Part 18 (1/2)
CHAPTER XII.
ON AND OFF THE NARBERTH ROAD. LANGWM AND DAUGLEDDAU.
It is market day in Haverfordwest. The big travel-stained waggons of the wholesale traders, drawn by st.u.r.dy large-limbed horses, trundle slowly through the crowded streets of the old town; while the distinctive tones of the 'broad Harfat talk' greet the ear upon every side.
Wending our way down the steep High Street, we bear away to the right at the bottom of the hill, and traverse one of the oldest quarters of the town. Presently we descry a low-browed entrance opening upon the footpath, the ma.s.sive nail-studded door, with its quaint lion-head knocker, being enframed by liberally-moulded jambs. Pa.s.sing beneath this ancient portal, we are admitted to an interior beautified by the rare old oaken stairway shown in our sketch; this stairway gives access to nicely panelled chambers, whose fireplaces retain their original blue Dutch tiles, painted with scenes from Biblical history.
[Ill.u.s.tration: OLD STAIRCASE AT HAVERFORDWEST.]
To the rear of the dwelling-house stands a flour-mill of antiquated type; yet driving, withal, a brisk trade in its green old age. A well-trained old horse, the mainstay of the establishment, jogs round in the mill and supplies the motive power.
Stepping out to the rear, we find ourselves upon the riverside quay, along which we now take our way. Groups of bulky stone warehouses flank the gra.s.s-grown wharf, which presently opening out, reveals the Bristol Trader, a little semi-nautical inn, with its trim bit of garden-ground abloom with hollyhocks and nasturtiums; an old-time spot frequented by waterside gossips, and fraught with vague echoes from that wide outer world where men 'go down to the sea in s.h.i.+ps.'
Hence we push on past the ruined priory to the diminutive village of Haroldstone, where some traces still exist of the ancient mansion that, for three successive centuries, was the ancestral home of the Perrots, one of the most notable old families of Pembrokes.h.i.+re.
[Ill.u.s.tration: UZMASTON.]
_Vis-a-vis_ across the river Cleddau rises the parish church of Uzmaston; a picturesque a.s.semblage of roofs and gables, cl.u.s.tering around a quaint old saddle-backed tower. Uzmaston Church has, within the last few years, been rescued from decay, and conscientiously restored by Mr. Lingen Barker, architect, of Hereford.
Skirting a bend of the river, we trudge through the woods to Freystrop, and enter upon a district pitted here and there with old mine-shafts.
Over the water lies Boulston, where hard by the brink of the stream (perhaps a bowshot east from the desecrated church) rises a jumble of ivy-clad ruins, backed by a tangled thicket of old forest trees. Here lived the Wogans, a well-known family in days of yore, who adopted a wyvern as their crest from the following tradition.
Amidst the broad-woodlands that formerly extended around the ancestral mansion, wild beasts of various kinds were supposed to roam at large.
In the remotest depths of the forest lurked the dreaded basilisk, a formidable monster whose glance caused instant death to the ill-starred wight upon whom its gaze might rest, but which perished itself if first perceived by a man.
At last a certain bold fellow determined to rid the countryside of this objectionable beast. Causing himself to be shut up in a cask and rolled into the forest, he peeped through the bung-hole, and presently spied the basilisk without himself being seen. Thereupon the dreaded monster, giving vent to an unearthly yell that could be heard for miles around, fell down and perished upon the spot, so that the country-folk were no longer troubled by the molestations of the basilisk. A dragon legend, very similar to the above, is connected with the village of Mordiford in Herefords.h.i.+re.
By-and-by, as we descend from the uplands, a broad reach of the tideway opens out right before us, where the twin streams of Cleddau merge into the widening Haven. Thus we enter the village of Langwm at its upper end, escorted by a rabble of noisy, unkempt urchins who c.u.mber the narrow roadway.
Here, in the very heart of southern Pembrokes.h.i.+re, stranded like a human jetsam upon one of the inmost recesses of Milford Haven, we find an isolated community, whose speech and physiognomy alike proclaim their Teutonic origin. Imagination conjures up those far-away times, when the st.u.r.dy immigrants from over seas--ancestors of these hardy fisher-folk--pushed their advance up the winding waterway, despite the desperate onslaughts of the Britons, who, fighting for hearth and home, 'rolled on like the billows of a retiring tide with noise, fury, and devastation, but on each retreat yielded ground to the invaders.'
In their own thoroughgoing fas.h.i.+on, the newcomers set to work to construct a chain of castles to guard their hard-won territory; and thus, protected from the restless foe, grew up those peaceful villages and smiling homesteads, surrounded by orchards, fields, and pasture lands, that have earned for this portion of the county its t.i.tle of the Little England beyond Wales.
But _revenons a nos moutons_, for it is time to look about us.
A curious place is Langwm, and a singular race are the people that dwell therein. Small 'b.u.t.t-and-ben' cottages, some thatched, some slated, others roofed with hideous corrugated iron, compose the major portion of the village; which straggles down a narrow combe, whose lower reaches open upon an oozy elbow of the river.
[Ill.u.s.tration: LANGWM FISHWIVES.]
The women, as a rule, are conspicuous by their absence; for they are for the most part abroad, hawking fish and oysters up and down the country.
Clad in stout pea-jackets and warm blue homespun skirts, worn short for travelling the rough country roads, these hard-working women seem to belong to some alien race, as they elbow their way through the crowded streets of Tenby or Haverfordwest.
The Langwm people have, indeed, always kept very much to themselves, discouraging alliances with outsiders; nor until recent years would they even permit their girls to go out as domestic servants. In the old unregenerate days, courts.h.i.+p and marriage were attended with certain curious, primitive customs--customs which, to say the least, were 'more honoured in the breach than the observance.' One way and another, this singular people forms an interesting little community, which appears to have preserved intact to the present day much of the manners and customs of the early Flemish colonists.
Langwm Church is dedicated to St. Hierom. The little edifice stands, as its name implies, in a hollow combe near Milford Haven. To reach it we cross a bit of rough unenclosed greensward, littered over with oyster-sh.e.l.ls, upon which, according to the local story, the village itself is built.
The interior of this church is enriched with some interesting Decorated features; notably a canopied niche and piscina of unusual type, upon the eastern wall of the north chapel, or transept.