My
Master At Length Dying Left Me In His Will Something Handsome,
Whereupon I Determined To Be A Servant No Longer, But Married, And
Came To Llangollen, Which I Had Visited Long Before With My Master,
And Had Been Much Pleased With.
After a little time these premises
becoming vacant, I took them, and set up in the public line, more
To have something to do, than for the sake of gain, about which,
indeed, I need not trouble myself much, my poor, dear master, as I
said before, having done very handsomely by me at his death. Here
I have lived for several years, receiving strangers, and improving
my house and grounds. I am tolerably comfortable, but confess I
sometimes look back to my former roving life rather wistfully, for
there is no life so merry as the traveller's."
He was about the middle age and somewhat under the middle size. I
had a good deal of conversation with him, and was much struck with
his frank, straightforward manner. He enjoyed a high character at
Llangollen for probity and likewise for cleverness, being reckoned
an excellent gardener, and an almost unequalled cook. His master,
the travelling gentleman, might well leave him a handsome
remembrance in his will, for he had not only been an excellent and
trusty servant to him, but had once saved his life at the hazard of
his own, amongst the frightful precipices of the Alps. Such
retired gentlemen's servants, or such publicans either, as honest
A-, are not every day to be found. His grounds, principally laid
out by his own hands, exhibited an infinity of taste, and his
house, into which I looked, was a perfect picture of neatness. Any
tourist visiting Llangollen for a short period could do no better
than take up his abode at the hostelry of honest A-.
CHAPTER LVI
Ringing of Bells - Battle of Alma - The Brown Jug - Ale of
Llangollen - Reverses.
ON the third of October - I think that was the date - as my family
and myself, attended by trusty John Jones, were returning on foot
from visiting a park not far from Rhiwabon we heard, when about a
mile from Llangollen, a sudden ringing of the bells of the place,
and a loud shouting. Presently we observed a postman hurrying in a
cart from the direction of the town. "Peth yw y matter?" said John
Jones. "Y matter, y matter!" said the postman in a tone of
exultation, "Sebastopol wedi cymmeryd. Hurrah!"
"What does he say?" said my wife anxiously to me.
"Why, that Sebastopol is taken," said I.
"Then you have been mistaken," said my wife smiling, "for you
always said that the place would either not be taken at all or
would cost the allies to take it a deal of time and an immense
quantity of blood and treasure, and here it is taken at once, for
the allies only landed the other day. Well, thank God, you have
been mistaken!"
"Thank God, indeed," said I, "always supposing that I have been
mistaken - but I hardly think from what I have known of the
Russians that they would let their town - however, let us hope that
they have let it be taken.
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