I paid my reckoning and started. The night was now rapidly closing in. I passed the toll-gate and hurried along the Rhiwabon road, overtaking companies of Welsh going home, amongst whom were many individuals, whom, from their thick and confused speech, as well as from their staggering gait, I judged to be intoxicated. As I passed a red public-house on my right hand, at the door of which stood several carts, a scream of Welsh issued from it.
“Let any Saxon,” said I, “who is fond of fighting and wishes for a bloody nose go in there.”
Coming to the small village about a mile from Rhiwabon, I felt thirsty, and seeing a public-house, in which all seemed to be quiet, I went in. A thick-set man with a pipe in his mouth sat in the tap-room, and also a woman.
“Where is the landlord?” said I.
“I am the landlord,” said the man, huskily. “What do you want?”
“A pint of ale,” said I.
The man got up and with his pipe in his mouth went staggering out of the room. In about a minute he returned holding a mug in his hand, which he put down on a table before me, spilling no slight quantity of the liquor as he did so. I put down three-pence on the table. He took the money up slowly piece by piece, looked at it and appeared to consider, then taking the pipe out of his mouth he dashed it to seven pieces against the table, then staggered out of the room into the passage, and from thence apparently out of the house. I tasted the ale which was very good, then turning to the woman who seemed about three-and-twenty and was rather good-looking, I spoke to her in Welsh.
“I have no Welsh, sir,” said she.
“How is that?” said I; “this village is I think in the Welshery.”
“It is,” said she, “but I am from Shropshire.”