And now what was I to do next? Why, my best advice seemed to be to pay my bill and depart. But I had promised the poet to patronize his house, and had by mistake ordered and despatched a pint and chop in a house which was not the poet’s. Should I now go to his house and order a pint and chop there? Decidedly not! I had patronised a house which I believed to be the poet’s; if I patronised the wrong one, the fault was his, not mine—he should have been more explicit. I had performed my promise, at least in intention.
Perfectly satisfied with the conclusion I had come to, I rang the bell. “The bill?” said I to the handmaid.
“Here it is!” said she, placing a strip of paper in my hand.
I looked at the bill, and, whether moderate or immoderate, paid it with a smiling countenance, commanded the entertainment highly, and gave the damsel something handsome for her trouble in waiting on me.
Reader, please to bear in mind that as all bills must be paid, it is much more comfortable to pay them with a smile than with a frown, and that it is much better by giving sixpence, or a shilling to a poor servant, which you will never miss at the year’s end, to be followed from the door of an inn by good wishes, than by giving nothing to be pursued by cutting silence, or the yet more cutting Hm!
“Sir,” said the good-looking, well-ribboned damsel, “I wish you a pleasant journey, and whenever you please again to honour our establishment with your presence, both my master and myself shall be infinitely obliged to you.”
CHAPTER XXXIX
Oats and Methodism—The Little Girl—Ty Gwyn—Bird of the Roof—Purest English—Railroads—Inconsistency—The Boots.
It might be about four in the afternoon when I left L--- bound for Pen Caer Gybi, or Holyhead, seventeen miles distant. I reached the top of the hill on the west of the little town, and then walked briskly forward. The country looked poor and mean—on my right was a field of oats, on my left a Methodist chapel—oats and Methodism! what better symbols of poverty and meanness?
I went onward a long way, the weather was broiling hot, and I felt thirsty. On the top of a long ascent stood a house by the roadside. I went to the door and knocked—no answer—“Oes neb yn y ty?” said I.