Welsh Journals

Jan., 1873. BYE-GONES. lit NOTES, QUERIES, and REPLIES, on subjects interesting to Wales and the Borders, must be addressed to 'Bye-gones,' Caxton Works, Oswestry, and not to the Editor of the paper in which they appear. Real names and addresses must be sent, in confidence, and tlie writing must be legible, and on one side the paper only. Old newspapers, books, and MS.S. carefully used and promptly returned. January 1,1873. NOTES. "BYE-GONES." " Under the designation of Bye-goncs a column of Notes, Queries, and Replies, relating to Wale3 arid the Border Counties, appears weekly in the columns of the Oswestry Advertiser, which contains much curious and antiquarian lore. These papers instead of being, like most newspaper articles, once read, then thrown aside and forgotten, are carefully preserved and re-issued in quarterly and yearly instalments, forming a volume of no small attraction for persons interested in the history and customs of by-gone times."—Archceologia Cambrcnsis, Oct., 1872. A LITTLE WELSH EOMANCE. From Camden down to Murray all Welsh tourists have romanced a little; and even Giraldus, the father of them all, and a man thought too good to be made a bishop, drew the long bow. What wonder, then, if these guides, philo¬ sophers, and friends of the travelling public are scarcely accurate, that the letter-writing class of tourists—those whose friends think it is a pity these letters should be lost, and so publish them—should be adepts at archery practice. 1 owards the end of last century one of these, a Mr Pratt, gave the world his Gleanings through Wales, Holland, and Westphalia. He seems to have been a gentleman who saw as much in walking down a street as some men would in crossing a continent; and when he departed this life he must have taken his lights with him, for no tourist since has discovered what he did. Far instance, he tells us that " Snowden and Plinlimon are covered with eternal snow; that at every cottage where he called there was milk, butter, cheese, barakerk, (sic) oat-bread, a clean -cloth, a platter of hung beef, a jug of beer, and a can of cyder !" Then he describes Barmouth—that romantic little watering-place on the west coast, how opened up by Tail way—as being built on the side of a "eolid rocky mountain, of so stupendous a height, that the first view of It, upon the traveller's approach, makes him not only tremble for himself, but for the aerial inhabitants." You can walk from the bottom to the top in ten minutes 1 The Welsh he found a most inquisitive people, and the samples iof the questions they asked him very strongly resemble Artemus Ward's method of taking the census. So oppres¬ sive do these queries become at last that Mr Pratt is W malicious enough to put the most bitter sarcasms into his ^responses." The satire is so finely veiled that perhaps my ^readers will scarcely see it, but they must try: here is the !©onversation :— I ** Question—Where did I come from ? I Answer—The other world. I Q.—Where was I going ? | A.—Out of hearing. I Q.—What was my name ? I A.— Nameless. I Q.—Where was I born ? I A.—In the moon." Now when I purpose to tell a story gleaned from this good man's ' gleanings' the field does not look promising, but by dint of a good deal of weeding out of prosy plati¬ tudes and most depressing sentiment, I hope to present « readable Little Welsh Romance. The story may be true after all; with the colours height¬ ened a bit; but as a well-known name figures in the romance, there must be some foundation for the narrative. Take it for what it is worth. The scene opens in London, just a hundred years ago, but the action chiefly takes place in Montgomeryshire. A merchant (called by the narrator Bassanio) speculates and fails, and with the small wreck of a large fortune he takes refuse in a cottage amongst "the Welsh mountains" — hills Welshmen would call them—somewhere between the towns of Welshp >ol and Montgomery. A little daughter, Amelia, only nine years of age, is the sole ob¬ ject for which the father lives, her education is his im¬ mediate duty, and provision for her future his absorbing thought. The merchant lives in strict retirement for several years, an old nurse, " the only relict of his better days," bring¬ ing up the daughter, who grows more beautiful with every year. When she is eighteen the father is attacked with grievous sickness. " The disorder was of that gradual kind that threatened to continue life after one had ceased to love it, and close in death." The daughter, overwhelmed in grief, *' sends to Montgomery and Welshpool," at which places reside "the two best doctors in Wales." That was the palmy age for doctors and doses, and the uastier the medicine the mere certain the cure—that is, provided you took enough of it. But even then faith had to be mixed with physic, and this the patient lacked. " Your goodness is always a comfort, my darling," said the sick man, " but two thousand Welsh doctors could not set me on my legs." This was highly probable, but they might have taken him off them, so, fortunately they were not summoned. He meant no slight to the faculty of Wales, however, his thoughts having turned to the memory of on© Medico who only could afford him relief, and that one was a physician of large practice in London, whom the ex- merchant had kflown in happier days. "Good heaven," exclaimed the daughter, when the father threw out bis hints, " you mean Dr . . . . ; 1 have heard you often speak of his having twice before saved your precious life, for which I have had him in my nightly prayers ever since, and shall go on blessing him to the hour of my death. O that I were a man to fetch him." The good old times, of which I speak, were not favour¬ able for the transit of fashionable London physicians to the Welsh mountains, but one would have thought that even then the postal service would have been complete enough to have conveyed a statement of the case to London in a week; and as the disease "was of that gradual kind that threatened to continue," not much harm would have been done by waiting a few days for the desired prescription. But, then, this would have spoiled the story. The father grew worse, and " often sighed out in a voice of pining, as it were, involuntarily, the name of......" The " two best doctors in Wales " discontinued their visits when the " pay for their continued attention " failed, and sighing and pining doing him no good, the patient pre¬ scribed for himself. Amelia " took the first opportunity of his being composed to go into the neigh' onrhood in search of a person to fetch the medicine from Montgomery." The exact spot of The Cottage where the merchant's lot was cast is not indicated, but when I say that the whole distance from Welshpool to Montgomery—along the valley—is only seven miles, and that all the * mountains ' of the district are 'little hills' with pleasant grassy slopes, 18