So I turned back and entered the railroad hotel with lofty port and with sounding step, for I had twelve sovereigns in my pocket, besides a half one, and some loose silver, and feared not to encounter the gaze of any waiter or landlord in the land. “Send boots!” I roared to the waiter, as I flung myself down in an arm-chair in a magnificent coffee-room. “What the deuce are you staring at? send boots can’t you, and ask what I can have for dinner.”
“Yes, sir,” said the waiter, and with a low bow departed.
“These boots are rather dusty,” said the boots, a grey-haired, venerable-looking man, after he had taken off my thick, solid, square-toed boots. “I suppose you came walking from the railroad?”
“Confound the railroad!” said I. “I came walking from Bangor. I would have you know that I have money in my pocket, and can afford to walk. I am fond of the beauties of nature; now it is impossible to see much of the beauties of nature unless you walk. I am likewise fond of poetry, and take especial delight in inspecting the birth-places and haunts of poets. It is because I am fond of poetry, poets and their haunts, that I am come to Anglesey. Anglesey does not abound in the beauties of nature, but there never was such a place for poets; you meet a poet, or the birth-place of a poet, everywhere.”
“Did your honour ever hear of Gronwy Owen?” said the old man.
“I have,” I replied, “and yesterday I visited his birth-place; so you have heard of Gronwy Owen?”
“Heard of him, your honour; yes, and read his works. That ‘Cowydd y Farn’ of his is a wonderful poem.”
“You say right,” said I; “the ‘Cowydd of Judgment’ contains some of the finest things ever written—that description of the toppling down of the top crag of Snowdon, at the day of Judgment, beats anything in Homer.”
“Then there was Lewis Morris, your honour,” said the old man, “who gave Gronwy his education and wrote ‘The Lasses of Meirion’—and—”
“And ‘The Cowydd to the Snail,’” said I, interrupting him—“a wonderful man he was.”