[Wild Wales by George Borrow]@TWC D-Link bookWild Wales CHAPTER XX 6/14
The valley is very narrow, huge hills overhanging it on both sides, those on the east side lumpy and bare, those on the west precipitous, and partially clad with wood; the torrent Ceiriog runs down it, clinging to the east side; the road is tolerably good, and is to the west of the stream.
Shortly after we had entered the gorge, we passed by a small farm-house on our right hand, with a hawthorn hedge before it, upon which seems to stand a peacock, curiously cut out of thorn.
Passing on we came to a place called Pandy uchaf, or the higher Fulling mill. The place so called is a collection of ruinous houses, which put me in mind of the Fulling mills mentioned in "Don Quixote." It is called the Pandy because there was formerly a fulling mill here, said to have been the first established in Wales; which is still to be seen, but which is no longer worked.
Just above the old mill there is a meeting of streams, the Tarw from the west rolls down a dark valley into the Ceiriog. At the entrance of this valley and just before you reach the Pandy, which it nearly overhangs, is an enormous crag.
After I had looked at the place for some time with considerable interest we proceeded towards the south, and in about twenty minutes reached a neat kind of house, on our right hand, which John Jones told me stood on the ground of Huw Morris. Telling me to wait, he went to the house, and asked some questions. After a little time I followed him and found him discoursing at the door with a stout dame about fifty-five years of age, and a stout buxom damsel of about seventeen, very short of stature. "This is the gentleman," said he, "who wishes to see anything there may be here connected with Huw Morris." The old dame made me a curtsey, and said in very distinct Welsh, "We have some things in the house which belonged to him, and we will show them to the gentleman willingly." "We first of all wish to see his chair," said John Jones. "The chair is in a wall in what is called the hen ffordd (old road)," said the old gentlewoman; "it is cut out of the stone wall, you will have maybe some difficulty in getting to it, but the girl shall show it to you." The girl now motioned to us to follow her, and conducted us across the road to some stone steps, over a wall to a place which looked like a plantation. "This was the old road," said Jones; "but the place has been enclosed. The new road is above us on our right hand beyond the wall." We were in a maze of tangled shrubs, the boughs of which, very wet from the rain which was still falling, struck our faces, as we attempted to make our way between them; the girl led the way, bare-headed and bare-armed, and soon brought us to the wall, the boundary of the new road.
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