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.