Page:The Chronicle of Clemendy.pdf/37

 ners and the rarest show imaginable. The which place is thenceforth called Sandy Soil, because the thirst of it is insatiable, and craving moisture without end. Observe, then, what lordship Ale hath over us Silurians, and especially over the folk of Pwllcwrw; for 'twas by virtue of holding land in this gracious manour that my ancestor was cited to the Court and had an honourable office given him at the Reformation, which he and those who have come from his body have fulfilled through rain and sun ever since, both at High Sessions in Abergavenny, and at Petty Sessions in Uske. We Perrots indeed have gone wet foot and dry foot to these solemnities, not let by turmoil or distress, and when Levrier d'Argent calls Canthari Mareschallus, our adsum never fails, nor the function of our Marshalsea, nor have we broken faith with the Round Table. And know that by this Session Cwrw Dda ale is ennobled and glorified for us, exalted from a tinker's drain to a sempiternal spring of deep signification and high method, whence comes Silurianism and all that joyous knowledge which will not let us be dumpish, disconsolate, nor over-sorrowful have we never so much reason for sadness and dolour. Of these sweet thoughts the Saxons know nothing at all, and hold our mirth for folly and dotage, and, merely seeing that many of us are poor and meanly clad, deride and despise Silurians more than all other men, declaring that we are fools, dolts, jolterheads, idlers, whoremongers, drunkards, and so forth, and at the best pity us with a kind of scorn as a moonstruck silly folk, harmless