Another remarkable person whom I got acquainted with about this time was A---, the innkeeper, who lived a little way down the road, of whom John Jones had spoken so highly, saying, amongst other things, that he was the clebberest man in Llangollen. One day as I was looking in at his gate, he came forth, took off his hat, and asked me to do him the honour to come in and look at his grounds. I complied, and as he showed me about he told me his history in nearly the following words:—
“I am a Devonian by birth. For many years I served a travelling gentleman, whom I accompanied in all his wanderings. I have been five times across the Alps, and in every capital of Europe. My master at length dying left me in his will something handsome, whereupon I determined to be a servant no longer, but married, and came to Llangollen, which I had visited long before with my master, and had been much pleased with. After a little time these premises becoming vacant, I took them, and set up in the public line, more to have something to do, than for the sake of gain, about which, indeed, I need not trouble myself much, my poor, dear master, as I said before, having done very handsomely by me at his death. Here I have lived for several years, receiving strangers, and improving my house and grounds. I am tolerably comfortable, but confess I sometimes look back to my former roving life rather wistfully, for there is no life so merry as the traveller’s.”
He was about the middle age and somewhat under the middle size. I had a good deal of conversation with him, and was much struck with his frank, straightforward manner. He enjoyed a high character at Llangollen for probity and likewise for cleverness, being reckoned an excellent gardener, and an almost unequalled cook. His master, the travelling gentleman, might well leave him a handsome remembrance in his will, for he had not only been an excellent and trusty servant to him, but had once saved his life at the hazard of his own, amongst the frightful precipices of the Alps. Such retired gentlemen’s servants, or such publicans either, as honest A---, are not every day to be found. His grounds, principally laid out by his own hands, exhibited an infinity of taste, and his house, into which I looked, was a perfect picture of neatness. Any tourist visiting Llangollen for a short period could do no better than take up his abode at the hostelry of honest A---.
CHAPTER LVI
Ringing of Bells—Battle of Alma—The Brown Jug—Ale of Llangollen—Reverses.
On the third of October—I think that was the date—as my family and myself, attended by trusty John Jones, were returning on foot from visiting a park not far from Rhiwabon we heard, when about a mile from Llangollen, a sudden ringing of the bells of the place, and a loud shouting. Presently we observed a postman hurrying in a cart from the direction of the town. “Peth yw y matter?” said John Jones. “Y matter, y matter!” said the postman in a tone of exultation, “Sebastopol wedi cymmeryd. Hurrah!”
“What does he say?” said my wife anxiously to me.
“Why, that Sebastopol is taken,” said I.
“Then you have been mistaken,” said my wife smiling, “for you always said that the place would either not be taken at all or would cost the allies to take it a deal of time and an immense quantity of blood and treasure, and here it is taken at once, for the allies only landed the other day. Well, thank God, you have been mistaken!”
“Thank God, indeed,” said I, “always supposing that I have been mistaken—but I hardly think from what I have known of the Russians that they would let their town—however, let us hope that they have let it be taken. Hurrah!”