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
Here, perhaps, as I have told the reader what we ate for dinner, it will
be as well to tell him what we drank at dinner. Let him know, then, that
with our salmon we drank water, and with our mutton ale, even ale of
Llangollen; but not the best ale of Llangollen; it was very fair; but I
subsequently drank far better Llangollen ale than that which I drank at
our first dinner in our cottage at Llangollen.
In the evening I went across the bridge and strolled along in a
south-east direction. Just as I had cleared the suburb a man joined me
from a cottage, on the top of a high bank, whom I recognized as the mower
with whom I had held discourse in the morning. He saluted me and asked
me if I were taking a walk. I told him I was, whereupon he said that if
I were not too proud to wish to be seen walking with a poor man like
himself, he should wish to join me. I told him I should be glad of his
company, and that I was not ashamed to be seen walking with any person,
however poor, who conducted himself with propriety. He replied that I
must be very different from my countrymen in general, who were ashamed to
be seen walking with any people who were not, at least, as well-dressed
as themselves. I said that my country-folk in general had a great many
admirable qualities, but at the same time a great many foibles, foremost
amongst which last was a crazy admiration for what they called gentility,
which made them sycophantic to their superiors in station, and extremely
insolent to those whom they considered below them. He said that I had
spoken his very thoughts, and then asked me whether I wished to be taken
the most agreeable walk near Llangollen.
On my replying by all means, he led me along the road to the south-east.
A pleasant road it proved: on our right at some distance was the mighty
Berwyn; close on our left the hill called Pen y Coed. I asked him what
was beyond the Berwyn?
“A very wild country, indeed,” he replied, “consisting of wood, rock, and
river; in fact, an anialwch.”
He then asked if I knew the meaning of anialwch.
“A wilderness,” I replied, “you will find the word in the Welsh Bible.”
“Very true, sir,” said he, “it was there I met it, but I did not know the
meaning of it, till it was explained to me by one of our teachers.”
On my inquiring of what religion he was, he told me he was a Calvinistic
Methodist.
We passed an ancient building which stood on our right. I turned round
to look at it. Its back was to the road: at its eastern end was a fine
arched window like the oriel window of a church.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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