DELIGHTFUL WALK BY THE DEE BANKS, AND THROUGH EATON PARK.—WREXHAM.—A
FAIR.—MAIDS BY A FOUNTAIN.—THE CHURCH.—JACKDAWS.—THE TAP-ROOM AND
TAP-ROOM TALK.—POLITICAL DEADNESS OF THE LABOURING CLASS.—A METHODIST
BAGMAN.
Following Nutting’s directions, we had a most delightful walk along the
river bank and under some noble trees, then through thick woods and
over a bit of low, rushy land, where some Irishmen were opening drains,
and out at length into the private park-road; a pleasant avenue, which
we followed some miles. The park here was well stocked with game;
rabbits were constantly leaping out before us, and we frequently
started partridges and pheasants from a cover of laurels, holly, and
hawthorn with which the road was lined.
We came out at Pulford, when we lunched at the Post Office Inn, and
thence walked by an interesting road, through a village of model
cottages not very pretty; over a long hill, from the top of which
a grand view back; and by a park that formerly belonged to Judge
Jeffreys, of infamous memory, to Wrexham.
[Sidenote: _WREXHAM JACKDAWS._]
Wrexham is a queer, dirty, higglety-piggelty kind of town, said to be
the largest in Wales (it is about as large as Northampton). It was
the latter part of a fair-day, and there had been a mustering of the
yeomanry of the shire, so that the streets were crowded as we entered.
In the balcony of an hotel in the market-place a military band was
playing to a mass of up-turned, gaping faces, through which we worked
our way. The inns were generally full of guzzling troopers, dressed in
a very ugly fashion, but we finally found one; some colour of the bear
family, blue, I believe, which seemed tolerably quiet, where we stopped
for the night.
After dining and resting awhile, we took a walk about the town. Most
of the houses out of the market-place are very mean and low, the walls
plastered with mud, and whitewashed, and the roofs thatched. Noticing
a kind of grotto in a back street about which a pretty group of girls,
in short blue dresses, engaged in lively talk, were standing with
pitchers, we approached it. We came close upon them before they noticed
us, but, instead of showing any timidity, they glanced at our hats and
laughed clear and heartily, looking us boldly in the face. Catching one
alone, however, as we descended to the fountain, and asking her to let
us take her mug to drink from, she handed it to us, blushing deeply,
and said nothing, so we were glad to leave quickly to relieve her.
There was a spring and pool of remarkably clear, cool water, within
the grotto, from which all the neighbourhood seem to be supplied. Our
California hats attracted more attention at Wrexham than anywhere else
in Europe, but we met with no incivility or impertinence beyond a smile
or laugh.
The church at Wrexham is curious, from the multitude of grotesque faces
and figures carved upon it. It is a large and fine structure, and the
tower is particularly beautiful, as seen from the village. There were
jackdaws’ nests in it, and a flock of these birds, the first we have
seen, were hovering and screeching around them. They are of the crow
tribe, black, and somewhat larger than a blue-jay.
Returning to our inn we found in the parlour a couple of lisping
clerks, who were sipping wine in a genteel way, and trying to say smart
things while they ogled the landlady’s daughter. Retreating from their
twaddle, I called for a pipe and mug of ale, and joined the circle in
the tap-room. There was a tall, scarlet-coated fellow who told me he
was a sergeant in the Queen’s guards recruiting here; an older man who
had been a soldier, and had served in Canada and China; a half-tipsy
miller with a pleasant-speaking, good-natured wife trying to coax him
to come home, and half a dozen more countrymen, all muddling themselves
with beer and tobacco.
[Sidenote: _TAP-ROOM POLITICS._]
The conversation was running on politics, and was not at all
interrupted by my entrance; on the contrary, I thought the old soldier
was glad of a stranger to show himself off before. He was the orator
of the night, and the others did little but express assent to his
sentiments, except the miller, who every few moments interrupted
him with a plain and emphatic contradiction. The sergeant said very
little either way except he was appealed to, to substantiate some
assertion, “_as a military man_,” but leaned on the bar, drinking hot
gin-and-water, and whispering with the bar-maid.
There was news that the French minister had taken diplomatic offence
and demanded his passports, and war was threatened. War there certainly
would be, according to the ex-soldier, and a terrible time was coming
with it. England was going to be whipped-out most certainly—it was
inevitable. Every body assented—it was “inevitable”—except the miller,
who said it was fol-de-rol. “Why,” continued the ex-soldier, “isn’t
every country in Europe against England?—don’t they all hate her? and
isn’t every Frenchman a soldier?” Then he described the inefficient
state of the national defences, and showed how easy it would be for
a fleet of steamers, some dark night the next week, to land an army
somewhere on the coast of Wales, and before they heard of it, it might
be right there amongst them! He would like to know what there was
to oppose them. The miller said there was—“gammon.” The sergeant, on
being asked, admitted that he was not aware of any respectable force
stationed in that vicinity, and the miller told him he was a “traitor
then.” Ex-soldier said miller knew nothing about war, any way, and
the company unanimously acquiesced. Ex-soldier then resumed his
speech—asked if government would dare to give arms to the people, and
pictured an immense army of Chartists arising in the night, and with
firebrands and Frenchmen, sweeping the government, queen and all, out
of the land, and establishing a republican kingdom, where the poor man
was as good as the rich. The company all thought it very probable,
and each added something to make the picture more vivid. A coarse
joke about the queen’s bundling off with her children produced much
laughter; and the hope that the parsons and lawyers would have to go to
work for a living, was much applauded.
It was strange what a complete indifference they all seemed to have
about it, as if they would be mere spectators, _outsiders_, and not,
in any way, personally interested. They spoke of the Government and
the Chartists, and the landlords and the farmers, but not a word of
themselves.
Late in the evening there was some most doleful singing, and a woman
came in and performed some sleight-of-hand tricks, every one giving
her a penny when she had concluded. We were obliged to sleep two in a
bed, one of us with a Methodist young man, who travelled to make sales
of tea among country grocers and innkeepers, for a Liverpool house. He
said that what we had seen in the tap-room would give us a very good
notion of the character of a large part of the labouring class about
here. He thought their moral condition most deplorable, and laid it
much to the small quantity and bad quality of the spiritual food that
was provided for them. He seemed well informed about America, and,
excepting for slavery and steamboat explosions, greatly to admire our
country. He had some idea of going to it, and said his present business
was exceedingly disagreeable, as it compelled him to be so much at
inns, where he rarely found any one with whom he could pleasantly
associate.