HISTORY AND THE PARISH 173 



minutes while I asked a few questions about the way, 

 and it was as much as I could do to keep up the con- 

 versation, so much did those motionless eyes invite me 

 to plunge into an abyss of human personality — such 

 intense loneliness and strangeness did they create, since 

 they proclaimed shrilly and clearly that beyond a desire 

 to be fed and clothed we had nothing in common. Had 

 they peered up at me out of a cromlech or hut at Bos- 

 porthennis I could not have been more puzzled and 

 surprised. 



Men and women were hospitable and ready to smile 

 as the Welsh are; and they have an alluring na'ivet^ as 

 well as some righteousness. One family was excessively 

 virtuous or had a wish to appear so : I do not know which 

 alternative to like the less, since it was in a matter of 

 game. They rented land on a large estate and had a 

 right to the rabbits : the hares were sacred to the great 

 landowner. The farmer's wife assured me that one of 

 her sons had lately brought in a lame hare and proposed 

 to put it out of its pain, but that she had said : " No, 

 take it out and let it die outside anywhere. The best 

 thing is to be afraid in things of this kind and then you 

 won't go wrong." Doing much the same kind or quan- 

 tity of manual work as their husbands and being much 

 out of doors, the women's manners were confident and 

 free. Their speech was as a rule fluent and grammatical 

 and clearly delivered, with less accent than in any part 

 of England. Coming into a mining village one day and 

 wanting tea, I asked a woman who was drawing water 

 from a farmyard well if she could make me some, think- 

 ing she was the farmer's wife. She said she would, but 

 took me to one of a small row of cottages over the way, 



