“Well, so I did, your honour; I told him about the salve, and the Duke listened to me, and the salve was made by these very hands; but when it was made, what do you think? the foolish Welsh wouldn’t put it on, saying that it was against their laws and statties and religion to use it, and talked about Devil’s salves and the Witch of Endor, and the sin against the Holy Ghost, and such-like nonsense. So to prevent a regular rebellion, the Duke gave up the salve and the poor sheep pined away and died, till at last there was not one left.”
“Who holds the estate at present?” said I.
“Why, a great gentleman from Lancashire, your honour, who bought it when the Duke died; but he doesn’t take the same pleasure in it which the Duke did, nor spend so much money about it, the consequence being that everything looks very different from what it looked in the Duke’s time. The inn at the Devil’s Bridge and the grounds look very different from what they looked in the Duke’s time, for you must know that the inn and the grounds form part of the Hafod estate, and are hired from the proprietor.”
By this time we had arrived at a small village, with a toll-bar and a small church or chapel at some little distance from the road, which here made a turn nearly full south. The road was very good, but the country was wild and rugged; there was a deep vale on the right, at the bottom of which rolled the Rheidol in its cleft, rising beyond which were steep, naked hills.
“This village,” said my companion, “is called Ysbytty Cynfyn. Down on the right, past the church, is a strange bridge across the Rheidol, which runs there through a horrid kind of a place. The bridge is called Pont yr Offeiriad, or the Parson’s Bridge, because in the old time the clergyman passed over it every Sunday to do duty in the church here.”
“Why is this place called Ysbytty Cynfyn?” said I, “which means the hospital of the first boundary; is there a hospital of the second boundary near here?”
“I can’t say anything about boundaries, your honour; all I know is, that there is another Spytty farther on beyond Hafod called Ysbytty Ystwyth, or the ’Spytty upon the Ystwyth. But to return to the matter of the Minister’s Bridge: I would counsel your honour to go and see that bridge before you leave these parts. A vast number of gentry go to see it in the summer time. It was the bridge which the landlord was mentioning last night, though it scarcely belongs to his district, being quite as near the Devil’s Bridge inn, as it is to his own, your honour.”
We went on discoursing for about half-a-mile farther, when, stopping by a road which branched off to the hills on the left, my companion said, “I must now wish your honour good day, being obliged to go a little way up here to a mining work on a small bit of business; my son, however, and his dog Joe will show your honour the way to the Devil’s Bridge, as they are bound to a place a little way past it. I have now but one word to say, which is, that should ever your honour please to visit me at my mine, your honour shall receive every facility for inspecting the works, and moreover have a bellyfull of drink and victuals from Jock Greaves, miner from the county of Durham.”
I shook the honest fellow by the hand and went on in company with the lad John and his dog as far as the Devil’s Bridge. John was a highly intelligent lad, spoke Welsh and English fluently, could read, as he told me, both languages, and had some acquaintance with the writings of Twm o’r Nant, as he showed by repeating the following lines of the carter poet, certainly not the worst which he ever wrote:—
“Twm o’r Nant mae cant a’m galw
Tomas Edwards yw fy enw.Tom O Nant is a nickname I’ve got,
My name’s Thomas Edwards, I wot.”