He put some questions to me about the origin of nuns and friars. I told him they originated in India, and made him laugh heartily by showing him the original identity of nuns and nautch-girls, begging priests and begging Brahmins. We passed by a small house with an enormous yew-tree before it; I asked him who lived there.
“No one,” he replied, “it is to let. It was originally a cottage, but the proprietors have furbished it up a little, and call it yew-tree villa.”
“I suppose they would let it cheap,” said I.
“By no means,” he replied, “they ask eighty pounds a year for it.”
“What could have induced them to set such a rent upon it?” I demanded.
“The yew-tree, sir, which is said to be the largest in Wales. They hope that some of the grand gentry will take the house for the romance of the yew-tree, but somehow or other nobody has taken it, though it has been to let for three seasons.”
We soon came to a road leading east and west.
“This way,” said he, pointing in the direction of the west, “leads back to Llangollen, the other to Offa’s Dyke and England.”
We turned to the west. He inquired if I had ever heard before of Offa’s Dyke.
“O yes,” said I, “it was built by an old Saxon king called Offa, against the incursions of the Welsh.”