While I was thus musing the Rector of Llanfair was announced, and our party was complete. A little man, round, quick in eye and movement, and with that “tip-tilted” nose which is sure evidence of enjoyment of a joke. Friar Tuck with the accent of Sir Hugh Evans of Windsor.
I forgot to say that “David Nantgwyn” had greeted me as an old friend. I had lunched with him at Llanbedr, when I visited his parish; and had laughed at his Welsh stories till I could laugh no more. A fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. Alas, poor Yorick! What was he doing in that galley?
We went in to dinner, and as I passed by I heard Harry mutter to David, “Sut yma Dafydd Nantgwyn?” (How is David of Nantgwyn?) and there was a scuffle.
It is good to dine at Llangastanau. The trout came out of the burn; the Welsh mutton was a native growth; the game, if I may judge from a smile passing from host to squire, came from the Hall. The port was from the college cellars, and St. Peter’s has a reputation. These delicacies, or the like, might be got in London; but David and the Druid were local and priceless: it did one good to look at the Squire and Harry; and the Rector would have adorned—not Lambeth, but a choicest Deanery. “If there was many like him,” said Mrs. Gamp, “we shouldn’t want no churches.”
We talked of many things, wheeling round, and lighting here and there; for I was a stranger, and all that they knew of me was that I was a Socialist, and probably a Turk, Infidel, or Heretic; otherwise I should not have been sent down there by THAT Government. But by some chance remark it was found that we had Oxford as a common nursing mother, and we did better. The Rector was thirty years my senior. He was of Mr. Gladstone’s standing, and had been one of his ardent supporters: now mourned his decadence. The Squire preceded me by ten years; David was very slightly his junior; Harry was five years my junior; thus we covered thirty-nine years. Still the Squire was rather distant, till in the course of our memories I let fall something which inclined him to believe that our views of the Prime Minister’s policy coincided. After that he became most friendly. It is better, as Mrs. Malaprop remarked, to begin with a little aversion.
He “took a glass of wine with me” in the old Oxford fashion, and we got on capitally. Where had I been last week? I told him. Had I seen old Micaiah Roberts there? I thought I had, but there were two or three Robertses.
“Did you see Mrs. Micaiah?” said David; “they say that she lost her wedding-ring last year, and went to her husband to get a new one:
“‘Micaiah, I’ve lost my wedding-ring.’
“‘Well, Mrs. Roberts, what of that?’
“‘Won’t you get me another, Micaiah?’