But Wales is now perhaps the most peaceful
country in the world. Its prisons for the most part stand empty
(it is said), and the people, once so turbulent, are as little
given to violence as to vice. In fact, I once heard a great Welsh
scholar declare that in the old times it was not the true Welsh
who kept up the fighting, either on the public or the private
scale, but the Scotch and Irish who had found a home among them.
In any case, it is true that after the Normans had planted their
castles in Wales to hold the country, it was all they could do to
hold the castles, and not till their enemies had imagined having
the English King's son born in one of them did they bring the
Welsh under the English crown at last. Even then that uncertain
people broke from their allegiance now and again; or the Scotch
and Irish among them did.
III
All sorts of sights and sounds might be expected on our Terrace,
but that which especially warmed the heart of exile in us, and
pleased the fancy of other sojourners was the appearance, one
evening, of a stately band of tall men in evening dress and top-
hats, with musical instruments in their grasp, and heads lifted
high above their Welsh following.
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