I Spoke
To Her In Welsh, And Found She Could Only Speak English.
"Truly,"
said I to myself, "I am on the borders.
What a mixture of races
and languages!" The next person I met was a man in a collier's
dress; he was a stout-built fellow of the middle age, with a coal-
dusty surly countenance. I asked him in Welsh if I was in the
right direction for Wrexham, he answered in a surly manner in
English, that I was. I again spoke to him in Welsh, making some
indifferent observation on the weather, and he answered in English
yet more gruffly than before. For the third time I spoke to him in
Welsh, whereupon looking at me with a grin of savage contempt, and
showing a set of teeth like those of a mastiff, he said, "How's
this? why you haven't a word of English? A pretty fellow you, with
a long coat on your back and no English on your tongue, an't you
ashamed of yourself? Why, here am I in a short coat, yet I'd have
you to know that I can speak English as well as Welsh, aye and a
good deal better." "All people are not equally clebber," said I,
still speaking Welsh. "Clebber," said he, "clebber! what is
clebber? why can't you say clever! Why, I never saw such a low,
illiterate fellow in my life;" and with these words he turned away
with every mark of disdain, and entered a cottage near at hand.
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