I reached Newport at about half-past four and put up at a large and handsome inn called the King’s Head. During dinner the waiter unasked related to me his history. He was a short thick fellow of about forty, with a very disturbed and frightened expression of countenance. He said that he was a native of Brummagem, and had lived very happily at an inn there as waiter, but at length had allowed himself to be spirited away to an establishment high up in Wales amidst the scenery. That very few visitors came to the establishment, which was in a place so awfully lonesome that he soon became hipped and was more than once half in a mind to fling himself into a river which ran before the door and moaned dismally. That at last he thought his best plan would be to decamp, and accordingly took French leave early one morning. That after many frights and much fatigue he had found himself at Newport and taken service at the King’s Head, but did not feel comfortable and was frequently visited at night by dreadful dreams. That he should take the first opportunity of getting to Brummagem, though he was afraid that he should not be able to get into his former place owing to his ungrateful behaviour. He then uttered a rather eloquent eulogium on the beauties of the black capital, and wound up all by saying that he would rather be a brazier’s dog at Brummagem than head waiter at the best establishment in Wales.
After dinner I took up a newspaper and found in it an account of the battle of Inkerman, which appeared to have been fought on the fifth of November, the very day on which I had ascended Plinlymmon. I was sorry to find that my countrymen had suffered dreadfully, and would have been utterly destroyed but for the opportune arrival of the French. “In my childhood,” said I, “the Russians used to help us against the French; now the French help us against the Russians. Who knows but before I die I may see the Russians helping the French against us?”
CHAPTER CVIII
Town of Newport—The Usk—Note of Recognition—An Old Acquaintance—Connamara Quean—The Wake—The Wild Irish—The Tramping Life—Business and Prayer—Methodists—Good Counsel.
Newport is a large town in Monmouthshire, and had once walls and a castle. It is called in Welsh Cas Newydd ar Wysg, or the New Castle upon the Usk. It stands some miles below Caerlleon ar Wysg, and was probably built when that place, at one time one of the most considerable towns in Britain, began to fall into decay. The Wysg or Usk has its source among some wild hills in the south-west of Breconshire, and, after absorbing several smaller streams, amongst which is the Hondu, at the mouth of which Brecon stands, which on that account is called in Welsh Aber Hondu, and traversing the whole of Monmouthshire, enters the Bristol Channel near Newport, to which place vessels of considerable burden can ascend. Wysg or Usk is an ancient British word, signifying water, and is the same as the Irish word uisge or whiskey, for whiskey, though generally serving to denote a spirituous liquor, in great vogue amongst the Irish, means simply water. The proper term for the spirit is uisquebaugh, literally acqua vitæ, but the compound being abbreviated by the English, who have always been notorious for their habit of clipping words, one of the strongest of spirits is now generally denominated by a word which is properly expressive of the simple element water.
Monmouthshire is at present considered an English county, though certainly with little reason, for it not only stands on the western side of the Wye, but the names of almost all its parishes are Welsh, and many thousands of its population still speak the Welsh language. It is called in Welsh Sir, or Shire, Fynwy, and takes its name from the town Mynwy or Monmouth, which receives its own appellation from the river Mynwy or Minno on which it stands. There is a river of much the same name, not in Macedon, but in the Peninsula, namely the Minho, which probably got its denomination from that race cognate to the Cumry, the Gael, who were the first colonisers of the Peninsula, and whose generic name yet stares us in the face and salutes our ears in the words Galicia and Portugal.
I left Newport at about ten o’clock on the 16th, the roads were very wet, there having been a deluge of rain during the night. The morning was a regular November one, dull and gloomy. Desirous of knowing whereabouts in these parts the Welsh language ceased I interrogated several people whom I met. First spoke to Esther Williams. She told me she came from Pennow some miles farther on, that she could speak Welsh, and that indeed all the people could for at least eight miles to the east of Newport. This latter assertion of hers was, however, anything but corroborated by a young woman, with a pitcher on her head, whom I shortly afterwards met, for she informed me that she could speak no Welsh, and that for one who could speak it, from where I was to the place where it ceased altogether, there were ten who could not. I believe the real fact is that about half the people for seven or eight miles to the east of Newport speak Welsh, more or less, as about half those whom I met and addressed in Welsh answered me in that tongue.
Passed through Penow or Penhow, a small village. The scenery in the neighbourhood of this place is highly interesting. To the north-west at some distance is Mynydd Turvey, a sharp-pointed blue mountain. To the south-east, on the right, much nearer, are two beautiful green hills, the lowest prettily wooded, and having on its top a fair white mansion called Penhow Castle, which belongs to a family of the name of Cave. Thence to Llanvaches, a pretty little village. When I was about the middle of this place I heard an odd sound something like a note of recognition, which attracted my attention to an object very near to me, from which it seemed to proceed, and which was coming from the direction in which I was going. It was the figure seemingly of a female, wrapped in a coarse blue cloak, the feet bare and the legs bare also nearly up to the knee, both terribly splashed with the slush of the road. The head was surmounted by a kind of hood which just permitted me to see coarse red hair, a broad face, grey eyes, a snubbed nose, blubber lips and great white teeth—the eyes were staring intently at me. I stopped and stared too, and at last thought I recognised the features of the uncouth girl I had seen on the green near Chester with the Irish tinker Tourlough and his wife.
“Dear me!” said I, “did I not see you near Chester last summer?”
“To be sure ye did; and ye were going to pass me without a word of notice or kindness had I not given ye a bit of a hail.”