"Why, that is more than I can tell your hanner; my trade is to sell the books not to read them. Would your hanner like to look at them?""Oh dear no," said I; "I have long been tired of books; I have had enough of them.""I daresay, your hanner; from the state of your hanner's eyes Ishould say as much; they look so weak - picking up learning has ruined your hanner's sight.""May I ask," said I, "from what country you are?""Sure your hanner may; and it is a civil answer you will get from Michael Sullivan. It is from ould Ireland I am, from Castlebar in the county Mayo.""And how came you into Wales?"
"From the hope of bettering my condition, your hanner, and a foolish hope it was.""You have not bettered your condition, then?""I have not, your hanner; for I suffer quite as much hunger and thirst as ever I did in ould Ireland.""Did you sell books in Ireland?"
"I did nat, yer hanner; I made buttons and clothes - that is Ipieced them. I was several trades in ould Ireland, your hanner;but none of them answering, I came over here.""Where you commenced book-selling?" said I.
"I did nat, your hanner. I first sold laces, and then I sold loocifers, and then something else; I have followed several trades in Wales, your hanner; at last I got into the book-selling trade, in which I now am.""And it answers, I suppose, as badly as the others?""Just as badly, your hanner; divil a bit better.""I suppose you never beg?"
"Your hanner may say that; I was always too proud to beg. It is begging I laves to the wife I have.""Then you have a wife?"
"I have, your hanner; and a daughter, too; and a good wife and daughter they are. What would become of me without them I do not know.""Have you been long in Wales?"
"Not very long, your hanner; only about twenty years.""Do you travel much about?"
"All over North Wales, your hanner; to say nothing of the southern country.""I suppose you speak Welsh?"
"Not a word, your hanner. The Welsh speak their language so fast, that divil a word could I ever contrive to pick up.""Do you speak Irish?"
"I do, yer hanner; that is when people spake to me in it."I spoke to him in Irish; after a little discourse he said in English:
"I see your hanner is a Munster man. Ah! all the learned men comes from Munster. Father Toban comes from Munster.""I have heard of him once or twice before," said I.
"I daresay your hanner has. Every one has heard of Father Toban;the greatest scholar in the world, who they, say stands a better chance of being made Pope, some day or other, than any saggart in Ireland.""Will you take sixpence?"
"I will, your hanner; if your hanner offers it; but I never beg; Ileave that kind of work to my wife and daughter as I said before."After giving him the sixpence, which he received with a lazy "thank your hanner," I got up, and followed by my daughter returned to the town.
Henrietta went to the inn, and I again strolled about the town. As I was standing in the middle of one of the business streets Isuddenly heard a loud and dissonant gabbling, and glancing around beheld a number of wild-looking people, male and female. Wild looked the men, yet wilder the women. The men were very lightly clad, and were all barefooted and bareheaded; they carried stout sticks in their hands. The women were barefooted too, but had for the most part head-dresses; their garments consisted of blue cloaks and striped gingham gowns. All the females had common tin articles in their hands which they offered for sale with violent gestures to the people in the streets, as they walked along, occasionally darting into the shops, from which, however, they were almost invariably speedily ejected by the startled proprietors, with looks of disgust and almost horror. Two ragged, red-haired lads led a gaunt pony, drawing a creaking cart, stored with the same kind of articles of tin, which the women bore. Poorly clad, dusty and soiled as they were, they all walked with a free, independent, and almost graceful carriage.
"Are those people from Ireland?" said I to a decent-looking man, seemingly a mechanic, who stood near me, and was also looking at them, but with anything but admiration.
"I am sorry to say they are, sir;" said the man, who from his accent was evidently an Irishman, "for they are a disgrace to their country."I did not exactly think so. I thought that in many respects they were fine specimens of humanity.
"Every one of those wild fellows," said I to myself, "is worth a dozen of the poor mean-spirited book-tramper I have lately been discoursing with."In the afternoon I again passed over into Anglesey, but this time not by the bridge but by the ferry on the north-east of Bangor, intending to go to Beaumaris, about two or three miles distant: an excellent road, on the left side of which is a high bank fringed with dwarf oaks, and on the right the Menai strait, leads to it.
Beaumaris is at present a watering-place. On one side of it, close upon the sea, stand the ruins of an immense castle, once a Norman stronghold, but built on the site of a palace belonging to the ancient kings of North Wales, and a favourite residence of the celebrated Owain Gwynedd, the father of the yet more celebrated Madoc, the original discoverer of America. I proceeded at once to the castle, and clambering to the top of one of the turrets, looked upon Beaumaris Bay, and the noble rocky coast of the mainland to the south-east beyond it, the most remarkable object of which is the gigantic Penman Mawr, which interpreted is "the great head-stone," the termination of a range of craggy hills descending from the Snowdon mountains.
"What a bay!" said I, "for beauty it is superior to the far-famed one of Naples. A proper place for the keels to start from, which, unguided by the compass, found their way over the mighty and mysterious Western Ocean."I repeated all the Bardic lines I could remember connected with Madoc's expedition, and likewise many from the Madoc of Southey, not the least of Britain's four great latter poets, decidedly her best prose writer, and probably the purest and most noble character to which she has ever given birth; and then, after a long, lingering look, descended from my altitude, and returned, not by the ferry, but by the suspension bridge to the mainland.
