Читать книгу The Pedestrian's Guide through North Wales. A tour performed in 1837 онлайн

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One morning after a long expostulation, with her inconstant, she summoned him before the magistrate of the district, and, accompanied by her friends, demanded the ordeal, which was the right, from time immemorial, of the victims of seduction and desertion. The magistrate, being a lover of old laws and customs, and also somewhat of a humorist, readily acceded to her wishes, and the following morning was appointed for the accomplishment of her vengeance, verifying the Welsh proverb—“Gnawd rhygas wedi rhysere.” Common is extreme hate after extreme fondness.

This was woful intelligence for Roger, whose farming stock consisted of an only cow, which was sentenced to be substituted for the bull, which the original act specified should be liable to confiscation. This cow was the chief source of his livelihood; her butter furnished him with the means of procuring clothes, and other necessaries, and the skimmed milk, a pleasant beverage to wash down his vegetable fare—for animal food was a stranger to the table of Roger, as it was indeed to almost all the peasantry of the country, except upon days of rejoicing, viz. marriages and funerals, when friends and relations clubbed together to furnish a sumptuous meal for the assembled guests. Still, however, he resolved to hazard this severe loss, rather than be encumbered with a wife, whose industry and affection were but a poor compensation for the defects of her person and conversation.