"Plenty of Welsh girls are married to Englishmen at Bolton." "Do the Englishmen make good husbands ?" said I.
The woman smiled and presently sighed.
"Her husband," said Jones, "is fond of a glass of ale and is often at the public-house." "I make no complaint," said the woman, looking somewhat angrily at John Jones.
"Is your husband a tall bulky man ?" said I.
"Just so," said the woman.
"The largest of the two men we saw the other night at the public-house at Llansanfraid," said I to John Jones.
"I don't know him," said Jones, "though I have heard of him, but I have no doubt that was he." I asked the woman how her husband could carry on the trade of a clog-maker in such a remote place--and also whether he hawked his clogs about the country.
"We call him a clog-maker," said the woman, "but the truth is that he merely cuts down the wood and fashions it into squares, these are taken by an under-master who sends them to the manufacturer at Bolton, who employs hands, who make them into clogs." "Some of the English," said Jones, "are so poor that they cannot afford to buy shoes; a pair of shoes cost ten or twelve shillings, whereas a pair of clogs only cost two." "I suppose," said I, "that what you call clogs are wooden shoes." "Just so," said Jones--"they are principally used in the neighbourhood of Manchester." "I have seen them at Huddersfield," said I, "when I was a boy at school there; of what wood are they made ?" "Of the gwern, or alder tree," said the woman, "of which there is plenty on both sides of the brook." John Jones now asked her if she could give him a tamaid of bread; she said she could, "and some butter with it." She then went out and presently returned with a loaf and some butter.
"Had you not better wait," said I, "till we get to the inn at Llansanfraid ?" The woman, however, begged him to eat some bread and butter where he was, and cutting a plateful, placed it before him, having first offered me some which I declined.
"But you have nothing to drink with it," said I to him.
"If you please," said the woman, "I will go for a pint of ale to the public-house at the Pandy, there is better ale there than at the inn at Llansanfraid.

When my husband goes to Llansanfraid he goes less for the ale than for the conversation, because there is little English spoken at the Pandy however good the ale." John Jones said he wanted no ale--and attacking the bread and butter speedily made an end of it; by the time he had done the storm was over, and getting up I gave the child twopence, and left the cottage with Jones.

We proceeded some way farther up the valley, till we came to a place where the ground descended a little.

Here Jones touching me on the shoulder pointed across the stream.

Following with my eye the direction of his finger, I saw two or three small sheds with a number of small reddish blocks in regular piles beneath them.