My good friends took their seats, the wife poured out tea for the stranger and her husband, helped us both to bread-and-butter and the watery cheese, then took care of herself. Before, however, I could taste the tea, the wife, seeming to recollect herself, started up, and hurrying to a cupboard, produced a basin full of snow-white lump sugar, and taking the spoon out of my hand, placed two of the largest lumps in my cup, though she helped neither her husband nor herself; the sugar-basin being probably only kept for grand occasions.
My eyes filled with tears; for in the whole course of my life I had never experienced so much genuine hospitality. Honour to the miller of Mona and his wife; and honour to the kind hospitable Celts in general! How different is the reception of this despised race of the wandering stranger from that of —. However, I am a Saxon myself, and the Saxons have no doubt their virtues; a pity that they should be all uncouth and ungracious ones!
I asked my kind host his name.
“John Jones,” he replied, “Melinydd of Llanfair.”
“Is the mill which you work your own property?” I inquired.
“No,” he answered, “I rent it of a person who lives close by.”
“And how happens it,” said I, “that you speak no English?”
“How should it happen,” said he, “that I should speak any? I have never been far from here; my wife who has lived at service at Liverpool can speak some.”
“Can you read poetry?” said I.
“I can read the psalms and hymns, that they sing at our chapel,” he replied.