ant was now up,) "if any
foreign, half Welsh, half wild Indian, sort of gentleman had sent his
fine letters, asking my sweetheart's friends to turn _me_ off, in my
courting days, and prepare my wench to be his lady, instead of my
wife--I'd have--I'd have"--

"_What_ would you have done?" asked the other, laughing heartily.

"Cursed him to St Elian!" roared the other; then, dropping his voice
into a solemn tone, "put him into his well.[21] _I'd_ have plagued him,
I warrant. But for _my_ part," added the man archly, "I don't believe
there's any _squire_ lover in the case--nor that your honour ever said
there is." The agent here vanished, as if in haste, abruptly, down the
steep path.

During this conversation, Winifred had reached the river. While she
stands expectant, not in happiness, but in tears, it is time to say a
few words of the lover so expected.

David, who was lately become known "on t'other side Tivy," by the name
of _Nosdethiol Telynwr_, that is, "night-walking harper," was an idle
romantic young man, almost grown out of youth, who had long lived away
from Wales, where he had neither relative nor friend but one aged woman
who had been his first nurse, he having been early left an orphan.
Without settled occupation or habits, he was understood almost to depend
for bread on the salmon he caught, and trifling presents received. A
small portable harp, of elegant workmanship, (adorned with "_real_
silver," so _ran the tale_,) was the companion of his moonlight
wanderings. He had a whim of serenading those who had never heard of a
"serenade," but were not the less sensible of a placid pleasure at being
awakened by soft music in some summer sight. The simple mountain
cottagers, whose slumbers he thus broke or soothed, often attributed the
sweet sounds to the kindness of some wandering member of the "Fair
Family," or _Tylwyth Teg_, the fairies. Nor did his figure, if
discovered vanishing between the trees, if some one ventured to peep
out, in a light night, dispel the illusion; for it appears, that the
fairy of old Welsh superstition was not of diminutive stature."[22] That
he was "very learned," had somewhere acquired much knowledge of books,
however little of men, was reported on both sides of the river; and
these few particulars were almost all that was known even to Winifred,
who had so rashly given all her thoughts, all her hopes, all her heart
almost, (reserving only one sacred corner for her beloved parent