Looking at me in a piteous manner in the face, he pointed to the side of his head and said:
It was no longer no English, but no hearing.
Presently I met one yet more deaf. A large procession of men came along the road. Some distance behind them was a band of women, and between the two bands was a kind of bier, drawn by a horse, with plumes at each of the four corners. I took off my hat, and stood close against the hedge on the right-hand side till the dead had passed me some way to its final home.
Crossed a river, which, like that on the other side of Cemmaes, streamed down from a gully between two hills into the valley of the Dyfi. Beyond the bridge on the right-hand side of the road was a pretty cottage, just as there was in the other locality. A fine, tall woman stood at the door, with a little child beside her. I stopped and inquired in English whose body it was that had just been borne by.
“That of a young man, sir, the son of a farmer, who lives a mile or so up the road.”
Myself.—He seems to have plenty of friends.
Woman.—O yes, sir, the Welsh have plenty of friends both in life and death.
Myself.—An’t you Welsh, then?
Woman.—O no, sir, I am English, like yourself, as I suppose.