The Pocket George Borrow Part 12

The name 'Pump Saint' signifies 'Five Saints.' Why the place is called so I know not. Perhaps the name originally belonged to some chapel which stood either where the village now stands or in the neighbourhood. The inn is a good specimen of an ancient Welsh hostelry. Its gable is to the road and its front to a little s.p.a.ce on one side of the way. At a little distance up the road is a blacksmith's shop. The country around is interesting: on the north-west is a fine wooded hill--to the south a valley through which flows the Cothi, a fair river, the one whose murmur had come so pleasingly upon my ear in the depth of night.

After breakfast I departed for Llandovery. Presently I came to a lodge on the left-hand beside an ornamental gate at the bottom of an avenue leading seemingly to a gentleman's seat. On inquiring of a woman, who sat at the door of the lodge, to whom the grounds belonged, she said to Mr. Johnes, and that if I pleased I was welcome to see them. I went in and advanced along the avenue, which consisted of very n.o.ble oaks; on the right was a vale in which a beautiful brook was running north and south.

Beyond the vale to the east were fine wooded hills. I thought I had never seen a more pleasing locality, though I saw it to great disadvantage, the day being dull, and the season the latter fall.

Presently, on the avenue making a slight turn, I saw the house, a plain but comfortable gentleman's seat with wings. It looked to the south down the dale. 'With what satisfaction I could live in that house,' said I to myself, 'if backed by a couple of thousands a year. With what gravity could I sign a warrant in its library, and with what dreamy comfort translate an ode of Lewis Glyn Cothi, my tankard of rich ale beside me. I wonder whether the proprietor is fond of the old bard and keeps good ale.

Were I an Irishman instead of a Norfolk man I would go in and ask him.'

After the days of the great persecution in England against the Gypsies, there can be little doubt that they lived a right merry and tranquil life, wandering about and pitching their tents wherever inclination led them: indeed, I can scarcely conceive any human condition more enviable than Gypsy life must have been in England during the latter part of the seventeenth, and the whole of the eighteenth century, which were likewise the happy days for Englishmen in general; there was peace and plenty in the land, a contented population, and everything went well. Yes, those were brave times for the Rommany chals, to which the old people often revert with a sigh: the poor Gypsies, say they, were then allowed to sove abri (sleep abroad) where they listed, to heat their kettles at the foot of the oaks, and no people grudged the poor persons one night's use of a meadow to feed their cattle in.

Footnotes:

{147a} 'I, who am a smuggler.' The Spanish version, 'Yo que soy,' etc., is more familiar, and more harmonious.

{147b} 'When the king arrived.'