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
As he was standing before a long building, through the open door of which
a sound proceeded like that of preaching, I asked him what place it was,
and what was going on in it, and received for answer that it was the
National School, and that there was a clergyman preaching in it. I then
asked if the clergyman was of the Church, and on learning that he was, I
forthwith entered the building, where in one end of a long room I saw a
young man in a white surplice preaching from a desk to about thirty or
forty people, who were seated on benches before him. I sat down and
listened. The young man preached with great zeal and fluency. The
sermon was a very seasonable one, being about the harvest, and in it
things temporal and spiritual were very happily blended. The part of the
sermon which I heard—I regretted that I did not hear the whole—lasted
about five-and-twenty minutes: a hymn followed, and then the congregation
broke up. I inquired the name of the young man who preached, and was
told that it was Edwards, and that he came from Caernarvon. The name of
the incumbent of the parish was Thomas.
Leaving the village of the harvest sermon, I proceeded on my way, which
lay to the south-east. I was now drawing nigh to the mountainous
district of Eryri—a noble hill called Mount Eilio appeared before me to
the north; an immense mountain called Pen Drws Coed lay over against it
on the south, just like a couchant elephant, with its head lower than the
top of its back. After a time, I entered a most beautiful sunny valley,
and presently came to a bridge over a pleasant stream running in the
direction of the south. As I stood upon that bridge, I almost fancied
myself in paradise; everything looked so beautiful or grand—green, sunny
meadows lay all around me, intersected by the brook, the waters of which
ran with tinkling laughter over a shingley bottom. Noble Eilio to the
north; enormous Pen Drws Coed to the south; a tall mountain far beyond
them to the east. “I never was in such a lovely spot!” I cried to myself
in a perfect rapture. “O, how glad I should be to learn the name of this
bridge, standing on which I have had ‘heaven opened to me,’ as my old
friends the Spaniards used to say.” Scarcely had I said these words,
when I observed a man and a woman coming towards the bridge from the
direction in which I was bound. I hastened to meet them, in the hope of
obtaining information; they were both rather young, and were probably a
couple of sweethearts taking a walk, or returning from meeting. The
woman was a few steps in advance of the man; seeing that I was about to
address her, she averted her head and quickened her steps, and before I
had completed the question, which I put to her in Welsh, she had bolted
past me screaming, “Ah Dim Saesneg,” and was several yards distant.
I then addressed myself to the man, who had stopped, asking him the name
of the bridge.
“Pont Bettws,” he replied.
“And what may be the name of the river?” said I.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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