My good friends took their seats, the wife poured out tea for the
stranger and her husband, helped us both to bread-and-butter and
the watery cheese, then took care of herself. Before, however, I
could taste the tea, the wife, seeming to recollect herself,
started up, and hurrying to a cupboard, produced a basin full of
snow-white lump sugar, and taking the spoon out of my hand, placed
two of the largest lumps in my cup, though she helped neither her
husband nor herself; the sugar-basin being probably only kept for
grand occasions.
My eyes filled with tears; for in the whole course of my life I had
never experienced so much genuine hospitality. Honour to the
miller of Mona and his wife; and honour to the kind hospitable
Celts in general! How different is the reception of this despised
race of the wandering stranger from that of -. However, I am a
Saxon myself, and the Saxons have no doubt their virtues; a pity
that they should be all uncouth and ungracious ones!
I asked my kind host his name.
"John Jones," he replied, "Melinydd of Llanfair."
"Is the mill which you work your own property?" I inquired.
"No," he answered, "I rent it of a person who lives close by."
"And how happens it," said I, "that you speak no English?"
"How should it happen," said he, "that I should speak any? I have
never been far from here; my wife who has lived at service at
Liverpool can speak some.
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