ruins of a stupendous castle, on which the beams of the moon
were falling.