Wild Wales: The People, Language, & SceneryBorrow, George
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Wild Wales: The People, Language, & Scenery
Borrow, George
Borrow, George, 1803-1881 -- Travel -- Wales; Wales -- Description and travel
Then turning to a lad of about eighteen, also dressed as a mason, he said
in Welsh:
“Show this gentleman instantly the way to Tafarn Goch.”
The lad flinging a hod down, which he had on his shoulder, instantly set
off, making me a motion with his head to follow him. I did so, wondering
what the man could mean by speaking to me in Spanish. The lad walked by
my side in silence for about two furlongs till we came to a range of
trees, seemingly sycamores, behind which was a little garden, in which
stood a long low house with three chimneys. The lad stopping flung open
a gate which led into the garden, then crying to a child which he saw
within: “Gad roi tro”—let the man take a turn; he was about to leave me,
when I stopped him to put sixpence into his hand. He received the money
with a gruff “Diolch!” and instantly set off at a quick pace. Passing
the child who stared at me, I walked to the back part of the house, which
seemed to be a long mud cottage. After examining the back part I went in
front, where I saw an aged woman with several children, one of whom was
the child I had first seen; she smiled and asked me what I wanted.
I said that I had come to see the house of Gronwy. She did not
understand me, for shaking her head she said that she had no English, and
was rather deaf. Raising my voice to a very high tone I said:
“Tŷ Gronwy!”
A gleam of intelligence flashed now in her eyes.
“Tŷ Gronwy,” she said, “ah! I understand. Come in, sir.”
There were three doors to the house; she led me in by the midmost into a
common cottage room, with no other ceiling, seemingly, than the roof.
She bade me sit down by the window by a little table, and asked me
whether I would have a cup of milk and some bread-and-butter; I declined
both, but said I should be thankful for a little water.
This she presently brought me in a teacup. I drank it, the children
amounting to five standing a little way from me staring at me. I asked
her if this was the house in which Gronwy was born. She said it was, but
that it had been altered very much since his time—that three families had
lived in it, but that she believed he was born about where we were now.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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