CHAP. XXI.
Twm made a shew lion among the great. Benefits flow to him. Commences his journey. The adventure of the pack-saddle. Outwits a highwayman and rides off with his horse.
Rhys slept the first night after his arrival, at Ystrad Fîn; but his avocations calling him to Llandovery, he took his leave next morning, after an affectionate parting with his former pupil, wishing him all possible success in his journey to London. Twm, at the particular and pressing invitation of his host and fair hostess, continued there, enjoying their hospitalities, many days. Indeed he became a kind of shew lion, and was daily exhibited by Lady Devereux to her friends, male and female, whom she invited by scores to see her hero, as she called him. The importance thus attributed to him by others, our hero soon took to himself; and as many of the simpering lady visitors declared him to be no less handsome than brave, he felt no difficulty in persuading himself that there was more truth than flattery in the eulogies.
Previous to the day of his departure, the baronet evinced his liberality by presenting him with the sum of forty pounds; and gave him as much more in payment for the hunter taken from the freebooter; while his lady took from her neck a golden chain, and placed it on his, as a token, she said, of her gratitude for the preservation of her life, and of her sense of her preserver’s merit. Twm accepted these favors with a grace little to have been expected from his previous habits of life; but he possessed an innate pride and self consideration that soon burst through his native bashfulness, and his mind ever rose with his good fortunes, nay, sometimes even took the lead, so that he would boldly look Success in the face, and wonder that the sum of his congratulations was not greater.
The day of his departure at length arrived; and it was concerted that his best mode of travelling would be, on a mean horse, with a pack-saddle, and disguised as a labouring country lad. Thus mounted and accoutred, behold him at length disappear through the yard gate of Ystrad Fîn; having concealed in various parts of his dress the sum of money entrusted to his care, and made Lady Devereaux his banker till his return, leaving with her the whole of his lately gained property. Although ill contented with the slow pace of the worn-out beast beneath him, he rode on with a heart full of glee, proud of the honors which he had gained, and glowing with bright anticipations of the future.
We shall pass over the uninteresting portion of his journey; nor need we dwell on the sensations natural to a young high-spirited mountaineer on his continual change of scene, and view of novel objects, till he had left behind him all the towns and villages of his native principality, and at length the ancient city of Bristol itself. He had even passed through Bath and Chippenham before a single adventure occurred worthy of record. Riding late one evening, between the last named town and Malborough, he found it necessary to put up at a small public house on the road side, distinguished by the sign of “the Hop-pole,” the obscurity of which he considered favorable to his safety. Having fed his beast and eaten his supper, he went immediately to bed; and with a view of preserving his treasure in the best manner, slept without divesting himself of his clothes.
Just as day was about to break, he was roused from his slumbers by the trampling of a horse, and the gruff voice of a traveller whom he heard alight and enter the house. A strong impulse of curiosity determined him to rise from his bed, and, as the large treble-bedded room which he occupied was over the parlour to which the guest was introduced, to listen, and learn whether anything portended danger to himself. On the first application of his ear to the aperture between the boards, he found, to his surprise and dismay, that he was the subject of conversation between the landlady and her guest, whom he also discovered to be no other than the very character of which he stood most particularly in peril—a highwayman. He heard himself described to him by the landlady, as an “uncouth looby of a countryman from the Welsh mountains, miserably mounted on a piece of animated carrion, for which the crows cawed as it limped along; and that no booty was to be expected from such a beggar.” “You are wrong, mistress, you are quite wrong,” cried the stranger, “from your account I expect much from him. I have no doubt but that he is a Welsh squire in disguise, as I have robbed more than one such, dressed like a scarecrow, while making for London, and bearing with him the twelvemonth’s rent of half a dozen of his neighbours, to pay to the landlord in town. I shall be at this fellow as soon he quits your roof; I have no doubt but he’s a prize, and if he is you of course come in for shares.” Having learnt thus much, Twm in some trepidation retired to his bed, and began to consider how he should contrive, in order to preserve the properly in his possession. He rose again, thinking to escape through the window, but found it too small to admit his egress, and therefore gave up the idea. As he looked out through the miserable casement, busily plotting to hatch a scheme of deliverance, he could perceive no favorable object to aid his purpose, except a large pool on the road side, in which he thought of dropping his cash, if he could reach it and do the act unobserved, so that he might recover it at his leisure. As nothing better offered, he determined to adopt this plan immediately; and therefore, after making a studied clattering in putting on his shoes, he went down stairs, and called for a jug of beer and toast for his breakfast. The freebooter did not shew himself, but the landlady and her daughter, who seemed to be in the habit of sitting up all night to receive and entertain such guests, scrutinized our hero very closely. The worthy hostess asked him some apparently careless questions respecting his business in travelling the country, to which he replied he was trying to overtake a brother pigman, who was driving their joint charge towards London.
A new idea of arrangement struck him while at breakfast, which quite altered his fore-constructed plan, and he began to act upon it as soon as conceived. To give a more clownish character to his manners, the night before, he carried the old pack-saddle up stairs, brought it down in the morning, and while at breakfast sat on it before the fire, instead of a stool.
Reflecting on the whimsicality of the circumstance, and the probable construction that would be put on the care thus evinced of so homely an article, he deemed they would guess that his money was concealed in it, a fancy that it now suited him to humour. Accordingly, bursting a hole in the fore end of it, he called the landlady to receive her reckoning, and in her presence, pushing his fist into the straw cushion of the pack-saddle, he drew out several pieces of gold, and asked her if she could give him change: but she answered in the negative, on which, he again thrust his hand into the pack-saddle, and brought out more gold with silver intermixed; and with the latter settled his bill, and went to the stable for his horse. Securing all his money about his person, he mounted his rozinante; having cut away the girths from the pack-saddle, he bade the landlady farewell, and rode with all his might towards the pool, which was about a quarter of a mile forward on the road. He soon heard the highwayman brushing forward in his rear, and heard him with many oaths call loudly to stop, a summons that increased our hero’s speed, till, being opposite to the pond, his pursuer overtook him. Twm rode to the edge of the water, and threw the pack-saddle with all his strength towards the centre of the pool; but in bustling to regain a steady seat as he made towards the road, he fell headlong from his horse. The freebooter cursed him for a Welsh fool, and with a thundering voice ordering him to hold his horse, or he would blow his brains out, (brandishing his pistol the while) that he might go into the water and recover the booty. Twm feigned great terror, and with ludicrous whimpering took the bridle in his hand; but the moment the highwayman reached the water, he with one spring mounted his fine tall horse, and rode away with all his might.
Our hero soon found that he had reckoned without his host, in fancying his achievement now complete; for the knight of the road finding himself thus tricked, placed his fingers in his mouth and gave a loud whistle, on which, his horse in the full career of speed, immediately stopped quite still. Twm, in real terror, as he was within pistol shot, roared “murder!” with all his might; when the horse, to his great amazement, took his exclamation of terror for a counter order, and again started into a gallop. The freebooter repeated his whistle, and again his horse stood still as a milestone: Twm reiterated “murder!” with all the power of his lungs; and the well-taught horse was instantly again on his greatest effort of speed. Thus the highwayman’s whistle and Twm’s roaring of “murder” had their respective efforts on the noble animal, till at length our hero got completely out of hearing of the baffled robber. As he rode on triumphantly, he sang the old Welsh Triban [172].—
“No cheat it is to cheat the cheater;
No treason to betray the traitor;
Nor is it theft, but just deceiving,
To thieve from him who lives by thieving.”
With the good prize of a valuable horse, he entered the town of Marlborough; the merry peals of its bells were quite in unison with his feelings, and as the tune changed to “See the conquering hero comes,” it almost seemed to him a personal greeting, which, with his natural good animal spirits, elated him to the highest pitch.
Telling his tale at the inn where he put up, it was soon known throughout the town; many of the inhabitants of which, were loud in their congratulations and applause to the young Welshman, who so cleverly outwitted the English highwayman.
CHAP. XXI.
Twm overtakes an old acquaintance. Sad news from Tregaron. Outwits another highwayman, and rides off with his horse.
Twm, though naturally elated with his good fortune, did not suffer it to overcome his caution for the rest of the journey; and as he found himself no less than seventy-four miles from London, he calculated on many more attacks before he should reach it. He was sent for next morning by the mayor of Marlborough, who had heard of his adventure, and required to bring the horse with him, which he had so adroitly won. Many gentlemen having assembled at the entrance of the town-hall, our hero appeared in all the pride of a conqueror, mounted on his goodly steed; their hats were doffed, and loud shouts of applause immediately given. It was soon ascertained by the mayor and the gentlemen present, that the horse was regularly bred to the road, and instructed by a highwayman, therefore, not as first conjectured, the property of any person deprived of it by one of these free-faring gentry: consequently, the mayor, with many compliments on his cleverness, told our hero that the horse was his own by right of conquest; but that if he was inclined to part with it, he would give fifty pounds for it. Twm directly assented, and the money was paid to him the same morning.
Learning there was to be a fair next day at Hungerford, a town ten miles further on, he resolved to walk there with a view of purchasing a substitute for his lost pony, as he judged his original mode of travelling, although the least comfortable, the most secure that he could adopt. About three miles out of Hungerford, he saw before him a pig-drover with a large herd of porkers, that he alternately cursed in the ancient British tongue, and cut up with a whip, while at intervals between these amusing recreations he loudly sang or roared certain scraps of Welsh songs. Twm’s ear was quick in recognizing the well-known voice, and he soon stood side by side with his old friend Wat the mole-catcher. After mutual expressions of wonder and congratulation, Twm eagerly asked him how his mother was, as well as Farmer Cadwgan and his daughter Gwenny. Wat replied that his mother and her husband were well; but instead of answering the latter part of his question, enquired his adventures since he left Tregaron. Twm, with animated vanity, ran over that brief portion of his history, occasionally heightening the colour of events, according to the general practice of story-tellers from time immemorial; dwelling particularly on his fortunate preservation of the lady of Ystrad Fîn, and the benefits which accrued to him in consequence, from the liberality of Sir George Devereux, whose confidential agent he then was, on business of the utmost importance, to London.
After practising to his utmost to astonish Wat with the riches and vast consideration of his “friend” Sir George, Twm very conceitedly observed, “Well Wat, were he ten times as rich and powerful, I should never envy him anything he possessed, but one lovely piece of property.” “And what might that be?” asked Wat. “Why,” replied the other, “could I once forget poor Gwenny Cadwgan, which I never can, I should envy him the possession of his charming young wife, the beautiful lady of Ystrad Fîn—the finest, the handsomest, and cleverest woman I ever saw! and although now married to a second husband, she is little more than three-and-twenty years of age. But I was asking of my old sweetheart Gwenny, poor Gwenny Cadwgan.”—“Poor Gwenny Cadwgan indeed!” sighed Wat, interrupting him. The pathetic and mysterious manner in which the mole-catcher spoke this, alarmed our hero and produced an instant change in his manner; “What of her Wat,” cried he eagerly, “is any thing the matter? tell me quickly, for heaven’s sake!” Wat answered in a tone of greater feeling than any one would have believed him to possess, “She is dead, Twm—dead, and in her cold grave, these four months past. God forgive you, if you have sent her to it, but you alone have the blame of it at Tregaron.” This intelligence was a thunderbolt to our hero; his agony appeared insupportable, as he sat on the road side to indulge it, till tears came to his relief, which at length flowed abundantly. It was not till after they were lodged for the night at Hungerford that Twm found himself capable of questioning his friend further on this unhappy subject, when he was informed that the fair Gwenny Cadwgan had declined in health from day to day, pining, it was said, with secret grief, the cause of which she refused to discover, even to her father; but it soon came out, for Death hastened to her relief, and she died a mother: a premature mother, it is true, and her infant was buried in the same grave with its ill-used broken-hearted, youthful parent.
Hitherto, mental suffering had never been a long guest with our hero; but now, in proportion to his affection for the departed fair one, was his remorse, his self-accusing reflections for his neglect of the fond heart he had won, and the ruin he had brought on one whom he had found so happy. He became ill, and incapable of pursuing his journey the next day, when Wat left him, expressing a hope that he would soon be able to overtake him, that they might enter London together.
He remained three days at Hungerford before he was sufficiently recovered to pursue his journey; at the end of which time, being still at a loss for a horse, on enquiring for an animal of a humble description, he was directed to an old pedlar, who had failed to dispose of a wretched thing of his at the fair. On going with him down a green lane where he had left it grazing, he was not a little surprized to find the creature offered to him for sale to be no other than his own mountain pony, left in exchange with the highwayman, having on its back the identical pack-saddle, in which he had formerly concealed his money. Too depressed in spirits to enter into any detail on the subject, having merely learnt that the pedlar had taken it in exchange for goods from a traveller, Twm purchased both pony and pack-saddle for the small sum of twelve shillings, and immediately set off on his journey.
Alive to the importance of the trust reposed in him, and the danger he ran of being robbed, these considerations had the effect of dissipating his melancholy, and setting him somewhat on his mettle. Well for him it was, that he could so rouse his dormant energies, for by the time that he was within ten miles of Reading, in Berkshire, anxiously hoping to reach it without disaster, the sudden discharge of a pistol, close to his ear, convinced him he was in the centre of danger. Instantly a horseman well mounted rode fiercely down a lane that entered the road, and ordered him to stop and deliver in one minute, or have his brains scattered on the hedge beside him.
Our hero’s presence of mind never forsook him, and now stood his friend in an especial manner. Assuming an air of clownish simplicity, he replied, “Laud bless ye master, I ha gotten nothing to deliver, but an old testament, a crooked sixpence, and a broken fish-hook, and—and—” “And what, you prevaricating young scoundrel!” roared the highwayman, “why this purse,” continued Twm, “which uncle Timothy gave I to market for him and pay his bills at Reading to-morrow;” producing at the same time, an old stocking, which he had stuffed with old nails and cockle-shells, in order to make a jingle. The robber made a grasp at the supposed well-stocked purse, which Twm dexterously evaded, and flung the purse over the hedge into the adjoining field, and riding on, while the former instantly alighted, blustering out a fund of oaths and bullying threats, as he made his way to the field to search for the coveted treasure.
Aware that on his poor pony he could not but be soon overtaken, and perhaps shot, by the disappointed freebooter, Twm felt that a daring act requiring the firmest resolution was to be instantly performed to ensure his safety, and proceeded immediately to its achievement. The knight of the road, when he alighted, threw his bridle over a hedgestake; Twm abandoning his pony for the second time, watched the robber into the field, crawled along the ditch till he reached his horse, which he instantly seized by the bridle, mounted and rode off in a hot gallop, till he got safe into the ancient town of Reading, as the clear-toned bells of St. Lawrence were chiming their last evening peal.
CHAP. XXII.
Twm becomes a pedestrian. Adventures of Wat the mole-catcher. The Cardiganshire lasses. Tragic relation. Stalking Simon murdered. Twm is stopped by a footpad, whom he out-generals and shoots. Arrives in London.
Twm was not so fortunate with this steed as the former, which, being white, and otherwise very remarkable, he had the precaution to have cried next morning, when a wealthy attorney of Reading came forward and claimed it. On hearing Twm’s story, he very handsomely made him a present of ten pounds, partly in consideration of the loss of his own beast, which he had sustained by the adventure.
Being now within eight-and-thirty miles of London, he resolved to throw off his rustic disguise, and walk the rest of his journey. Accordingly, he bought a neat suit of clothes at Reading, in which he concealed his money and a pair of small pocket pistols; and thus provided, he resumed his journey to the metropolis. Having gone twelve miles further, which brought him to Maidenhead, the first person that he met in the street was Wat the mole-catcher, who had sold his pigs to great advantage to a London dealer; and was now sauntering about from tavern to tavern, spending money that was not his own. Twm at first thought of commissioning him to be the bearer of some cash to his mother, but soon found sufficient reason for banishing such an idea. On asking him when he intended to return to Tregaron, the mole-catcher with strong emphasis exclaimed “never!” adding that he had made the place too hot ever to hold him again. On being pressed to relate his adventures since our hero left him at Tregaron, he ran them over in the following off hand strain. “When you were a child, Twm, I was a merry happy lad; and you know, had the reputation as the funny fellow of Tregaron, a distinction that it was my highest ambition to attain. The comical tricks and humorous sayings of Wat the mole-catcher, made mirth at every farmer’s hearth, and their tables were spread with food for me whenever I called. As I grew older, my pleasures and antipathies acquired a stronger cast; and there were but few in our adjoining parishes who were subject either to execration or ridicule, but dreaded my satire and exposure. I formed attachments more than once among the daughters of the farmers whom I had frequently entertained at the social evening hearth; but although my jests were relished, my overtures were rejected. In short, I found that while mirth, innocence, and harmless wit were my companions, parents generally disposed of their daughters to young men of characters directly opposed to mine—the stupidly grave, and knavish. My eyes were at length opened; and I found that the funny man however amusing as an acquaintance, was by none as coveted as a relative, but considered as a merry unthrift, a mere diverting vagabond at best. Well, thought I, as I saw the world in the nakedness of its opinion, this will never do, but since gravity is the order of the day, I will be grave and roguish as the most successful of my fellow men. Having once come to this conclusion, I studied knavery, that is to say, thrifty rascality, like a science. You had a specimen of my skill when you played me that pretty trick that lost me the parish clerkship, and the fair hand of Bessy Gwevel-hîr. As a first step I went immediately to my grandmother, who had often exhorted me to quit my sinful mirth and become serious, when I assured her of my conversion, in token of which, I threw myself on my knees, and entreated her blessing. She afterwards took me to a puritanic chapel, and in that assembly, where I had often pinned the skirts and gown-tails of the elect together, the poor old doting soul in the pride of her heart exhibited her young convert to the gaze of the saints; but neglected to inform them that I had robbed her that same evening, of half the contents of her pocket, as she lay asleep. I was not long in discovering that a sedate aspect was a goodly mask for the most profitable villainy, and therefore determined to wear it for life. Laughter, jest, and mirthful humour, and all those thriftless indications of the light and harmless heart, I abjured forever. I now gave a respite to the rats and moles, and set up as a butcher at Tregaron; and for one sheep that I bought of the farmers, I stole three, and slaughtered them either by moonlight on the hills, or by candle in my own cottage. Although I daily bettered my condition, I considered this but a slow and creeping course to thrift; and therefore, as conscience no longer stood in my way, I meditated some bolder way of leaping into property at once. You know that wrinkled old she-usurer of Tregaron, Rachel Ketch; in the bitterness of my heart, after losing all hope of a fair girl, whom I had long doated on, I went to the old Jezebel and sought her hand in marriage; aye, and would have taken her were she ten times as loathsome, in the anxious hope of her speedy death and of succeeding to her golden hoards. I strove to recommend myself by assuring her I was the most finished scoundrel in existence; and that when gain was my object, theft, perjury, and even murder, however hideous to silly innocents, had no power to scare me from my pursuit. This avowal of my noble qualifications I thought would have won her heart forever, but I was mistaken. The keen-eyed hag, who never was seen to smile before, laughed outright at my proposal. ‘What, you want the old woman’s gold, master cut-throat of the muttons, do you? to cut her throat also, and make away with her in a month after marriage, like a troublesome old ewe!’ screamed she, as her spiteful broken snags grinned defiance, and her shrill tones broke out in laughs of mockery. I never saw mirth so damnable before! I felt myself the butt of her ridicule, humbled and degraded; and as my anger rose against the beldame, I resolved that since I could not wed her, to rob her would answer my purpose full as well. An opportunity was not long wanting; the little boys who had formerly been my favorites, and who in their innocence failed to recognize my altered character, I found it difficult to drive from me. A neighbour’s child one day asked me to lift him up to Rachel Ketch’s thatch, to take from it a wren’s nest which he had long watched, and said he was sure that the young ones were on the eve of flying. It was a winning little urchin that made the request, and I could not refuse him. The moment that I had raised him to a standing posture on my shoulders, he eagerly thrust his little hand into the thatch, and cried, ‘Dear dear, how cold!’ when a snake which he had felt, that had destroyed the young birds, and coiled itself round in the nest, darted out in his face, and the youngster shrieked and fainted in my arms. I carried him home, where he soon died of the fright, for it appeared he was not stung. I suspected there was a nest of those detestable reptiles in the old rotten straw thatch, and therefore poked it in all directions with a long hooked stick, and at last felt something attached to it; as I drew it forward and examined it, to my great astonishment I found it to be an old woollen stocking, closely stuffed with various golden coins. Here was a discovery! I felt myself a made man forever! The old woman was at this time in Carmarthenshire, where she had gone to enforce her claims to certain debts among her former neighbours; and therefore having no fear of detection, I pushed back the golden prize and went away, intending to return for it at night. As I anxiously watched the hours and minutes pass away, reflecting the while on my newly-acquired wealth, a raging savage spirit of avarice so possessed me, that I determined to plunder old Rachel’s cottage of all the money I could find. Night came, and with breathless haste I made an entrance through the thatch on the side furthest from the street, and at midnight went away with a heavy booty, the greater part of which, I buried beneath the floor of my own cottage, determined to seek the first opportunity of quitting Tregaron forever. Fortune seemed to favor me beyond my hopes; Squire Graspacre having a numerous herd of unusually fine hogs, engaged me to drive them to England and sell them at a good price; I have done so, and pocketted the cash, not one farthing of which will the squire ever handle. To relate all my rogueries since I became a grave man would take too much of your time, so here ends my story.”
Twm’s observations on this remarkable narrative were very brief. “I know my own numerous faults too well to blame you highly for anything you have done, except robbing the poor helpless old woman: that was a villainous affair Wat, and will not stand the test of my friend Rhys’s noble precept—War not with the weak. I have a mother, Wat, who is also an old woman, and who but a dastardly villain could ever think of robbing her.” “Very true,” replied Wat, “but she whom I plundered was a rich old woman; and to steal from her who had robbed hundreds by her over-reaching usury will never lie much on my conscience. Perhaps in time I may form a plan to recover the cash buried under my cottage floor; if not, I can make myself very happy with what I already have, in addition to the squire’s pig-money; so that I shall be quite safe and unmolested in England, and while I have money, nobody will dare to question my respectability.”
At this moment, a party of Cardiganshire lasses, who were making their annual journey to weed the gardens in the neighbourhood of London, passed opposite the tavern door, where our worthies were sitting; Twm recognized two Tregaron girls, and called to them by name, when they all went up together. The two rural damsels were right glad to see their long lost countryman; Twm Shôn Catti, but their reception of Wat was very different, as it amounted to terror and abhorrence. They said he was charged not only with the robbery of Rachel Ketch’s cottage, but with murder; that the constables were out to search for him in all quarters, and that Squire Graspacre had sent out a man to supersede Wat in the care of his pigs.
Here Wat’s spirit of bravado entirely deserted him, and evident terror was depicted in his countenance, while his emotion was too great to make any remark on the information given by the girls.
After Twm had treated all the maidens with bread and cheese and ale, and dismissed them on their journey, Wat, in great agony of mind, exclaimed, “Oh God, where shall I fly! all my supposed security I find but a dream, and misery alone awaits me. When I told you the tale of my enormities, I kept back the relation of one crime, a dreadful one! which, lost as I am, I felt averse to acknowledge, and too heart-smote with the consciousness of its atrocity, to turn to it my most secret thought—’twas a deed of blood, the crime of murder. You remember a tall, thin, skeleton-like man, generally dressed in an entire suit of grey, who lived in a cottage on the mountain, in the neighbourhood of Tregaron, known by the nick-name of Stalking Simon the Moon-calf. This man was known to be a spy employed and paid by all the neighbouring farmers. His habits were, to sleep all day, and to spend the night on the hills, watching to identify the hedge-pluckers and sheep-stealers. Many poor persons who depended on their nightly excursions, for fuel, while they deemed themselves unobserved of any human being, cutting down a tree, or drawing dry wood from an old hedge, would suddenly find themselves in the presence of Stalking Simon. So instantaneous was his appearance, as to startle his victims with the idea of an apparition suddenly sprung up through the ground, as his approach was never seen till close upon them. ‘’Tis only me, neighbour,’ would be the hypocrite’s reply, ‘searching for my stray pony:’ but when two persons had been executed, and three transported, on his evidence, the nature of his employment became known, and he was execrated by the whole country. One moonlight night, as I was skinning a fine stolen wether, which I had suspended and spread out on an old storm-beaten thorn, in a field adjoining the mountain, easy in mind, and so fearless of danger that I whistled in a half-hushed manner, as I followed my illicit occupation, a circumstance took place that wrought a violent change in the tone of my mind. My thoughts ran on the whimsicality of the idea of selling a portion of this very mutton to the rightful owner, on the morrow, which was market day, and laughing inwardly at the thought; all at once, Stalking Simon, with a single stride, moved from behind a mossy elm, grey as his own suit, and stood before me. My blood curdled with the sudden transition from mirth to terror; but when the stone-hearted wretch made the old Judas-like reply, ‘It is only me neighbour, searching for my stray pony,’ I knew the amount of my danger, and my terror changed to savage ferocity against the vile informer who had ruined so many of my friends and neighbours. In the fever of my hatred I darted on him, grasped his collar with one hand, and with the other stabbed him to the heart.”
Thus ended Wat’s relation, when he again exclaimed “Oh God where shall I fly? I cannot return, for that road leads straight to the gallows, and in London I should be in hourly danger of being seen by somebody from the country. Since the perpetration of this deed of blood I have not known an hour’s peace, save in the madness of the intoxicating cup. Heaven is my witness, I could be content with slavery, and smile beneath the man-driver’s whip—could strip myself and wander the world in nakedness, or herd with beasts, to regain my former peace and innocence! Oh, I could labour till my bones ached, and my exhausted body dropped to the earth with fatigue, to be once more free from the keen stings of a guilty conscience.”
Wat was now a figure of the most heart-torn remorse; his reddened eyes were tearless, and seemed burning in their sockets; while large drops of sweat rolled down his sun-burnt cheeks, and his whole countenance exhibited the most intense agony. In such an hour as this, Twm was no comforter, although he was much affected, but merely listened in silence. A grey-coated man now approaching the tavern, brought dreadful associations to Wat’s terrified conscience, and in the utmost trepidation he darted out at the back door of the inn, and ran across the fields with the speed of a pursued murderer.
Our hero, now a pedestrian, hurried off on his journey, determined to make up for the time lost at Maidenhead, by walking at a spirited pace; and without stopping a moment, he passed through Langley, Broom, and Colnbrook, hoping to reach Hounslow at least that night. He had travelled unimpeded till within two miles of the last named town, when he met a long-bearded man, who might have passed for the high priest of a Jewish synagogue. Twm stared at him with surprize, but passed on a few steps, when he heard the other at his heels; and turning round, he found him with a pistol aimed at his head, as he called out in the true slang of the road, “Your money or your life.”
Our hero, having now met a few rencontres of this kind, had lost his terror of them; he answered in a submissive style, declaring that he had no money of his own to resign, but it was true he had a considerable sum of his master’s: “I don’t see,” quoth he, “why I should lose or risk my life for any master’s service, though I should like it may appear that I made some resistance before I resigned his property; and therefore if you first fire your pistol through the lapel of my coat, you shall have all;” when the footpad immediately did as requested. “Now,” quoth Twm again, “another shot through the skirt on the other side.” “Very true,” replied the thief, and fired his other pistol as directed. “And now, for a finish,” said Twm, “before I give up to you this large sum, just fire a shot through my hat,” laying it down on the ground as he spoke. “I have no more shot,” cried the robber. “But I have!” exclaimed our hero, triumphantly, producing a pistol, “the contents of this you must take instead of the money I spoke of—a just reward for a shallow knave, whose length of beard is greater than of brains:” at which words, perceiving that the bearded thief aimed to escape, he fired his pistol and shot him dead. Tearing his false beard off, he bore it away as a trophy, and hastened onward.
Being now, as he was previously informed, in the very republic of highwaymen and foodpads, our hero, though greatly fatigued, resolved not to spend the night at Hounslow, but persevere in his route and go the additional nine miles, which would bring him to the great metropolis, and his journey’s end, before he rested. It was near one o’clock, when at length after many inquiries among the Watchmen, he found out the Bull and Gate inn, Holborn; where with blistered feet and sadly fatigued body, he joyfully took his supper and ordered his bed. Who but a pedestrian could enter into his feelings!
CHAP. XXIII.
Twm’s return to Wales. The death of Sir George Devereux. The loves of Twm Shôn Catti and the lady of Ystrad Fîn. Their joys converted into sorrows. Their parting.
It was soon known at Ystrad Fîn that our hero had fulfilled his commission by delivering the money with which he was intrusted, at the place of its destination; and great anxiety was expressed by Sir George and his lady for his return to Wales. The baronet, however, was not destined to put his benevolent intentions in his favor into execution, for, about two months after Twm’s departure, on riding home an ill-broken horse, which he had purchased at Brecon, he was thrown, and killed by the fall. His widow, of course, appeared in weeds; but as the last like her former union with the high pedigreed Thomas ap Rhys ap William Thomas Goch, the former proprietor of Ystrad Fîn, was a marriage of interest planned by her father, Sir John Price, of the Priory, Brecon, it was thought her grief on the occasion was not excessive: at least, such appeared to be the general opinion among the gallants of Brecon, many of whom waited anxiously for the throwing off of her mourning, to declare themselves candidates for her heart and hand.
Month after month passed away without Twm’s return; and when a whole year had run its course, the lady of Ystrad Fîn, who had frequently expressed her alarms for his safety, at length concluded that he certainly was no longer on the records of the living. The young widow speaking of him one day to a female friend, described him as very beautiful of person, and one who deserved the favors of fortune; the greatest of which, in her estimation, would be his acquirement of rank and station by marriage—by an union with a liberal fair, who could overlook his humbleness of birth in consideration of his personal merit. “But the generous young man,” said she, while the tears started in her fine eyes, “is doubtless dead. I feel for him as an amiable unfriended stranger who deserved a better fate than to die in obscurity, as Nature had formed him for distinction, if not renown.”
The conversation then changed, when the widow’s fair friend jocularly alluded to the probability of her again doffing her weeds for bridal robes. “Never!” exclaimed Lady Devereux, “twice have I been a wife and widow, and can safely assert that, love never had a share in the disposal of my hand. Twice have I been bartered to suit the capricious views and family pride of a father; but were it possible for me to utter ‘love, honor, and obey,’ again, within sacred walls, it should be to one whom I love indeed—love, honor, and obey!—and not to the contemporary of my grandfather, or my father’s schoolfellow.”
It was about two months after this conversation took place, that our hero appeared, well mounted on a goodly steed, and entered the court yard of Ystrad Fîn. In a moment, the circumstance was told to Lady Devereux, who almost leaped from her seat, and hurried to meet him, as he reached the entrance of the hall. Twm had heard of the decease of Sir George, and prepared himself with the tone and manner of a condoler, but found it quite unnecessary when he noticed the brisk advance and gay countenance of the handsome widow. “My dear Mr. Jones, welcome, most welcome, back to Wales, and trebly welcome to me and the lonely walls of Ystrad Fîn!” was her first salutation, as with her natural cordiality she stretched out her right hand, which our hero eagerly seized, ardently pressed, and held to his lips. She was not long in discovering the change for the better which had taken place in his address; his former ungainly diffidence and indecision of manner being supplanted by easy confidence, supported by high animal spirits.
The widow, in conversing with her friend Miss Meredith, declared herself delighted with him, and our hero appeared no less pleased with the lady. At her invitation, he became an inmate of the house, until, as she said, he could put himself to rights. The sum of money left to her care, was delivered up to him with considerable additions, in return for his services by the journey to London, and from her own private bounty.
When the youth, beauty, and frank good nature of the lady are taken into account, it will be no matter of surprize that our hero was soon very deeply infatuated with the lady of Ystrad Fîn; or that he should, agreeably to his matured character, very energetically protest himself her sincere admirer, friend, and even lover! If the lady chided him, it was with that gentleness that seemed to say, “Pray do so again.” If she turned aside her head to conceal her blushes, smiles ever accompanied them, in coming and retreating; or if she frowned, it was so equivocally, that for the life of him, our hero could not help considering each transient bend of the brow as so many invitations to kiss them away, which the gallant Twm never failed to accept and obey. These golden days were too rich in delight to last long. As the good-natured and most virtuous world discovered that they were very happy and pleased with each other, it breathed forth its malignant spirit, and doubted whether they had a legitimate right to be so; of course deciding that they had not, and consequently awarding to the lovers the pains and penalties of persecution and mutual banishment. When they had become, for some time, undivided companions, and walked, rode, danced at Brecon balls, and resided under the same roof together, although under the strict guidance of moral propriety, as daily witnessed by the lady’s female friends: it will be no wonder that scandal at last became busy with the lady’s fame. An additional incentive for raising these evil reports was, that she had rejected the attentions of several of the rural nobles, who had endeavoured to recommend themselves to her good graces. All at once, like the inmates of a hornet’s nest, the various members of her family, the proud Prices of Breconshire, buzzed about her ears, and stung her with their reproaches. She bore all with determined patience, until assured that her fame had been vilified, and that she had been described as living a life of profligacy and dishonour. Conscious of rectitude, however indiscreet she might have been, the haughtiness of her spirit now rose, as she indignantly repelled the infamous charges; in the end, requesting her dear friends and relatives to dismiss their tender fears for her reputation, and keep to their own domains for the future, or at least not trouble hers.
Notwithstanding this rough reception of her generous advisers, and reporters of the world’s slanders, others came, almost daily, buzzing still the same tale, till at length tired and wore down in spirits, she consented to send away her deliverer and friend, as she called him, from the protection of her roof. Our hero, however, could never be brought to distinguish between her real kind feelings towards him, and the constrained appearance which her altered conduct made in his sight. Free as the air, as he felt himself, he could not understand why a great and wealthy lady could not at least be equally unshackled and independent. Explanations and excuses were entirely thrown away upon him, as he could not, or would not, understand aught so opposed to his happiness and preconceived notions. When at length it was made known to him that the separation was inevitable, and the season of it arrived, he received the astounding intelligence like a severe blow of fortune, that struck him at once both sorrowful and meditative. Pride and resentment, from a sense of injury, at last supplanted every other feeling; and, starting up with a frenzied effort, he ordered his horse to be got ready, and gave directions for his things to be forwarded to Llandovery; after which he wrote a note, and sent it to the lady’s room, requesting a momentary interview with her alone, before he took his departure. She came down with a slow languid step, and met him in the parlour. Her eyes were red with weeping; and before she could utter a syllable, our hero’s much altered looks affected her so much, that she burst out into heavy sobbing. “Do not think hardly—do not feel unkindly towards me, Jones,” were her first words; “I entreat you to give me the credit due to my sincerity, when I assure you that the sacrifice I made on consenting to part with you, was—yes! although I have buried two husbands who loved me tenderly, it was the heaviest of my life.” Twm replied in a tone and manner that evinced both his pride and sufferings: “I have but few words, madam, and they shall not long intrude upon your leisure. I came here a stranger, and had some trifling claims, perhaps, on your attention.—Those claims have been more than satisfied—noble has been your remuneration of my humble services, your beneficence generous and princely. A change took place in your destiny; you honoured me beyond my merits, and bade me stand to the world in a new character. You called me friend, your sole true friend in a faithless world.—Nay, lady, your lover. I loved, and love you, with a pure but unconquerable flame. Blame me not if I am presumptuous—it was your own condescension, your own encouragement, that made me so, and elevated me to a stand of equality with yourself. You gave me hopes to be the future, the only husband of your choice. You stretched forth your hand to aid my efforts, as I eagerly climbed towards the darling object of my aim; but before I attained the summit, you, madam, in a spirit of caprice or treachery, dashed me headlong downward, to perish in despair. Your great and wealthy friends will praise you for this, while mincing madams and insipid misses shall learn a noble lesson by your conduct, and emulating you, become in their day as arrant coquettes and tramplers on manly hearts, as their more limited powers and vanity will permit. But enough! you shall have your generous triumph,—and from this hour I tread the world without an aim, a wanderer in a wilderness, reckless of all that can either better or worsen my state in life. Advancement, estimation, the pride of generous and applauded deeds, I here abjure; nor from this hour would I raise my hand to save from annihilation the being I am—for life is henceforth hateful to me. Lady, farewell—never will I cross your path; but you may hear of my wayward steps,—and if in me you are told of a wretched idiot, a being whose mind had perished while his frame was strong, let it strike strongly to your heart that it was yourself that wrought that mental desolation. Or if they name me as a lawless being, plunged headlong into deeds of guilt and madness, remember it is you, you, madam! you are the authoress of my crimes and sorrows, and may be, of an ignominious death to follow my career of guilt. And now madam, farewell indeed!” On which he darted out, mounted his horse, and rode off; while the unhappy lady of Ystrad Fîn, whose agitation choked the utterance of replies, caught a last glimpse of him, and fell on the parlour floor in a swoon.
CHAP. XXIV.
Twm’s eccentricities. His rural adventures with the two sheep, the white ox, and the grey horse. Teaches the farmer how to pound the squire’s trespassing pigeons.
When our hero arrived at Llandovery, his sorrows were augmented on learning that his faithful friend Rhys the curate was no longer to be his comforter, though much needed under his present mental depression; it was no small satisfaction to him, however, to be informed that he had been inducted into a good living in a distant part of the principality. The life he led at Llandovery, although lodging at an inn, was, for some days, that of a solitary; days! alas for the consistency of the lover,—days, we repeat, and not weeks or months, much less years, of seclusion from his kind. He soon illustrated the Shakspearian adage, “Men have died, and worms have eaten them, but not for love.” But by him every thing was to done by strokes of boldness; to banish his cares, he plunged at once into intemperance; and from merely tolerating a little cheerful company, he entered the society of the greatest topers and madcaps to be found, till he emulated and outdid the highest, and became the very prince of wags and practical jokers. He was, of course, recognized as the capturer of the tremendous highwayman Dio the Devil, and the acknowledged preserver of the lady of Ystrad Fîn, which, with his relations of many freaks and vagaries in England, together with the assured fact that he had been once in London, and spent a year there, gained him no inconsiderable share of celebrity. One day, while the landlord of the Owen Glendower inn was trumpeting forth the humorous fame of his lodger, among a parlour full of country squires, who were dining together, after the business of Quarter Sessions was over; a merry magistrate named Prothero said, that he was certain he had a servant, a shrewd fellow, whose wits never slumbered, whom he would back in a bet against the vaunted cleverness of Twm Shôn Catti, in any feat of dexterity that could be named. To come to the point, he said, he would lay a wager of five pounds that Twm could not steal a sheep from shrewd Roger, his ploughman, who the next morning should carry one to the village of Llangattock. Twm was sent for; and being invited to sit among these rural nobles, appeared as complete a high fellow as the best of them. Without the least hesitation, he accepted Mr. Prothero’s wager, and deposited five pounds with the landlord, as the merry magistrate had already done. Early the next morning shrewd Roger rose, and shouldered his sheep, vowing before his grinning fellow-servants, who grouped round to crack their jests on him, that the wild devil himself should not deprive him of his burthen. As he proceeded along a part of the high road, up a slight ascent, he discovered with surprise, a good leathern shoe lying in the mud. A shoe of leather, be it known, in a country where wooden clogs are generally worn, is no despicable prize. The shrewd servant looked at the object before him with a longing eye; but reflecting that one shoe, however good, was useless unmatched with a fellow, spared himself the trouble of stooping, for troublesome it would have been with such a weight on his shoulders, and passed on without lifting it. On walking a little further, and pursuing a bend in the road, great was his surprise on finding another shoe, a fellow to the former, lying in the sledge-mark, which, like the rut of a wheel, indented the mud with hollow stripes. In the height of his joy he laid down the sheep, with its legs tied, beside the shoe, and ran back for the other; when Twm Shôn Catti, watching his opportunity, sprang over the hedge, and seized his prize, which he bore off securely, won his bet, and ate his mutton undisturbed.
Prothero, although the most good-humoured of country gentlemen, was rather angry with shrewd Roger, whose shrewdness became rather questionable. It was admitted, in excuse, that the most cunning, at times, may be accidentally overreached by his inferior in wit: on this plea the merry magistrate was conciliated, and induced to enter into another wager, precisely like the former, when a similar sum, against our hero, and in favor of his servant was laid and accepted. The man of shrewdness, as before, determined to use the utmost vigilance and caution to preserve his charge and redeem his reputation. He grasped his load, which was a fine fat ewe, most manfully, and swore violent oaths in answer to his master’s exhortation to chariness, that human ingenuity should never trick him again; but
“Great protestations do make that doubted,
Which we would else right willingly believe.”
In his way to Llangattock, he had to pass partly through a wood, which he scarce entered when the bleating of a sheep attracted his attention, and he came to a dead stand, as he intently listened to what he conceived a well-known voice. “Baa!—baa!” again saluted his ear: a sudden conviction rushed across his mind that this was the very sheep he had before lost, which he imagined might have been concealed by Twm in the rocky recesses of that woody dingle. What a glorious chance, thought he, of recovering his lost credit with his master, and depriving his antagonist at the same time, of his hidden prey, and the laurels achieved in the winning of it. He instantly deposited his burthen beneath a tree; and eagerly forcing his way through the copse and bushes, he followed the bleating a considerable way down the wood, when to his great dismay it ceased altogether. A thought now struck him, though rather too late, that the bleating proceeded from no sheep, but a most subtle ram, in the person of Twm Shôn Catti: he hurried back in a grievous fright, and found his surmises but too true—the second sheep, and his high reputation for shrewdness, had both taken flight together.
On being confronted with shrewd Roger, in his master’s parlour, Twm recognized in him an old acquaintance, and no other than the clever youth with whom he had exchanged his feminine attire at Cardigan fair, and made off with his coat. On being reminded of that affair, and told by Twm that he was the fair ballad-singer with whom he was so deeply captivated, the poor fellow was absorbed in wonderment. He then related to his master the whole of that adventure, with the episode of the parson tossed in a blanket for a bum-bailiff, in such a manner as to excite the most immoderate laughter on the part of the jest-loving Prothero, who good-naturedly assured his man that he lost but little credit with the sheep, when it was considered that he stood opposed to an arch wag of so much celebrity.
Fortune was not so scurvy a stepmother to Twm as to confine him long to a diet of mere mutton, but took occasion to vary it very agreeably with a change of beef.
Determined to have more mirth with our hero, at the hazard of some loss, Prothero offered to oppose to his cunning, the collective vigilance of his husbandmen and maidens; laying a bet with him that he should not steal a white ox, which, with a black one, was to be yoked to the plough. The plough to be held by Roger and driven by another servant; while two girls, driving each a harrow, should also be on their guard to prevent his aim if possible.
Twm accepted the bet, and obligingly undertook to convey away the white ox, and eat the gentleman’s beef, provided it turned out sufficiently tender; protesting, with a half yawn and the perfect ease of a modern Corinthian, that he was absolutely tired of mutton, which he had too long persisted in eating, against the judgement and advice of his physician.
The day arrived, the great, the important day, big with the fate of the white ox. The plough was guided and the cattle driven, while the two bare-footed maidens giggled and laughed till the rocks echoed, as they whipped the horses and ran by their sides, till the harrows bounced against the stones, and sometimes turned over; their mirth was excited by the idea of Twm’s folly in accepting such a bet, and thinking to steal the white ox from under their noses, the impossibility of which was so evident. The two servants at the plough also cracked and enjoyed their joke at the thoughts of our hero’s temerity, at the same time keeping a wary eye in every direction, armed against surprisals, and exulting in the thought that for once, at least, the dexterous Twm would be baffled in his aim. Time passed on; the day waned away towards evening, and as their fatigue increased, their vigilance gradually lessened.
A Llandovery-man, known to them all, passing through the green lane by the field, now addressed these husbandmen, laughing at their caution, and assuring them that Twm had given up the idea of outwitting such a wary and clever party, and was at that moment drinking his wine with their master, whom he had allowed to win the wager. “Allowed, indeed!” quoth a sharp-tongued lass, as she stopped her harrow to listen, “pretty allowing, when he could not help himself.” “Aye,” cried the other girl, “so the fox allowed the goose to escape, when she took to flight and escaped his clutches.” Roger and the plough-boy exulted in their anticipated reward of a skin full of strong beer; thus the whole party was excited to a high pitch of triumphant mirth. The Llandovery-man was of course a decoy, and his report had really the effect of throwing them off their guard, which another circumstance contributed to aid. The rural party had rested, sitting on their ploughs and harrows, at one end of the field, while they listened to their informant; and now were about to resume their labours, when a hare started from an adjoining thicket, crossing the ground towards the opposite hedge. Suddenly the halloo arose, away ran the ploughmen and girls, and away ran the yapping sheep-dog, amid the clamour of shouting and barking; but still stood the wondering oxen, whose grave looks of astonishment gradually changed to a more animated expression of alarm on the arrival of Twm Shôn Catti. Having loosed his captive hare to decoy the clowns, he availed himself of their absence to dress the black ox in a white morning gown,—that is to say, a sheet, which became him much, and contrasted with his complexion amazingly; and the white ox he attired in a suit of mourning, formed of the burial pall, which he had borrowed of the clerk of Llandingad church for that express purpose, and having loosened his fair friend from the yoke, they suddenly disappeared through a gap in the hedge. Although busily engaged in the gentlemanly pastime of the chase, the husbandry worthies now and then glanced towards the plough, but seeing, as they thought, the white ox safe, returned to it at a leisurely pace, till quickened as they neared it by the singular sight before them: and their petty vexation at losing the hare was now swallowed up by the terrible circumstance of the loss of their especial charge. A suitable lamentation followed of course, which was succeeded by fear and trembling, from a conviction that Twm Shôn Catti dealt with the devil; and that the hare which they had chased was no other than the foe of man in disguise. This reasonable and self-evident assumption quite satisfied their merry master, who deemed himself well compensated for his loss by the hearty laugh he enjoyed.
Twm entered Llandovery, leading his white ox in triumph; having tied together several silk handkerchiefs of various colours and thrown them across its horns, while the head and neck were adorned with a gay garland, formed of a profusion of wild flowers. Loud were the huzzas and laughter with which he was received by the juvenile part of the population of Llandovery; not one of whom enjoyed the sight more than the good-humoured Prothero, who cheerfully paid the bet, and from a tavern window had a full view of the scene, which he declared excited his laughter till his heart and sides ached with the agreeable convulsion.
Our hero loved variety; without altogether alienating his affections from beef and mutton, he evinced a very ardent passion for horse-flesh; and pursued it with all the fiery zest of a first-love, when impeded by difficulties the most insurmountable. The lady of Ystrad Fîn still sitting on his heart like a night-mare, and pinching it with pain, rendered him, however amusing to others, miserable enough within himself. Lassitude, chagrin, and bitterness, often betrayed themselves in his countenance and manners, and were only transiently removed by the hilarity of the company with which he mixed, or the freaks which he played in his ill-combined humours of mirth and sorrow. Reckless of consequences, he now entered into follies less innocent than hitherto detailed, led to them more by a spirit of youthful wildness than any really criminal intention.
Being one day at Machynlleth, Montgomeryshire, he saw his old enemy, Evans of Tregaron, riding into the town on a fine grey horse; he determined in an instant that he would deprive him of a property which he deemed too good for such a churl; and as self-will was with him the sole ruling power that claimed either his attention or obedience, the affair was at once settled. Off rode the dauntless Twm, on the parson’s horse, to Welshpool fair, where he soon found a purchaser for it, and received the amount in hard cash. The new proprietor of the grey steed was well pleased with his bargain, and Twm took a generous pleasure in making him still happier, by descanting further on the noble creature’s merits, which, certainly, was very generous, as he was not interested in vaunting its qualities. “I protest to you, in honesty and truth,” said he with much earnestness, “you have a greater bargain than you imagine; as I was not at all anxious to sell him, I have omitted to inform you of half his good points: he is capable of performing such wonderful feats as you never saw or heard of.” “You don’t say so!” exclaimed the elated purchaser, staring alternately at his horse and in the face of our hero. “A fact I assure you,” cries Twm, with the most sober face imaginable; “and if you don’t believe me, I’ll convince you in a moment, if you will allow me to mount him.” “Oh certainly, with many thanks,” quoth the delighted Jemmy Green of past days. Twm very leisurely mounted, and after a variety of postures and curvetings, gradually got out of the fair into the high road; suddenly giving spur and rein to the “gallant steed,” he astonished his new friend by his disappearance. The “green one” had to confess with bitterness of heart that the jockey had certainly kept his word, as he shewed him such a trick as he never before saw or heard of.
Twm had scarcely been seated at the Owen Glendower, on his return to Llandovery, when a person called upon him, who described himself as a small farmer living in the neighbourhood, his name Morgan Thomas, and having heard so much of his cleverness, he came to consult him on an affair of great weight. He had been sadly annoyed, he said, by the continual trespassing of a certain squire’s pigeons on his ground, which made such a havoc amid his wheat, yearly, that the loss was grievous to him: he had computed his damages, and applied for the amount, for the four last years, reckoning that the forty pigeons would devour at least a bushel of wheat each, annually. The squire only laughed at his claims and complaints, telling him he might pound them, and be d—ned, if he liked, when he would pay the alledged damages, and not till then. “Now, to pound them I should like vastly,” quoth Morgan Thomas, “but without the squire’s polite invitation to be d—ned at the same time. But,” added the poor farmer, “pounding pigeons, I look upon as impossible; yet as you have the fame of performing feats no less wonderful, if you will pound those mischievous pigeons for me, I will engage to give you half the amount of my claims.” “Agreed!” cried Twm, and grasped his hand, in token that he undertook the task. He sent a quantity of rum to the farmer’s, next morning, and steeped in it a peck of wheat, which he afterwards scattered about the farm-yard. The pigeons came, as usual, and eagerly devouring the grain, each and all soon appeared as top-heavy as the veriest toss-pot in Carmarthenshire; and, like the said fraternity, incapable of returning home, they fell in a stupor on the ground. Our hero, assisted by the farmer, picked them up, tied their legs, and put the whole party in the pound. The squire, who was no other than Prothero the laughing magistrate, ever pleased with a jest, especially when cracked by our hero, immediately paid the farmer’s demand; and Twm generously refused the proffered remuneration for his very effective assistance.
CHAP. XXV.
Twm composes and sends to his mistress his Cywydd y Govid. Visits her in disguise, and obtains the solemn promise of her hand. Description of the romantic hill of Dinas, and the excavation in it, since called Twm Shôn Catti’s cave. Twm suspects himself jilted.
While our hero was thus pursuing his vagaries, the unhappy lady of Ystrad Fîn, who had not known a day’s peace since his absence, was daily wavering between a resolution to send for him back, to bestow on him her hand, and a deference for her father and proud relatives, who insisted that if ever she married again, it should only be to a title and fortune; by which they should themselves share in the honor. In the mean time information was brought to her, of his wild tricks and excesses, greatly exaggerated to his disadvantage, which gave that kind-hearted lady the greatest concern, as she conceived herself in part the authoress of his misfortunes. Twm, at the same time, felt that his tedious absence from the fair widow was no longer to be endured; and as he knew her conduct to be daily watched by her father’s spies, he determined on paying her a visit in disguise. Previous to putting his design into execution, he composed and sent her the following poem, in which he dwells on, and over-rates his own misfortunes, in a strain calculated to move her tenderness in his favor.
CYWYDD Y GOVID. [208]
The outcast’s forced ally is mine,
Affliction is his name;
It is a ruthless savage mate,
And like a foe that’s pale with hate,
To crush me is his aim:
His cruel shafts are fiercely hurl’d,
He forced me friendless on the world.If forward, seeking good, I wend,
My eager steps out-strips the fiend;
If backward, I retreat from ill,
My cruel foe arrests me still;
I seek the flood, to end despair.
Relentless Govid meets me there,
And tells of endless pangs for pride,
The wages of the suicide.Fell Govid’s mighty in the land,
His children are a horrid band,
Who joy in hapless man’s distress,
Lo, one is Debt—one Nakedness;—
And Need against me doth combine,
(Fierce Govid’s loveless concubine);
And Care, that knows not how to yearn,
Is Govid’s consort, keen and stern:
And thus this family of ill,
E’er bruise my heart and bruise my will.Though lost to me the tranquil day,
My vanquisher I hope to slay,
The fierce enormous giant fiend
No more the heart of Twm shall rend,
If thou, my lady-love! but smile,
Thou gentle fair, devoid of guile—
Thou darling object of my choice,
Oh bless me with assentive voice,
And soon shall Govid lay his length,
A corse! struck down by Rapture’s strength.
Lady Devereux had read this little poem over the third time, and repeatedly wiped the tears from her beautiful blue eyes, when the maid entered her chamber, and in a tone of complaint informed her mistress that there was a very importunate and troublesome gypsy in the kitchen, who, after having told the fortunes of all the servants in the house, and partook of the usual hospitalities, insisted on seeing her, to tell also, she said, the fortune of the lady of the house. “I am not in a mood to relish such foolery now, so send her about her business,” answered the lady, in a tone more sorrowful than angry. “It is quite useless,” replied the girl, “to attempt to send her away; big Evan the gardener tried to take her by the shoulders, and turn her out by force, but she whirled round, grasped him by the arms, tripped up his heels, and laid him in a moment on the floor. There she sits in the kitchen, and vows she will not budge from thence for either man or woman, till she sees the lady of Ystrad Fîn, whom she loves, she says, dearer than her life, and would not for millions harm a hair of her head.” Although too deeply absorbed in sorrow to have her curiosity much excited, she went down stairs, and approaching the sibyl, who had now taken her station in the hall, asked, “What do you want, my good woman?”—“To tell you,” answered she, “not your fortune, but what may be your fortune if you choose.” “Let me hear then,” said the lady of Ystrad Fîn, with a faint incredulous smile, walking before her, at the same time, into a little back parlour. Before she could seat herself, the apparent gypsy caught her right hand wrist, and looking round, whispered in her ear,
“To heal your torn bosom, and ease every smart,
Oh take—he’s before you—the youth of your heart.”
The colour fled the fair widow’s cheeks, and in a moment she sank in a swoon in her lover’s arms. Soon recovering, she desired her maid to deny her to every body that called, “as,” added she with a smile, “I have particular business with the gypsy.” A scene of tears and tenderness ensued; when Twm, with the utmost fervour, urged his suit with the young widow. She replied that her father had insisted on, and received her promise, that she would wed no being but who either bore a title, or stood within a relative to one. “You did well,” replied our hero, with the most impudent and easy confidence, “and your promise, so far from militating against me, is really in my favor; for am not I the son of a baronet? his natural child, ’tis true, but still his son; and you would break no promise to your father in marrying me; but if you did, so much the better, for a bad promise is better broke than kept. I have friends at this moment, who are doing their utmost to move my father, Sir John Wynne of Gwydir, to own me publicly for his right worthy son; and if he does not, the loss is his, for I shall certainly disown him else for a father, and claim the parentage of some greater man.”
Twm’s rattling assertions in this respect were more true than he was himself aware; for his friend Prothero, the merry magistrate, learning accidentally, by a chance rencontre with Squire Graspacre, many particulars of his birth, and the hardships of his neglected childhood, determined, if possible, to get him righted at last.
Twm, as he had predetermined, used the present tete-a-tete to some purpose, and soon succeeded in obtaining from the fair object of his hopes a decisive promise that she would be his forever. The joy of our hero knew no bounds, nor did the lady very strenuously resist his rapturous embraces; but seemed to find her heart relieved by the resolution she had come to, that now, forever, put an end to the conflicting doubts as to her future course, which had so long torn her heart, and banished her peace.
Noon was now verging into evening, and at the earnest request of his mistress, Twm consented, to save appearances, immediately to quit her roof. She directed him to wait for her, and her confidential friend Miss Meredith, at the entrance to the ancient cave on the top of Dinas, which was the name of the conical hill exactly fronting the mansion of Ystrad Fîn. He accordingly took his departure; and winding round the base of Dinas, he crossed the river Towey, which, being then in summer, was there little more than a brook. After walking over a couple of fields, and a piece of rough common, he had to cross the Towey once more, when he commenced his ascent at the only part of this very steep hill where it was possible to climb. During his former stay at Ystrad Fîn, this wildly romantic height had been his favorite haunt, as the cave in its side was the greatest object of his wonder. It was, in fact, a mighty mound, that bore all the appearance of having been, at the period of its formation, convulsed by an earthquake, and in the height of nature’s tremendous heavings, suddenly arrested and becalmed, even while the huge crags were in the act of tumbling down its steep sides. A narrow valley circled its base, and the mountains around of equal height with itself, separated only by this deep and scanty dell, seemed as if rent from it, during the supposed convulsion of the earth, and Dinas left alone, an interesting monument of the memorable event. The surface of the acclivous ground was so speckled with huge loose stones, that it was dangerous to hold by them in ascending, as the slightest impetus would roll them downward.
Twm, at one time, when assisting his mistress to climb the steep sides of Dinas, in his wild way said, that he had no doubt but an earthquake had turned the bosom of the hill inside out, so that no secret could be therein concealed; archly insinuating that he trusted the time would soon come when without so violent a process, her own fair bosom would be equally open to him, while it rejected the stony barriers that then stood between him and her heart.
The entrance into this excavated work was no less singular that the petite cave itself. It was through a narrow aperture, formed of two immense slate rocks that faced each other, and the space between them narrower at the bottom than the top, so that the passage could be entered only sideways, with the figure inclined forward, according to the slant of the rocks: a thin person being barely able to make his way in, while a man of some rotundity might also succeed, by rising on his toes, and forcing himself upwards. Between these rocks of entrance, a massive stone block was wedged at the top, so that it formed a rude and faint resemblance of an arch. After sidling so far through a comparatively long passage, it was no small surprise to find that it led to so small a cave; scarcely large enough to shelter three persons huddled close together, from a shower of rain. What it wanted in breadth, in possessed however in height, as it ran up like a chimney, to the altitude of forty five feet, and was open at the top to the very summit of the mount, forming a skylight to the room below. Although the little cave was deficient of a solid roof, a very rural one was formed by the large tufts of heather, and fern, which sprung through the crevices of the rocks; the whole being surmounted by the pendant branch of a dwarf oak, that with many other trees stood like a crown on the elevated head of Dinas. However singular the interior of this cave might appear to our hero, he found a superior pleasure in examining the grand combinations that graced its exterior. There he saw, with never satiated delight and wonder, objects of the most romantic character, curiously united here near the junction of three counties. The rocky Dinas, with its many inaccessible sides, besides the loose crags before mentioned, was partially covered with aged dwarfish trees, all bending in the same direction; many with their heads broken by tempests, but still throwing out fantastic-looking branches, while others, stark, sere, and shrouded in grey moss, were things that seasons knew not.