The portrait was a very poor daub, but I looked at it long and attentively as a memorial of Wales at a critical and long past time.
When we had dispatched the second jug of ale, and I had paid the reckoning, we departed and soon came to where stood a turnpike house at a junction of two roads, to each of which was a gate.
"Now, sir," said John Jones, "the way straight forward is the ffordd newydd, and the one on our right hand is the hen ffordd.

Which shall we follow, the new or the old ?" "There is a proverb in the Gerniweg," said I, "which was the language of my forefathers, saying, 'ne'er leave the old way for the new,' we will therefore go by the hen ffordd." "Very good, sir," said my guide, "that is the path I always go, for it is the shortest." So we turned to the right and followed the old road.
Perhaps, however, it would have been well had we gone by the new, for the hen ffordd was a very dull and uninteresting road, whereas the ffordd newydd, as I long subsequently found, is one of the grandest passes in Wales.

After we had walked a short distance my guide said, "Now, sir, if you will turn a little way to the left hand I will show you a house, built in the old style, such a house, sir, as I daresay the original turf tavern was." Then leading me a little way from the road he showed me, under a hollow bank, a small cottage covered with flags.
"That is a house, sir, built yn yr hen dull in the old fashion, of earth, flags and wattles and in one night.

It was the custom of old when a house was to be built, for the people to assemble, and to build it in one night of common materials, close at hand.

The custom is not quite dead.
I was at the building of this myself, and a merry building it was.