I laid hold of them, carried them to the table, sat
down and began to inspect them; they were the three volumes of Scott's
"Cavalier"--I had seen this work when a youth, and thought it a tiresome
trashy publication. Looking over it now when I was grown old I thought
so still, but I now detected in it what from want of knowledge I had not
detected in my early years, what the highest genius, had it been
manifested in every page, could not have compensated for, base fulsome
adulation of the worthless great, and most unprincipled libelling of the
truly noble ones of the earth, because they the sons of peasants and
handycraftsmen, stood up for the rights of outraged humanity, and
proclaimed that it is worth makes the man and not embroidered clothing.
The heartless, unprincipled son of the tyrant was transformed in that
worthless book into a slightly-dissipated, it is true, but upon the whole
brave, generous and amiable being; and Harrison, the English Regulus,
honest, brave, unflinching Harrison, into a pseudo-fanatic, a mixture of
the rogue and fool. Harrison, probably the man of the most noble and
courageous heart that England ever produced, who when all was lost
scorned to flee, like the second Charles from Worcester, but, braved
infamous judges and the gallows, who when reproached on his mock trial
with complicity in the death of the king, gave the noble answer that "It
was a thing not done in a corner," and when in the cart on the way to
Tyburn, on being asked jeeringly by a lord's bastard in the crowd, "Where
is the good old cause now?" thrice struck his strong fist on the breast
which contained his courageous heart, exclaiming, "Here, here, here!"
Yet for that "Cavalier," that trumpery publication, the booksellers of
England, on its first appearance, gave an order to the amount of six
thousand pounds. But they were wise in their generation; they knew that
the book would please the base, slavish taste of the age, a taste which
the author of the work had had no slight share in forming.

Tired after a while with turning over the pages of the trashy "Cavalier"
I returned the volumes to their place in the corner, blew out one candle,
and taking the other in my hand marched off to bed.

CHAPTER XLVIII

The Bill--The Two Mountains--Sheet of Water--The Afanc-Crocodile--The
Afanc-Beaver--Tai Hirion--Kind Woman--Arenig Vawr--The Beam and
Mote--Bala.

After breakfasting I demanded my bill. I was curious to see ho