“I will return by Llan Silin,” said I, “and in passing through pay a visit to the tomb of the great poet. Is Llan Silin far off?”
“About half a mile,” said the man. “Go over the bridge, turn to the right, and you will be there presently.”
I shook the honest couple by the hand and bade them farewell. The man put on his hat and went with me a few yards from the door, and then proceeded towards the factory. I passed over the bridge, under which was a streamlet, which a little below the bridge received the brook which once turned Owen Glendower’s corn-mill. I soon reached Llan Silin, a village or townlet, having some high hills at a short distance to the westward, which form part of the Berwyn.
I entered the kitchen of an old-fashioned public-house, and sitting down by a table told the landlord, a red-nosed elderly man, who came bowing up to me, to bring me a pint of ale. The landlord bowed and departed. A bluff-looking old fellow, somewhat under the middle size, sat just opposite to me at the table. He was dressed in a white frieze coat, and had a small hat on his head set rather consequentially on one side. Before him on the table stood a jug of ale, between which and him lay a large crabstick. Three or four other people stood or sat in different parts of the room. Presently the landlord returned with the ale.
“I suppose you come on sessions business, sir?” said he, as he placed it down before me.
“Are the sessions being held here to-day?” said I.
“They are,” said the landlord, “and there is plenty of business; two bad cases of poaching, Sir Watkin’s keepers are up at court and hope to convict.”
“I am not come on sessions business,” said I; “I am merely strolling a little about to see the country.”
“He is come from South Wales,” said the old fellow in the frieze coat, to the landlord, “in order to see what kind of country the north is. Well at any rate he has seen a better country than his own.”
“How do you know that I come from South Wales?” said I.