Читать книгу The Pedestrian's Guide through North Wales - G. J. Bennett - Страница 9

Table of Contents

Walk to Montford Bridge—The Severn—An agreeable companion—Delights of a Tourist—Histrionic Ambition—Wittington—The Castle—The Church—Curious Epitaphs.

“Oh Wittington, among thy towers

Pleas’d did my early childhood stray,

Bask’d on thy walls in sunny hours

And pull’d thy moss and pluck’d thy flowers

Full many a truant day.”

FITZ-GWARINE.

After breakfasting at the inn, I, like the honorable Dick Dowlass, with my wardrobe on my back, and a light heart, proceeded on the road to Chirk.

The Severn, to the right, winded beautifully towards the ancient town I left behind. Bees hummed—birds sang—and blossoms sent forth their fragrance to delight the traveller as he gaily trudged “the footpath way.” Cheerfulness was above, beneath, around me, and in my heart. I paused upon the bridge at Montford, to take a lingering farewell of the sweet flowing Severn, its wooded banks and meadows gay; and was about to commence a sublime soliloquy, when I was accosted by an elderly personage in a straw hat, fustian shooting coat, knee-breeches, gaiters and shoes. He had a stout cudgel in his hand, and a knapsack, more capacious than mine, strapped across his shoulders. He appeared to be about fifty-five years of age, and being furnished like myself, it struck me that a passing traveller might naturally enough take us for father and son.

Fortunately we were both pursuing the same route, and a desultory dialogue commenced with the never failing observation:

“A fine morning, sir.”

“Very.”

“A noble river this, sir?”

“Beautiful.”

“A great admirer of the charms of nature, I presume, sir?”

“An enthusiastic one.”

“You’re for the Welsh vales, I suppose?”

“And mountains high!” I exclaimed, warming to my loquacious companion.

“In the Welsh vales ’mid mountains high,”

sang he, in a hearty, round-toned voice, with which I chimed in, and we were the best friends, on a sudden.

There certainly is no society so interesting as that picked up by the tourist, who leaves with contempt the starched formalities of a great city behind him, and walks forth, unencumbered by care, to enjoy the society of mankind in its varied and unsophisticated nature. Every person we meet affords us information and delight; for a kindred spirit animates almost every individual whom you may chance to encounter in countries remarkable for beauties of scenery, and especially in a region like North Wales, where inns of the best kind are situated at the most convenient points, and the foot passenger is treated with as much respect as a lord in his carriage with four post horses. The landlords of inns here, think that a man may make the proper use of his legs without being a beggar; and that the costume of a pedestrian may cover the form of a gentleman. And this philanthropic conception contributes to form that happy combination, civil hosts and merry travellers.

There is no want of society, nor any difficulty in selecting that with which you are best pleased, for every evening brings in fresh comers from various quarters to the different places of rest and refreshment. The exchange of information respecting routes, the different adventures of the day, the peculiar feelings displayed in their recital, and countenances lit up with pleasure, give a degree of animation to the evening, never to be equalled in the brilliant drawing-room, the blaze of which seems to put out the eyes of reason,

“And men are—what they name not to themselves,

And trust not to each other.”

I soon discovered that my companion was a traveller of no common information; that he was a collector of legends, an antiquarian, and a geologist; and congratulated myself upon meeting with one who, as he gave me to understand, was intimately acquainted with a variety of circumstances, not generally known, which had taken place in “days of yore,” upon the very ground we were about to traverse, and which he had frequently visited before.

He had been an actor in his youth, and as the scenery between Mountford Bridge and the village of Wittington has little to engage the attention, I will here relate a portion of his early history, with which he amused me during our journey.