Part 5 (1/2)

He looked at me in a strange manner. The man's whole appearance was strange. ”Why not?” he answered, and shrank a little backwards.

”The sign of a king,” said I.

”Surely,” said he. ”What else should we understand from a crown?”

”And which king?” I asked.

”You will excuse me,” said he, and tried to pa.s.s.

”Which king?” I repeated.

”How should I know?” he asked.

”You should know by the rose,” said I, ”which is the symbol of that Tudor-ap-Tudor, who, coming from the mountains of Wales, yet seated his posterity upon the English throne. Tudor,” I continued, getting between the stranger and the door of the inn, through which he appeared to be desirous of pa.s.sing, ”was of the same blood as Owen Glendower, the famous chieftain, who is by no means to be confused with Owen Gwynedd, the father of Madoc of the Sea, of whom the bard made the famous cnylyn, which runs in the Welsh as follows:--”

I was about to repeat the famous stanza of Dafydd-ap-Gwilyn when the man, who had looked very fixedly and strangely at me as I spoke, pushed past me and entered the inn. ”Truly,” said I aloud, ”it is surely Swinehurst to which I have come, since the same means the grove of the hogs.” So saying I followed the fellow into the bar parlour, where I perceived him seated in a corner with a large chair in front of him.

Four persons of various degrees were drinking beer at a central table, whilst a small man of active build, in a black, s.h.i.+ny suit, which seemed to have seen much service, stood before the empty fireplace. Him I took to be the landlord, and I asked him what I should have for my dinner.

He smiled, and said that he could not tell.

”But surely, my friend,” said I, ”you can tell me what is ready?”

”Even that I cannot do,” he answered; ”but I doubt not that the landlord can inform us.” On this he rang the bell, and a fellow answered, to whom I put the same question.

”What would you have?” he asked.

I thought of the master, and I ordered a cold leg of pork to be washed down with tea and beer.

”Did you say tea _and_ beer?” asked the landlord.

”I did.”

”For twenty-five years have I been in business,” said the landlord, ”and never before have I been asked for tea and beer.”

”The gentleman is joking,” said the man with the s.h.i.+ning coat.

”Or else----” said the elderly man in the corner.

”Or what, sir?” I asked.

”Nothing,” said he--”nothing.” There was something very strange in this man in the corner--him to whom I had spoken of Dafydd-ap-Gwilyn.

”Then you are joking,” said the landlord.

I asked him if he had read the works of my master, George Borrow. He said that he had not. I told him that in those five volumes he would not, from cover to cover, find one trace of any sort of a joke. He would also find that my master drank tea and beer together. Now it happens that about tea I have read nothing either in the sagas or in the bardic cnylynions, but, whilst the landlord had departed to prepare my meal, I recited to the company those Icelandic stanzas which praise the beer of Gunnar, the long-haired son of Harold the Bear. Then, lest the language should be unknown to some of them, I recited my own translation, ending with the line--

”If the beer be small, then let the mug be large.”

I then asked the company whether they went to church or to chapel. The question surprised them, and especially the strange man in the corner, upon whom I now fixed my eye. I had read his secret, and as I looked at him he tried to shrink behind the clock-case.

”The church or the chapel?” I asked him.