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
I strolled forward, encountering more carts and more heaps of greengages;
presently I turned to the right by a street, which led some way up the
hill. The houses were tolerably large and all white. The town, with its
white houses placed by the seaside, on the skirt of a mountain, beneath a
blue sky and a broiling sun, put me something in mind of a Moorish
piratical town, in which I had once been. Becoming soon tired of walking
about, without any particular aim, in so great a heat, I determined to
return to the inn, call for ale, and deliberate on what I had best next
do. So I returned and called for ale. The ale which was brought was not
ale which I am particularly fond of. The ale which I am fond of is ale
about nine or ten months old, somewhat hard, tasting well of the malt and
little of the hop—ale such as farmers, and noblemen too, of the good old
time, when farmers’ daughters did not play on pianos and noblemen did not
sell their game, were in the habit of offering to both high and low, and
drinking themselves. The ale which was brought me was thin, washy stuff,
which though it did not taste much of hop, tasted still less of malt,
made and sold by one Allsopp, who I am told calls himself a squire and a
gentleman—as he certainly may be with quite as much right as many a lord
calls himself a nobleman and a gentleman; for surely it is not a fraction
more trumpery to make and sell ale than to fatten and sell game. The ale
of the Saxon squire, for Allsopp is decidedly an old Saxon name, however
unakin to the practice of old Saxon squires the selling of ale may be,
was drinkable, for it was fresh, and the day, as I have said before,
exceedingly hot; so I took frequent draughts out of the shining metal
tankard in which it was brought, deliberating both whilst drinking, and
in the intervals of drinking, on what I had next best do. I had some
thoughts of crossing to the northern side of the bay, then, bearing to
the north-east, wend my way to Amlwch, follow the windings of the
sea-shore to Mathafarn eithaf and Pentraeth Coch, and then return to
Bangor, after which I could boast that I had walked round the whole of
Anglesey, and indeed trodden no inconsiderable part of the way twice.
Before coming, however, to any resolution I determined to ask the advice
of my friend the boots on the subject. So I finished my ale, and sent
word by the waiter that I wished to speak to him; he came forthwith, and
after communicating my deliberations to him in a few words I craved his
counsel. The old man, after rubbing his right forefinger behind his
right ear for about a quarter, of a minute, inquired if I meant to return
to Bangor, and on my telling him that it would be necessary for me to do
so, as I intended to walk back to Llangollen by Caernarvon and Beth
Gelert, strongly advised me to return to Bangor by the railroad train,
which would start at seven in the evening, and would convey me thither in
an hour and a half.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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