"
"Yes, gentleman; I saw you looking about it."
"Am I welcome to see it?"
"Croesaw! gwr boneddig, croesaw! many, many welcomes to you,
gentleman!"
"Do many people come to see the monastery?"
FARMER. - Yes! many gentlefolks come to see it in the summer time.
MYSELF. - It is a poor place now.
FARMER. - Very poor, I wonder any gentlefolks come to look at it.
MYSELF. - It was a wonderful place once; you merely see the ruins
of it now. It was pulled down at the Reformation.
FARMER. - Why was it pulled down then?
MYSELF. - Because it was a house of idolatry to which people used
to resort by hundreds to worship images. Had you lived at that
time you would have seen people down on their knees before stocks
and stones, worshipping them, kissing them, and repeating
pennillion to them.
FARMER. - What fools! How thankful I am that I live in wiser days.
If such things were going on in the old Monachlog it was high time
to pull it down.
MYSELF. - What kind of a rent do you pay for your land?
FARMER. - Oh, rather a stiffish one.
MYSELF. - Two pounds an acre?
FARMER. - Two pound an acre! I wish I paid no more!
MYSELF. - Well, I think that would be quite enough. In the time of
the old monastery you might have had the land at two shillings an
acre.
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