“I have heard of Owen Tudor,” said I, “but never understood that he was particularly clever; handsome he undoubtedly was—but clever—”
“How not clebber?” interrupted Mr Bos. “If he wasn’t clebber, who was clebber? Didn’t he marry a great queen, and was not Harry the Eighth his great grandson?”
“Really,” said I, “you know a great deal of history.”
“I should hope I do,” said Mr Bos. “Oh, I wasn’t at school at Blewmaris for six months for nothing; and I haven’t been in Northampton, and in every town in England, without learning something of history. With regard to history I may say that few—Won’t you drink?” said he, patronizingly, as he pushed a jug of ale which stood before him on a little table towards me.
Begging politely to be excused on the plea that I was just about to take tea, I asked him in what capacity he had travelled all over England.
“As a drover to be sure,” said Mr Bos, “and I may say that there are not many in Anglesey better known in England than myself—at any rate I may say that there is not a public-house between here and Worcester at which I am not known.”
“Pray excuse me,” said I, “but is not droving rather a low-lifed occupation?”
“Not half so much as pig-jobbing,” said Bos, “and that that’s your trade I am certain, or you would never have gone to Llanfair.”
“I am no pig-jobber,” said I, “and when I asked you that question about droving, I merely did so because one Ellis Wynn, in a book he wrote, gives the drovers a very bad character, and puts them in Hell for their mal-practices.”
“Oh, he does,” said Mr Bos, “well, the next time I meet him at Corwen I’ll crack his head for saying so. Mal-practices—he had better look at his own, for he is a pig-jobber too. Written a book has he? then I suppose he has been left a legacy, and gone to school after middle-age, for when I last saw him, which is four years ago, he could neither read nor write.”