myself, "I am on the
borders. What a mixture of races and languages!" The next person I met
was a man in a collier's dress; he was a stout-built fellow of the middle
age, with a coal-dusty surly countenance. I asked him in Welsh if I was
in the right direction for Wrexham, he answered in a surly manner in
English, that I was. I again spoke to him in Welsh, making some
indifferent observation on the weather, and he answered in English yet
more gruffly than before. For the third time I spoke to him in Welsh,
whereupon looking at me with a grin of savage contempt, and showing a set
of teeth like those of a mastiff, he said, "How's this? why you haven't a
word of English? A pretty fellow you, with a long coat on your back and
no English on your tongue, an't you ashamed of yourself? Why, here am I
in a short coat, yet I'd have you to know that I can speak English as
well as Welsh, aye and a good deal better." "All people are not equally
clebber," said I, still speaking Welsh. "Clebber," said he, "clebber!
what is clebber? why can't you say clever! Why, I never saw such a low,
illiterate fellow in my life;" and with these words he turned away with
every mark of disdain, and entered a cottage near at hand.

"Here I have had," said I to myself, as I proceeded on my way, "to pay
for the over-praise which I lately received. The farmer on the other
side of the mountain called me a person of great intelligence, which I
never pretended to be, and now this collier calls me a low, illiterate
fellow, which I really don't think I am. There is certainly a Nemesis
mixed up with the affairs of this world; every good thing which you get,
beyond what is strictly your due, is sure to be required from you with a
vengeance. A little over-praise by a great deal of underrating--a gleam
of good fortune by a night of misery."

I now saw Wrexham Church at about the distance of three miles, and
presently entered a lane which led gently down from the hills, which were
the same heights I had seen on my right hand, some months previously, on
my way from Wrexham to Rhiwabon. The scenery now became very
pretty--hedge-rows were on either side, a luxuriance of trees and plenty
of green fields. I reached the bottom of the lane, beyond which I saw a
strange-looking house upon a slope on the right hand. It was very large,
ruinous, and seemingly deserted. A little beyond it was a farm-house,
connected with which was a long row of farming build