CHAPTER XXIV

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DELIGHTFUL WALK BY THE DEE BANKS, AND THROUGH EATON PARK.—WREXHAM.—A FAIR.—MAIDS BY A FOUNTAIN.—THE CHURCH.—JACKDAWS.—THE TAP-ROOM AND TAP-ROOM TALK.—POLITICAL DEADNESS OF THE LABOURING CLASS.—A METHODIST BAGMAN.

Following Nutting’s directions, we had a most delightful walk along the river bank and under some noble trees, then through thick woods and over a bit of low, rushy land, where some Irishmen were opening drains, and out at length into the private park-road; a pleasant avenue, which we followed some miles. The park here was well stocked with game; rabbits were constantly leaping out before us, and we frequently started partridges and pheasants from a cover of laurels, holly, and hawthorn with which the road was lined.

We came out at Pulford, when we lunched at the Post Office Inn, and thence walked by an interesting road, through a village of model cottages not very pretty; over a long hill, from the top of which a grand view back; and by a park that formerly belonged to Judge Jeffreys, of infamous memory, to Wrexham.

[Sidenote: _WREXHAM JACKDAWS._]

Wrexham is a queer, dirty, higglety-piggelty kind of town, said to be the largest in Wales (it is about as large as Northampton). It was the latter part of a fair-day, and there had been a mustering of the yeomanry of the shire, so that the streets were crowded as we entered. In the balcony of an hotel in the market-place a military band was playing to a mass of up-turned, gaping faces, through which we worked our way. The inns were generally full of guzzling troopers, dressed in a very ugly fashion, but we finally found one; some colour of the bear family, blue, I believe, which seemed tolerably quiet, where we stopped for the night.

After dining and resting awhile, we took a walk about the town. Most of the houses out of the market-place are very mean and low, the walls plastered with mud, and whitewashed, and the roofs thatched. Noticing a kind of grotto in a back street about which a pretty group of girls, in short blue dresses, engaged in lively talk, were standing with pitchers, we approached it. We came close upon them before they noticed us, but, instead of showing any timidity, they glanced at our hats and laughed clear and heartily, looking us boldly in the face. Catching one alone, however, as we descended to the fountain, and asking her to let us take her mug to drink from, she handed it to us, blushing deeply, and said nothing, so we were glad to leave quickly to relieve her. There was a spring and pool of remarkably clear, cool water, within the grotto, from which all the neighbourhood seem to be supplied. Our California hats attracted more attention at Wrexham than anywhere else in Europe, but we met with no incivility or impertinence beyond a smile or laugh.

The church at Wrexham is curious, from the multitude of grotesque faces and figures carved upon it. It is a large and fine structure, and the tower is particularly beautiful, as seen from the village. There were jackdaws’ nests in it, and a flock of these birds, the first we have seen, were hovering and screeching around them. They are of the crow tribe, black, and somewhat larger than a blue-jay.

Returning to our inn we found in the parlour a couple of lisping clerks, who were sipping wine in a genteel way, and trying to say smart things while they ogled the landlady’s daughter. Retreating from their twaddle, I called for a pipe and mug of ale, and joined the circle in the tap-room. There was a tall, scarlet-coated fellow who told me he was a sergeant in the Queen’s guards recruiting here; an older man who had been a soldier, and had served in Canada and China; a half-tipsy miller with a pleasant-speaking, good-natured wife trying to coax him to come home, and half a dozen more countrymen, all muddling themselves with beer and tobacco.

[Sidenote: _TAP-ROOM POLITICS._]

The conversation was running on politics, and was not at all interrupted by my entrance; on the contrary, I thought the old soldier was glad of a stranger to show himself off before. He was the orator of the night, and the others did little but express assent to his sentiments, except the miller, who every few moments interrupted him with a plain and emphatic contradiction. The sergeant said very little either way except he was appealed to, to substantiate some assertion, “_as a military man_,” but leaned on the bar, drinking hot gin-and-water, and whispering with the bar-maid.

There was news that the French minister had taken diplomatic offence and demanded his passports, and war was threatened. War there certainly would be, according to the ex-soldier, and a terrible time was coming with it. England was going to be whipped-out most certainly—it was inevitable. Every body assented—it was “inevitable”—except the miller, who said it was fol-de-rol. “Why,” continued the ex-soldier, “isn’t every country in Europe against England?—don’t they all hate her? and isn’t every Frenchman a soldier?” Then he described the inefficient state of the national defences, and showed how easy it would be for a fleet of steamers, some dark night the next week, to land an army somewhere on the coast of Wales, and before they heard of it, it might be right there amongst them! He would like to know what there was to oppose them. The miller said there was—“gammon.” The sergeant, on being asked, admitted that he was not aware of any respectable force stationed in that vicinity, and the miller told him he was a “traitor then.” Ex-soldier said miller knew nothing about war, any way, and the company unanimously acquiesced. Ex-soldier then resumed his speech—asked if government would dare to give arms to the people, and pictured an immense army of Chartists arising in the night, and with firebrands and Frenchmen, sweeping the government, queen and all, out of the land, and establishing a republican kingdom, where the poor man was as good as the rich. The company all thought it very probable, and each added something to make the picture more vivid. A coarse joke about the queen’s bundling off with her children produced much laughter; and the hope that the parsons and lawyers would have to go to work for a living, was much applauded.

It was strange what a complete indifference they all seemed to have about it, as if they would be mere spectators, _outsiders_, and not, in any way, personally interested. They spoke of the Government and the Chartists, and the landlords and the farmers, but not a word of themselves.

Late in the evening there was some most doleful singing, and a woman came in and performed some sleight-of-hand tricks, every one giving her a penny when she had concluded. We were obliged to sleep two in a bed, one of us with a Methodist young man, who travelled to make sales of tea among country grocers and innkeepers, for a Liverpool house. He said that what we had seen in the tap-room would give us a very good notion of the character of a large part of the labouring class about here. He thought their moral condition most deplorable, and laid it much to the small quantity and bad quality of the spiritual food that was provided for them. He seemed well informed about America, and, excepting for slavery and steamboat explosions, greatly to admire our country. He had some idea of going to it, and said his present business was exceedingly disagreeable, as it compelled him to be so much at inns, where he rarely found any one with whom he could pleasantly associate.

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