Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851Various
General
Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851
Various
American literature -- Periodicals; Civilization -- Periodicals; Culture -- Periodicals
I have received great, true, beautiful kindness from one of the members
of the family of whom I just now spoke as living at Pen-Morfa; and when
I found that they wished me to drink tea with them, I gladly did so,
though my friend was the only one in the house, who could speak English
at all fluently. After tea, I went with them to see some of their
friends; and it was then I saw the interiors of the houses of which I
have spoken. It was an autumn evening; we left mellow sunset-light in
the open air when we entered the houses, in which all seemed dark save
in the ruddy sphere of the firelight, for the windows were very small,
and deep set in the thick walls. Here were an old couple, who welcomed
me in Welsh, and brought forth milk and oat-cake with patriarchal
hospitality. Sons and daughters had married away from them; they lived
alone; he was blind, or nearly so; and they sat one on each side of the
fire, so old and so still (till we went in and broke the silence), that
they seemed to be listening for Death. At another house, lived a woman
stern and severe-looking. She was busy hiving a swarm of bees, alone and
unassisted. I do not think my companion would have chosen to speak to
her, but seeing her out in her hill-side garden, she made some inquiry
in Welsh, which was answered in the most mournful tone I ever heard in
my life; a voice of which the freshness and "timbre" had been choked up
by tears long years ago. I asked who she was. I dare say the story is
common enough, but the sight of the woman, and her few words had
impressed me. She had been the beauty of Pen-Morfa; had been in service;
had been taken to London by the family whom she served; had come down in
a year or so, back to Pen-Morfa; her beauty gone into that sad, wild,
despairing look which I saw; and she about to become a mother. Her
father had died during her absence, and left her a very little money;
and after her child was born she took the little cottage where I saw
her, and made a scanty living by the produce of her bees. She associated
with no one. One event had made her savage and distrustful to her kind.
She kept so much aloof that it was some time before it became known that
her child was deformed, and had lost the use of its lower limbs. Poor
thing! when I saw the mother, it had been for fifteen years bedridden;
but go past when you would, in the night, you saw a light burning; it
was often that of the watching mother, solitary and friendless, soothing
the moaning child; or you might hear her crooning some old Welsh air, in
hopes to still the pain with the loud, monotonous music. Her sorrow was
so dignified, and her mute endurance and her patient love won her such
respect, that the neighbors would fain have been friends; but she kept
alone and solitary. This is a most true story. I hope that woman and her
child are dead now, and their souls above.
Another story which I heard of these old primitive dwellings I mean to
tell at somewhat greater length:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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