nothing I so much hated as fashionable life, but that, as I was
anything but a selfish person, I would endeavour to stifle my
abhorrence of it for a time, and attend them either to Leamington
or Harrowgate. By this speech I obtained my wish, even as I knew I
should, for my wife and daughter instantly observed, that, after
all, they thought we had better go into Wales, which, though not so
fashionable as either Leamington or Harrowgate, was a very nice
picturesque country, where, they had no doubt, they should get on
very well, more especially as I was acquainted with the Welsh
language.

It was my knowledge of Welsh, such as it was, that made me desirous
that we should go to Wales, where there was a chance that I might
turn it to some little account. In my boyhood I had been something
of a philologist; had picked up some Latin and Greek at school;
some Irish in Ireland, where I had been with my father, who was in
the army; and subsequently whilst an articled clerk to the first
solicitor in East Anglia - indeed I may say the prince of all
English solicitors - for he was a gentleman, had learnt some Welsh,
partly from books and partly from a Welsh groom, whose acquaintance
I made. A queer groom he was, and well deserving of having his
portrait drawn. He might be about forty-seven years of age, and
about five feet eight inches in height; his body was spare and
wiry; his chest rather broad, and his arms remarkably long; his
legs were of the kind generally known as spindle-shanks, but
vigorous withal, for they carried his body with great agility; neck
he had none, at least that I ever observed; and his head was
anything but high, not measuring, I should think, more than four
inches from the bottom of the chin to the top of the forehead; his
cheek-bones were high, his eyes grey and deeply sunken in his face,