I shook the miller’s wife by the hand, patted a little yellow-haired girl of about two years old on the head who during the whole time of the meal had sat on the slate floor looking up into my face, and left the house with honest Jones.
We directed our course to the mill, which lay some way down a declivity towards the sea. Near the mill was a comfortable-looking house, which my friend told me belonged to the proprietor of the mill.
A rustic-looking man stood in the millyard, who he said was the proprietor—the honest miller went into the mill, and the rustic-looking proprietor greeted me in Welsh, and asked me if I was come to buy hogs.
“No,” said I; “I am come to see the birth-place of Gronwy Owen;” he stared at me for a moment, then seemed to muse, and at last walked away saying “Ah! a great man.”
The miller presently joined me, and we proceeded farther down the hill. Our way lay between stone walls, and sometimes over them. The land was moory and rocky, with nothing grand about it, and the miller described it well when he said it was tîr gwael—mean land. In about a quarter of an hour we came to the churchyard into which we got, the gate being locked, by clambering over the wall.
The church stands low down the descent, not far distant from the sea. A little brook, called in the language of the country a frwd, washes its yard-wall on the south. It is a small edifice with no spire, but to the south-west there is a little stone erection rising from the roof, in which hangs a bell—there is a small porch looking to the south. With respect to its interior I can say nothing, the door being locked. It is probably like the outside, simple enough. It seemed to be about two hundred and fifty years old, and to be kept in tolerable repair. Simple as the edifice was, I looked with great emotion upon it; and could I do else, when I reflected that the greatest British poet of the last century had worshipped God within it, with his poor father and mother, when a boy?
I asked the miller whether he could point out to me any tombs or grave-stones of Gronwy’s family, but he told me that he was not aware of any. On looking about I found the name of Owen in the inscription on the slate slab of a respectable-looking modern tomb, on the north-east side of the church. The inscription was as follows:
Er cof am Jane Owen
Gwraig Edward Owen,
Monachlog Llanfair Mathafarn eithaf,
A fu farw Chwefror 28 1842
Yn 51 Oed.
i.e. “To the memory of Jane Owen wife of Edward Owen, of the monastery of St. Mary of farther Mathafarn, who died February 28, 1842, aged fifty-one.”
Whether the Edward Owen mentioned here was any relation to the great Gronwy, I had no opportunity of learning. I asked the miller what was meant by the monastery, and he told me that it was the name of a building to the north-east near the sea, which had once been a monastery, but had been converted into a farmhouse, though it still retained its original name. “May all monasteries be converted into farm-houses,” said I, “and may they still retain their original names in mockery of popery!”