“You thought you could see it any day, and so never went,” said I. “Can you tell me whether there are any ruins upon it?”
“I can’t, your honour.”
“I shouldn’t wonder,” said I, “if in old times it was the stronghold of some robber-chieftain; cidwm in the old Welsh is frequently applied to a ferocious man. Castell Cidwm, I should think, rather ought to be translated the robber’s castle, than the wolf’s rock. If I ever come into these parts again, you and I will visit it together, and see what kind of a place it is. Now farewell! It is getting late.” I then departed.
“What a nice gentleman!” said the younger man, when I was a few yards distant.
“I never saw a nicer gentleman,” said the old ranger.
I sped along, Snowdon on my left, the lake on my right, and the tip of a mountain peak right before me in the east. After a little time I looked back; what a scene! The silver lake and the shadowy mountain over its southern side looking now, methought, very much like Gibraltar. I lingered and lingered, gazing and gazing, and at last only by an effort tore myself away. The evening had now become delightfully cool in this land of wonders. On I sped, passing by two noisy brooks coming from Snowdon to pay tribute to the lake. And now I had left the lake and the valley behind, and was ascending a hill. As I gained its summit, up rose the moon to cheer my way. In a little time, a wild stony gorge confronted me, a stream ran down the gorge with hollow roar, a bridge lay across it. I asked a figure whom I saw standing by the bridge the place’s name. “Rhyd du”—the black ford—I crossed the bridge. The voice of the Methodist was yelling from a little chapel on my left. I went to the door and listened: “When the sinner takes hold of God, God takes hold of the sinner.” The voice was frightfully hoarse. I passed on; night fell fast around me, and the mountain to the south-east, towards which I was tending, looked blackly grand. And now I came to a milestone, on which I read with difficulty: “Three miles to Bethgelert.” The way for some time had been upward, but now it was downward. I reached a torrent, which, coming from the north-west, rushed under a bridge, over which I passed. The torrent attended me on my right hand the whole way to Bethgelert. The descent now became very rapid. I passed a pine wood on my left, and proceeded for more than two miles at a tremendous rate. I then came to a wood—this wood was just above Bethgelert—proceeding in the direction of a black mountain, I found myself amongst houses, at the bottom of a valley. I passed over a bridge, and inquiring of some people, whom I met, the way to the inn, was shown an edifice brilliantly lighted up, which I entered.
CHAPTER XLV
Inn at Bethgelert—Delectable Company—Lieutenant P—.
The inn, or hotel, at Bethgelert, was a large and commodious building, and was anything but thronged with company; what company, however, there was, was disagreeable enough, perhaps more so than that in which I had been the preceding evening, which was composed of the scum of Manchester and Liverpool; the company amongst which I now was consisted of some seven or eight individuals, two of them were military puppies, one a tallish fellow, who, though evidently upwards of thirty, affected the airs of a languishing girl, and would fain have made people believe that he was dying of ennui and lassitude. The other was a short spuddy fellow, with a broad, ugly face, and with spectacles on his nose, who talked very consequentially about “the service” and all that, but whose tone of voice was coarse, and his manner that of an under-bred person; then there was an old fellow about sixty-five, a civilian, with a red, carbuncled face; he was father of the spuddy military puppy, on whom he occasionally cast eyes of pride and almost adoration, and whose sayings he much applauded, especially certain double entendres, to call them by no harsher term, directed to a fat girl, weighing some fifteen stone, who officiated in the coffee-room as waiter. Then there was a creature to do justice to whose appearance would require the pencil of a Hogarth. He was about five feet three inches and a quarter high, and might have weighed, always provided a stone weight had been attached to him, about half as much as the fat girl. His countenance was cadaverous, and was eternally agitated, by something between a grin and a simper. He was dressed in a style of superfine gentility, and his skeleton fingers were bedizened with tawdry rings. His conversation was chiefly about his bile and his secretions, the efficacy of licorice in producing a certain effect, and the expediency of changing one’s linen at least three times a day; though had he changed his six I should have said that the purification of the last shirt would have been no sinecure to the laundress. His accent was decidedly Scotch: he spoke familiarly of Scott, and one or two other Scotch worthies, and more than once insinuated that he was a member of Parliament. With respect to the rest of the company I say nothing, and for the very sufficient reason that, unlike the above described batch, they did not seem disposed to be impertinent towards me.
Eager to get out of such society, I retired early to bed. As I left the room the diminutive Scotch individual was describing to the old simpleton, who, on the ground of the other’s being a “member,” was listening to him with extreme attention, how he was labouring under an excess of bile, owing to his having left his licorice somewhere or other. I passed a quiet night, and in the morning breakfasted, paid my bill, and departed. As I went out of the coffee-room, the spuddy, broad-faced military puppy with spectacles was vociferating to the languishing military puppy, and to his old simpleton of a father, who was listening to him with his usual look of undisguised admiration, about the absolute necessity of kicking Lieutenant P— out of the army for having disgraced “the service.” Poor P—, whose only crime was trying to defend himself with fist and candlestick from the manual attacks of his brutal messmates.