By Berwen Banks | Page 7

they have to give them."
"What else, indeed," said Shanw, ready for the frequent fray. "They won't have your hum-drum old church fregot[3], perhaps, but you come and see, and hear Hughes Bangor, Price Merthyr, Jones Welshpool. Nothing to give them, indeed! Why, Price Merthyr would send your old red velvet cushion at church flying into smithireens in five minutes. Haven't I heard him. He begins soft and low, like a cat purring on the hearth, and then he gets louder and louder, till he ends like a roaring lion. And our own preacher, Essec Powell, to begin and finish the meeting. There's busy Valmai must be. Marged Hughes is there to help, and she says--"
"Oh, be quiet," said Betto, "and go along with your Valmai, and your Price Merthyr, and your hams, and lions, and things. Ach y fi! I don't want to hear about such things in a clergyman's house."
"Valmai is a beauty, whatever," said Dye, the ploughboy. "I kiwked[4] at her over the hedge this morning when she was going to Caer Madoc; she's as pretty as an angel. Have you ever seen her, Ser?"
"Valmai," said Cardo, prevaricating, "surely that is a new name in this neighbourhood?"
"Yes, she is Essec Powell's niece come home from over the sea. She is an orphan, and they say the old man is keeping her reading and reading to him all day till she is fair tired, poor thing."
"Well, it is getting late," said Cardo, "good-night." And his rising was the signal for them all to disperse, the men servants going to their beds over the hay loft or stable; while the women, leaving their wooden shoes at the bottom, followed each other with soft tread up the creaking back stairs.
In the study the Vicar poured over his books, as he translated from English into Welsh the passages which interested him most. He was, like many of the inhabitants of the South Wales coast, a descendant of the Flemings, who had long ago settled there, and who have left such strong and enduring marks of their presence.
Their language has long given place to a sort of doggerel English, but they have never learned to speak the language of the country except in some of the straggling border villages.
Pembrokeshire, in particular, retains a complete separateness, so to speak, from the rest of the country, and is often called "Little England beyond Wales." Thus it was that the English language seemed always more natural to Meurig Wynne than the Welsh. His sermons were always thought out in that language, and then translated into the vernacular, and this, perhaps, accounted in some degree for their stiffness and want of living interest. His descent from the Flemings had the disadvantage of drawing a line of distinction between him and his parishioners, and thus added to his unpopularity. In spite of this, Cardo was an immense favourite, his frank and genial manner--inherited from his mother, who was thoroughly Welsh--making its way easily to the warm Welsh hearts. There was a deep well of tenderness, almost of pity, within him for his cold stern father, a longing to break through his reserve, a hankering after the loving ways of home life, which he missed though he had never known them. The cold Fleming had very little part in Cardo's nature, and, with his enthusiastic Welsh sympathies, he was wont to regret and disclaim his connection with these ancient ancestors. His father's pedigree, however, made it very plain that the Gwynnes of Brynderyn were descended from Gwayn, a Flemish wool merchant who had settled there in the reign of Henry I.--these settlers being protected and encouraged by the English king, who found their peaceable, industrious habits a great contrast to the turbulence and restlessness of the Welsh under their foreign yoke. Time has done but little to soften the difference between the Welsh and Flemish characters; they have never really amalgamated, and to this day the descendants of the Flemings remain a separate people in language, disposition, and appearance. In Pembrokeshire, Gower, and Radnorshire, we find them still flourishing, and for some distance along the coast northwards from Pembrokeshire there are still families, and even whole hamlets, descended from them, exhibiting traits of character and peculiarities of manner easily discernible to an observant eye.
Before the Vicar retired to rest he took down from a shelf an old Bible, from which he read a chapter, and, closing the book, knelt down to pray. As he rose from his knees, the last words on his lips were, "Caradoc, my beloved son!"
For the next few days the turnips and mangolds seemed even more interesting than usual to Cardo Wynne. He was up with the lark, and striding from furrow to furrow in company with Dye and Ebben, returning to a hurried breakfast,