"Who was it, your honour? why, the Duke of Newcastle.""Dear me!" said I, "how came you to know him?""Why, your honour, he lived at a place not far from here, called Hafod, and so - ""Hafod?" said I; "I have often heard of Hafod and its library; but I thought it belonged to an old Welsh family called Johnes.""Well, so it did, your honour, but the family died away, and the estate was put up for sale, and purchased by the Duke, who built a fine house upon it, which he made his chief place of residence -the old family house, I must tell your honour, in which the library was, had been destroyed by fire. Well, he hadn't been long settled there before he found me out and took wonderfully to me, discoursing with me and consulting me about his farming and improvements. Many is the pleasant chat and discourse I have had with his Grace for hours and hours together, for his Grace had not a bit of pride, at least he never showed any to me, though perhaps the reason of that was that we were both north country people.
Lord! I would have laid down my life for his Grace and have done anything but one which he once asked me to do. 'Greaves,' said the Duke to me one day, 'I wish you would give up mining and become my steward.' 'Sorry I can't oblige your Grace,' said I, 'but give up mining I cannot. I will at any time give your Grace all the advice I can about farming and such like, but give up mining I cannot;because why? - I conceive mining to be the noblest business in the 'versal world.' Whereupon his Grace laughed, and said he dare say I was right, and never mentioned the subject again.""Was his Grace very fond of farming and improving?""Oh yes, your honour. Like all the great gentry, especially the north country gentry, his Grace was wonderfully fond of farming and improving; and a wonderful deal of good he did, reclaiming thousands of acres of land which was before good for nothing, and building capital farm-houses and offices for his tenants. His grand feat, however, was bringing the Durham bull into this country, which formed a capital cross with the Welsh cows. Pity that he wasn't equally fortunate with the north country sheep.""Did he try to introduce them into Wales?""Yes, but they didn't answer, as I knew they wouldn't. Says I to the Duke: 'It won't do, your Grace, to bring the north country sheep here: because why? the hills are too wet and cold for their constitutions'; but his Grace, who had sometimes a will of his own, persisted and brought the north country sheep to these parts, and it turned out as I said - the sheep caught the disease, and the wool parted and - ""But," said I, "you should have told him about the salve made of bran, butter and oil; you should have done that.""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 bellyful 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 or 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."