Morning - A Cheerless Scene - The Carter - Ode to Glamorgan -Startling Halloo - One-sided Liberty - Clerical Profession - De Courcy - Love of the Drop - Independent Spirit - Another People.
I SLEPT soundly through the night. At about eight o'clock on the following morning I got up and looked out of the window of my room, which fronted the north. A strange scene presented itself: a roaring brook was foaming along towards the west, just under the window. Immediately beyond it was a bank, not of green turf, grey rock, or brown mould, but of coal rubbish, coke and cinders; on the top of this bank was a fellow performing some dirty office or other, with a spade and barrow; beyond him, on the side of a hill, was a tramway, up which a horse was straining, drawing a load of something towards the north-west. Beyond the tramway was a grove of yellow-looking firs; beyond the grove a range of white houses with blue roofs, occupied, I suppose, by miners and their families;and beyond these I caught a sight of the mountain on the top of which I had been the night before - only a partial one, however, as large masses of mist were still hanging about it. The morning was moist and dripping, and nothing could look more cheerless and uncomfortable than the entire scene.
I put on my things, which were still not half dry, and went down into the little parlour, where I found an excellent fire awaiting me, and a table spread for breakfast. The breakfast was delicious, consisting of excellent tea, buttered toast, and Glamorgan sausages, which I really think are not a whit inferior to those of Epping. After breakfast I went into the kitchen, which was now only occupied by two or three people. Seeing a large brush on a dresser, I took it up, and was about to brush my nether habiliments, which were terribly bespattered with half-dried mire.
Before, however, I could begin, up started one of the men, a wild, shock-headed fellow dressed like a carter, in rough blue frieze coat, yellow, broad corduroy trowsers, grey woollen stockings and highlows, and snatching the brush out of my hand, fell to brushing me most vigorously, puffing and blowing all the time in a most tremendous manner. I did not refuse his services, but let him go on, and to reward him as I thought, spoke kindly to him, asking him various questions. "Are you a carter?" said I. No answer. "One of Twm O'r Nant's people?" No answer. "Famous fellow that Twm O'r Nant, wasn't he? Did you ever hear how he got the great tree in at Carmarthen Gate? What is wood per foot at present? Whom do you cart for? Or are you your own master? If so, how many horses do you keep?"To not one of these questions, nor to a dozen others which I put, both in English and Welsh, did my friend with the brush return any verbal answer, though I could occasionally hear a kind of stifled giggle proceeding from him. Having at length thoroughly brushed not only my clothes, but my boots and my hat, which last article he took from my head, and placed it on again very dexterously, after brushing it, he put the brush down on the dresser, and then advancing to me made me a bow, and waving his forefinger backwards and forwards before my face, he said, with a broad grin: "Nice gentleman - will do anything for him but answer questions, and let him hear my discourse. Love to listen to his pleasant stories of foreign lands, ghosts and tylwith teg; but before him, deem it wise to be mum, quite mum. Know what he comes about. Wants to hear discourse of poor man, that he may learn from it poor man's little ways and infirmities, and mark them down in one small, little book to serve for fun to Lord Palmerston and the other great gentlefolks in London. Nice man, civil man, I don't deny; and clebber man too, for he knows Welsh, and has been everywhere - but fox - old fox -lives at Plas y Cadno." (18)
Having been informed that there was a considerable iron foundry close by, I thought it would be worth my while to go and see it. Ientered the premises, and was standing and looking round, when a man with the appearance of a respectable mechanic came up and offered to show me over the place. I gladly accepted his offer, and he showed me all about the iron foundry. I saw a large steam-engine at full play, terrible furnaces, and immense heaps of burning, crackling cinders, and a fiery stream of molten metal rolling along. After seeing what there was to be seen, I offered a piece of silver to my kind conductor, which he at once refused. On my asking him, however, to go to the inn and have a friendly glass, he smiled, and said he had no objection. So we went to the inn, and had two friendly glasses of whiskey-and-water together, and also some discourse. I asked him if there were any English employed on the premises. "None," said he, "nor Irish either; we are all Welsh." Though he was a Welshman, his name was a very common English one.
After paying the reckoning, which only amounted to three and sixpence, I departed for Swansea, distant about thirteen miles.
Gutter Vawr consists of one street, extending for some little way along the Swansea road, the foundry, and a number of huts and houses scattered here and there. The population is composed almost entirely of miners, the workers at the foundry, and their families.
For the first two or three miles the country through which I passed did not at all prepossess me in favour of Glamorganshire: it consisted of low, sullen, peaty hills. Subsequently, however, it improved rapidly, becoming bold, wild, and pleasantly wooded. The aspect of the day improved, also, with the appearance of the country. When I first started the morning was wretched and drizzly, but in less than an hour it cleared up wonderfully, and the sun began to flash out. As I looked on the bright luminary Ithought of Ab Gwilym's ode to the sun and Glamorgan, and with breast heaving and with eyes full of tears, I began to repeat parts of it, or rather of a translation made in my happy boyish years:-"Each morn, benign of countenance, Upon Glamorgan's pennon glance!