s about six feet two inches high, immensely broad in the
shoulders, and could hardly have weighed less than sixteen stone. I gave
him the seal of the morning, and asked whether he was Welsh or English.

"English, Measter, English; born t'other side of Beeston, pure Cheshire,
Measter."

"I suppose," said I, "there are few Welshmen such big fellows as
yourself."

"No, Measter," said the fellow, with a grin, "there are few Welshmen so
big as I, or yourself either; they are small men mostly, Measter, them
Welshers, very small men--and yet the fellows can use their hands. I am
a bit of a fighter, Measter, at least I was before my wife made me join
the Methodist connection, and I once fit with a Welshman at Wrexham, he
came from the hills, and was a real Welshman, and shorter than myself by
a whole head and shoulder, but he stood up against me, and gave me more
than play for my money, till I gripped him, flung him down and myself
upon him, and then of course t'was all over with him."

"You are a noble fellow," said I, "and a credit to Cheshire. Will you
have sixpence to drink?"

"Thank you, Measter, I shall stop at Pulford, and shall be glad to drink
your health in a jug of ale."

I gave him sixpence, and descended the hill on one side, while he, with
his team, descended it on the other.

"A genuine Saxon," said I; "I daresay just like many of those who, under
Hengist, subdued the plains of Lloegr and Britain. Taliesin called the
Saxon race the Coiling Serpent. He had better have called it the Big
Bull. He was a noble poet, however: what wonderful lines, upon the
whole, are those in his prophecy, in which he speaks of the Saxons and
Britons, and of the result of their struggle--

"A serpent which coils,
And with fury boils,
From Germany coming with arm'd wings spread,
Shall subdue and shall enthrall
The broad Britain all,
From the Lochlin ocean to Severn's bed.

"And British men
Shall be captives then
To strangers from Saxonia's strand;
They shall praise their God, and hold
Their language as of old,
But except wild Wales they shall lose their land."

I arrived at Wrexham, and having taken a very hearty breakfast at the
principal inn, for I felt rather hungry after a morning's walk of ten
miles, I walked about the town. The town is reckoned a Welsh town, but
its appearance is not Welsh--its inhabitants have neither the look nor
lang