After a little time these premises becoming vacant, I
took them, and set up in the public line, more to have something to do,
than for the sake of gain, about which, indeed, I need not trouble myself
much, my poor, dear master, as I said before, having done very handsomely
by me at his death. Here I have lived for several years, receiving
strangers, and improving my house and grounds. I am tolerably
comfortable, but confess I sometimes look back to my former roving life
rather wistfully, for there is no life so merry as the traveller's."

He was about the middle age and somewhat under the middle size. I had a
good deal of conversation with him, and was much struck with his frank,
straightforward manner. He enjoyed a high character at Llangollen for
probity and likewise for cleverness, being reckoned an excellent
gardener, and an almost unequalled cook. His master, the travelling
gentleman, might well leave him a handsome remembrance in his will, for
he had not only been an excellent and trusty servant to him, but had once
saved his life at the hazard of his own, amongst the frightful precipices
of the Alps. Such retired gentlemen's servants, or such publicans
either, as honest A---, are not every day to be found. His grounds,
principally laid out by his own hands, exhibited an infinity of taste,
and his house, into which I looked, was a perfect picture of neatness.
Any tourist visiting Llangollen for a short period could do no better
than take up his abode at the hostelry of honest A---.

CHAPTER LVI

Ringing of Bells--Battle of Alma--The Brown Jug--Ale of
Llangollen--Reverses.

On the third of October--I think that was the date--as my family and
myself, attended by trusty John Jones, were returning on foot from
visiting a park not far from Rhiwabon we heard, when about a mile from
Llangollen, a sudden ringing of the bells of the place, and a loud
shouting. Presently we observed a postman hurrying in a cart from the
direction of the town. "Peth yw y matter?" said John Jones. "Y matter,
y matter!" said the postman in a tone of exultation, "Sebastopol wedi
cymmeryd. Hurrah!"

"What does he say?" said my wife anxiously to me.

"Why, that Sebastopol is taken," said I.

"Then you have been mistaken," said my wife smiling, "for you always said
that the place would either not be taken at all or would cost the allies
to take it a deal of time and an immense quantity of blood and treasure,
and here i