In Half A Minute They Disposed Themselves In Much The Same Manner
As That In Which They Were When I
First saw them - some flung
themselves again to sleep under the wall, some seated themselves
with their backs against it,
And laughed and chatted, but without
taking any notice of me; those who sat and chatted took, or
appeared to take, as little notice as those who lay and slept of
his reverence Father Toban.
CHAPTER XLII
Gage of Suffolk - Fellow in a Turban - Town of Holyhead - Father
Boots - An Expedition - Holy Head and Finisterrae - Gryffith ab
Cynan - The Fairies' Well.
LEAVING the pier I turned up a street to the south, and was not
long before I arrived at a kind of market-place, where were carts
and stalls, and on the ground, on cloths, apples and plums, and
abundance of greengages, - the latter, when good, decidedly the
finest fruit in the world, a fruit, for the introduction of which
into England, the English have to thank one Gage of an ancient
Suffolk family, at present extinct, after whose name the fruit
derives the latter part of its appellation. Strolling about the
market-place I came in contact with a fellow dressed in a turban
and dirty blue linen robes and trowsers. He bore a bundle of
papers in his hand, one of which he offered to me. I asked him who
he was.
"Arap," he replied.
He had a dark, cunning, roguish countenance, with small eyes, and
had all the appearance of a Jew. I spoke to him in what Arabic I
could command on a sudden, and he jabbered to me in a corrupt
dialect, giving me a confused account of a captivity which he had
undergone amidst savage Mahometans. At last I asked him what
religion he was of.
"The Christian," he replied.
"Have you ever been of the Jewish?" said I.
He returned no answer save by a grin.
I took the paper, gave him a penny, and then walked away. The
paper contained an account in English of how the bearer, the son of
Christian parents, had been carried into captivity by two Mahometan
merchants, a father and son, from whom he had escaped with the
greatest difficulty.
"Pretty fools," said I, "must any people have been who ever stole
you; but oh what fools if they wished to keep you after they had
got you!"
The paper was stuffed with religious and anti-slavery cant, and
merely wanted a little of the teetotal nonsense to be a perfect
specimen of humbug.
I strolled forward, encountering more carts and more heaps of
greengages; presently I turned to the right by a street, which led
some way up the hill. The houses were tolerably large and all
white. The town, with its white houses placed by the seaside, on
the skirt of a mountain, beneath a blue sky and a broiling sun, put
me something in mind of a Moorish piratical town, in which I had
once been. Becoming soon tired of walking about, without any
particular aim, in so great a heat, I determined to return to the
inn, call for ale, and deliberate on what I had best next do. So I
returned and called for ale. The ale which was brought was not ale
which I am particularly fond of. The ale which I am fond of is ale
about nine or ten months old, somewhat hard, tasting well of malt
and little of the hop - ale such as farmers, and noblemen too, of
the good old time, when farmers' daughters did not play on pianos
and noblemen did not sell their game, were in the habit of offering
to both high and low, and drinking themselves. The ale which was
brought me was thin washy stuff, which though it did not taste much
of hop, tasted still less of malt, made and sold by one Allsopp,
who I am told calls himself a squire and a gentleman - as he
certainly may with quite as much right as many a lord calls himself
a nobleman and a gentleman; for surely it is not a fraction more
trumpery to make and sell ale than to fatten and sell game. The
ale of the Saxon squire, for Allsopp is decidedly an old Saxon
name, however unakin to the practice of old Saxon squires the
selling of ale may be, was drinkable for it was fresh, and the day,
as I have said before, exceedingly hot; so I took frequent draughts
out of the shining metal tankard in which it was brought,
deliberating both whilst drinking, and in the intervals of
drinking, on what I had next best do. I had some thoughts of
crossing to the northern side of the bay, then, bearing the north-
east, wend my way to Amlwch, follow the windings of the sea-shore
to Mathafarn eithaf and Pentraeth Coch, and then return to Bangor,
after which I could boast that I had walked round the whole of
Anglesey, and indeed trodden no inconsiderable part of the way
twice. Before coming, however, to any resolution, I determined to
ask the advice of my friend the boots on the subject. So I
finished my ale, and sent word by the waiter that I wished to speak
to him; he came forthwith, and after communicating my deliberations
to him in a few words I craved his counsel. The old man, after
rubbing his right forefinger behind his right ear for about a
quarter of a minute, inquired if I meant to return to Bangor, and
on my telling him that it would be necessary for me to do so, as I
intended to walk back to Llangollen by Caernarvon and Beth Gelert,
strongly advised me to return to Bangor by the railroad train,
which would start at seven in the evening, and would convey me
thither in an hour and a half. I told him that I hated railroads,
and received for answer that he had no particular liking for them
himself, but that he occasionally made use of them on a pinch, and
supposed that I likewise did the same.
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