they glow with the bracing spirit of a more invigorating atmosphere. I
really took some pains to investigate this curious custom, and after
being assured, by many, of its veracity, had an opportunity of attesting
its existence with my own eyes. The servant maid of the family I visited
in Caernarvonshire, happened to be the object of a young peasant, who
walked eleven long miles every Sunday morning to favor his suit, and
regularly returned the same night through all weathers, to be ready for
Monday's employment in the fields, being simply a day laborer. He
usually arrived in time for morning service, which he constantly
attended, after which he escorted his Dulcinea home to the house of her
master, by whose permission they as constantly passed the succeeding
hour in bed, according to the custom of the country. These tender
sabbatical preliminaries continued without interruption near two years,
when the treaty of alliance was solemnized, and, so far from any breach
of articles happening in the meantime, it is most likely that it was
considered by both parties as a matter of course, without exciting any
other idea. On speaking to my friend on the subject, he observed that,
though it certainly appeared a dangerous mode of making love, he had
seen so few _living_ abuses of it, during six and thirty years'
residence in that country, where it nevertheless had always, more or
less, prevailed, he must conclude it was as innocent as any other. One
proof of its being _thought_ so by the parties, is the perfect ease and
freedom with which it is done; no awkwardness or confusion appearing on
either side; the most well-behaved and decent young woman going into it
without a blush, and they are by no means deficient in modesty. What is
pure in idea is always so in conduct, since bad actions are the common
consequence of bad thoughts; and though the better sort of people treat
this ceremony as a barbarism, it is very much to be doubted whether more
_faux pas_ have been committed by the Cambrian boors in this _free
access_ to the bed chambers of their mistresses, than by more