The impassioned: “Lord keep my memory green.--Wellesley Robinson.” (First commentator) “Whoever is this fellow?” (Second do.) “God knows.”
“With plenty here the board is spread, And, e’er our onward path we tread, We feed from the’ abundant store And sound it’s praises more and more.”
The influence of Tate and Brady is evident from the mechanical addition of the apostrophe after “the,” which is reproduced in its integrity, in common with all expression marks and feats of English grammar throughout the collection.
The excessively gentle yet condescending: “J. Brown. I am pleased with Cambria’s lovely vales.”
The aristocratic but scarcely grammatical: “Lord and Lady D---- for lunch. Very nice.”
With these panegyrics we have not been moved to compete. Not even the glistening dawn of our last day in Wales prevailed, with its silent greeting, to make us emulate J. Brown or Wellesley Robinson in their valedictory “appreciations.” In vows and protestations let us rather play Cordelia to their Goneril and Regan, reserving ourselves for that possible future when Wales, repudiated of its Wellesley Robinsons, forsaken as Lear, shall clamour for our support. Till then, let the name of O’Flannigan and that other allied with it, achieve in the Visitors’ Book the distinction of beauty unadorned and verdict unvouchsafed.
If the truth must be told, the dawn that heralded our exit from Wales suggested little to the eyes that turned away from it into the profound sleep that heralds the hot water, and that little was exclusively connected with horse-boxes. Tommy the elder, though much recovered of the girth-gall, was very far from being fit for a saddle, therefore the idea of a sensational finish on horseback at the central lamp-post in Welshpool had been abandoned, and the Tommies were to be returned to the ironmonger and the chemist in the ordinary course of rail _viâ_ Ruabon. We were sentimentally anxious to maintain as long as possible our auntly relation with them, even to the extent of travelling in the horse-box, and holding their hands and giving them sal volatile in the tunnels--this being, to the best of our belief, their first experience of travelling otherwise than on their own legs. The confidence inspired by human companionship would of course make everything easy; nevertheless, when at the station we saw their special carriage bear down upon us, behind an engine exuding steam at every pore and uttering yell upon yell as it came, it seemed possible that our nephews would require more than moral support. The engine steamed by, the doors of the horse-box were banged open, and we each took hold of a Tommy and prepared to lead it as if it were a forlorn hope. Perhaps the ostlers and porters whom we waved aside were not as conscious as we presently became that the Tommies were more than willing to enter the box, that they were hurrying up the clattering gangway, that they were almost ushering us into the dark interior which we had regarded with such sympathetic alarms. The porters and ostlers laughed, but it may have been from pure admiration. The Corwen and Ruabon Railway seems to be accustomed to the transportation of menageries. Head-stalls that would have held a buffalo were slipped upon the mildly aggrieved pony faces, cables were attached to their nosebands on either side, and massive partitions were let down between them. The Tommies were obviously a little wounded, but beyond all other emotions they were bored.