“I will go with you,” said the man. “I work at the factory, but I need not go there for an hour at least.”
He put on his hat, and bidding me follow him, went out. He led me over a gush of water which, passing under the factory, turns the wheel; thence over a field or two towards a house at the foot of the mountain, where he said the steward of Sir Watkin lived, of whom it would be as well to apply for permission to ascend the hill, as it was Sir Watkin’s ground. The steward was not at home; his wife was, however, and she, when we told her we wished to go to the top of Owain Glendower’s Hill, gave us permission with a smile. We thanked her, and proceeded to mount the hill, or monticle, once the residence of the great Welsh chieftain, whom his own deeds and the pen of Shakespear have rendered immortal.
Owen Glendower’s hill, or mount, at Sycharth, unlike the one bearing his name on the banks of the Dee, is not an artificial hill, but the work of nature, save and except that to a certain extent it has been modified by the hand of man. It is somewhat conical, and consists of two steps, or gradations, where two fosses scooped out of the hill go round it, one above the other, the lower one embracing considerably the most space. Both these fosses are about six feet deep, and at one time doubtless were bricked, as stout, large, red bricks are yet to be seen, here and there, in their sides. The top of the mount is just twenty-five feet across. When I visited it, it was covered with grass, but had once been subjected to the plough, as various furrows indicated. The monticle stands not far from the western extremity of the valley, nearly midway between two hills which confront each other north and south, the one to the south being the hill which I had descended, and the other a beautiful wooded height which is called in the parlance of the country Llwyn Sycharth, or the grove of Sycharth, from which comes the little gush of water which I had crossed, and which now turns the wheel of the factory, and once turned that of Owen Glendower’s mill, and filled his two moats; part of the water, by some mechanical means, having been forced up the eminence. On the top of this hill, or monticle, in a timber house, dwelt the great Welshman, Owen Glendower, with his wife, a comely, kindly woman, and his progeny, consisting of stout boys and blooming girls, and there, though wonderfully cramped for want of room, he feasted bards, who requited his hospitality with alliterative odes very difficult to compose, and which at the present day only a few bookworms understand. There he dwelt for many years, the virtual, if not the nominal, king of North Wales; occasionally, no doubt, looking down with self-complaisance from the top of his fastness on the parks and fish-ponds, of which he had several; his mill, his pigeon tower, his ploughed lands, and the cottages of a thousand retainers, huddled round the lower part of the hill, or strewn about the valley; and there he might have lived and died, had not events caused him to draw the sword and engage in a war, at the termination of which Sycharth was a fire-scathed ruin, and himself a broken-hearted old man in anchorite’s weeds, living in a cave on the estate of Sir John Scudamore, the great Herefordshire proprietor, who married his daughter Elen, his only surviving child.
After I had been a considerable time on the hill, looking about me and asking questions of my guide, I took out a piece of silver and offered it to him, thanking him at the same time for the trouble he had taken in showing me the place. He refused it, saying that I was quite welcome.
“I will not take it,” said he; “but if you come to my house and have a cup of coffee, you may give sixpence to my old woman.”
“I will come,” said I, “in a short time. In the meanwhile, do you go; I wish to be alone.”
“What do you want to do?”
“To sit down and endeavour to recall Glendower, and the times that are past.”
The fine fellow looked puzzled; at last he said, “Very well,” shrugged his shoulders, and descended the hill.