Caerfili Castle—Sir Charles—The Waiter—Inkerman.
I slept well during the night. In the morning after breakfast I went to
see the castle, over which I was conducted by a woman who was intrusted
with its care. It stands on the eastern side of the little town, and is
a truly enormous structure, which brought to my recollection a saying of
our great Johnson, to be found in the account of his journey to the
Western Islands, namely “that for all the castles which he had seen
beyond the Tweed the ruins yet remaining of some one of those which the
English built in Wales would find materials.” The original founder was
one John De Bryse, a powerful Norman who married the daughter of
Llewellyn Ap Jorwerth, the son-in-law of King John, and the most war-like
of all the Welsh princes, whose exploits, and particularly a victory
which he obtained over his father-in-law, with whom he was always at war,
have been immortalized by the great war-bard, Dafydd Benfras. It was one
of the strongholds which belonged to the Spencers, and served for a short
time as a retreat to the unfortunate Edward the Second. It was ruined by
Cromwell, the grand foe of the baronial castles of Britain, but not in so
thorough and sweeping a manner as to leave it a mere heap of stones.
There is a noble entrance porch fronting the west—a spacious courtyard, a
grand banqueting room, a corridor of vast length, several lofty towers, a
chapel, a sally-port, a guard-room and a strange underground vaulted
place called the mint, in which Caerfili’s barons once coined money, and
in which the furnaces still exist which were used for melting metal. The
name Caerfili is said to signify the Castle of Haste, and to have been
bestowed on the pile because it was built in a hurry. Caerfili, however,
was never built in a hurry, as the remains show. Moreover, the Welsh
word for haste is not fil but ffrwst. Fil means a scudding or darting
through the air, which can have nothing to do with the building of a
castle. Caerfili signifies Philip’s City, and was called so after one
Philip a saint. It no more means the castle of haste than Tintagel in
Cornwall signifies the castle of guile, as the learned have said it does,
for Tintagel simply means the house in the gill of the hill, a term
admirably descriptive of the situation of the building.
I started from Caerfili at eleven for Newport, distant about seventeen
miles. Passing through a toll-gate I ascended an acclivity, from the top
of which I obtained a full view of the castle, looking stern, dark and
majestic. Descending the hill I came to a bridge over a river called the
Rhymni or Rumney, much celebrated in Welsh and English song—thence to
Pentref Bettws, or the village of the bead-house, doubtless so called
from its having contained in old times a house in which pilgrims might
tell their beads.
The scenery soon became very beautiful—its beauty, however, was to a
certain extent marred by a horrid black object, a huge coal work, the
chimneys of which were belching forth smoke of the densest description.
“Whom does that work belong to?” said I to a man nearly as black as a
chimney sweep.
“Who does it belong to? Why, to Sir Charles.”
“Do you mean Sir Charles Morgan?”
“I don’t know. I only know that it belongs to Sir Charles, the
kindest-hearted and richest man in Wales and in England too.”
Passing some cottages I heard a group of children speaking English.
Asked an intelligent-looking girl if she could speak Welsh.
“Yes,” said she, “I can speak it, but not very well.” There is not much
Welsh spoken by the children hereabout. The old folks hold more to it.
I saw again the Rhymni river, and crossed it by a bridge; the river here
was filthy and turbid, owing of course to its having received the foul
drainings of the neighbouring coal works. Shortly afterwards I emerged
from the coom or valley of the Rhymni, and entered upon a fertile and
tolerably level district. Passed by Llanawst and Machen. The day which
had been very fine now became dark and gloomy. Suddenly, as I was
descending a slope, a brilliant party, consisting of four young ladies in
riding-habits, a youthful cavalier and a servant in splendid livery—all
on noble horses, swept past me at full gallop down the hill. Almost
immediately afterwards, seeing a road-mender who was standing holding his
cap in his hand—which he had no doubt just reverentially doffed—I said in
Welsh: “Who are those ladies?”
“Merched Sir Charles—the daughters of Sir Charles,” he replied.
“And is the gentleman their brother?”
“No! the brother is in the Crim—fighting with the Roosiaid. I don’t know
who yon gentleman be.”
“Where does Sir Charles live?”
“Down in the Dyfryn, not far from Basallaig.”
“If I were to go and see him,” I said, “do you think he would give me a
cup of ale?”
“I daresay he would; he has given me one many a time.”
I soon reached Basallaig, a pleasant village standing in a valley and
nearly surrounded by the groves of Sir Charles Morgan. Seeing a decent
public-house I said to myself, “I think I shall step in and have my ale
here, and not go running after Sir Charles, whom perhaps after all I
shouldn’t find at home.” So I went in and called for a pint of ale.
Over my ale I trifled for about half-an-hour, then paying my groat I got
up and set off for Newport, in the midst of a thick mist which had
suddenly come on, and which speedily wetted me nearly to the skin.
I reached Newport at about half-past four, and put up at a large and
handsome inn called the King’s Head. During dinner the waiter, unasked,
related to me his history. He was a short thick fellow of about forty,
with a very disturbed and frightened expression of countenance. He said
that he was a native of Brummagen, and had lived very happily at an inn
there as waiter, but at length had allowed himself to be spirited away to
an establishment high up in Wales amidst the scenery. That very few
visitors came to the establishment, which was in a place so awfully
lonesome that he soon became hipped, and was more than once half in a
mind to fling himself into a river which ran before the door and moaned
dismally. That at last he thought his best plan would be to decamp, and
accordingly took French leave early one morning. That after many frights
and much fatigue he had found himself at Newport, and taken service at
the King’s Head, but did not feel comfortable, and was frequently visited
at night by dreadful dreams. That he should take the first opportunity
of getting to Brummagen, though he was afraid that he should not be able
to get into his former place, owing to his ungrateful behaviour. He then
uttered a rather eloquent eulogium on the beauties of the black capital,
and wound up all by saying that he would rather be a brazier’s dog at
Brummagen than head waiter at the best establishment in Wales.
After dinner I took up a newspaper and found in it an account of the
battle of Inkerman, which appeared to have been fought on the fifth of
November, the very day on which I had ascended Plynlimmon. I was sorry
to find that my countrymen had suffered dreadfully, and would have been
utterly destroyed but for the opportune arrival of the French. “In my
childhood,” said I, “the Russians used to help us against the French; now
the French help us against the Russians. Who knows but before I die I
may see the Russians helping the French against us?”