or knowing anything of Welsh matters, remember that it was an Englishman
who told you the Welsh word for salmon, and likewise the name of the
Welshman who wrote the song in which the gleisiad is mentioned."

The ale was very good and so were the bread and cheese. The ale indeed
was so good that I ordered a second jug. Observing a large antique
portrait over the mantel-piece I got up to examine it. It was that of a
gentleman in a long wig, and underneath it was painted in red letters
"Sir Watkin Wynn: 1742." It was doubtless the portrait of the Sir Watkin
who, in 1745 was committed to the tower under suspicion of being
suspected of holding Jacobite opinions, and favouring the Pretender. The
portrait was a very poor daub, but I looked at it long and attentively as
a memorial of Wales at a critical and long past time.

When we had dispatched the second jug of ale, and I had paid the
reckoning, we departed and soon came to where stood a turnpike house at a
junction of two roads, to each of which was a gate.

"Now, sir," said John Jones, "the way straight forward is the ffordd
newydd, and the one on our right hand is the hen ffordd. Which shall we
follow, the new or the old?"

"There is a proverb in the Gerniweg," said I, "which was the language of
my forefathers, saying, 'ne'er leave the old way for the new,' we will
therefore go by the hen ffordd."

"Very good, sir," said my guide, "that is the path I always go, for it is
the shortest." So we turned to the right and followed the old road.
Perhaps, however, it would have been well had we gone by the new, for the
hen ffordd was a very dull and uninteresting road, whereas the ffordd
newydd, as I long subsequently found, is one of the grandest passes in
Wales. After we had walked a short distance my guide said, "Now, sir, if
you will turn a little way to the left hand I will show you a house,
built in the old style, such a house, sir, as I daresay the original turf
tavern was." Then leading me a little way from the road he showed me,
under a hollow bank, a small cottage covered with flags.

"That is a house, sir, built yn yr hen dull in the old fashion, of earth,
flags and wattles and in one night. It was the custom of old when a
house was to be built, for the people to assemble, and to build it in one
night of common materials, close at hand. The custom is not quite dead.
I was at the building of this myself, and a merry building it was. The
cwrw da passed qu