The Comical Adventures of Twm Shon Catty (Thomas Jones, Esq.), / Commonly known as the Welsh Robin Hood

by T. J. Llewelyn Prichard

CHAPTER XIII.

Moses displays his inventive power in catching mutton. The storm bursts, and the tricks of Twm and Moses are discovered. Hukin Heer informs, and receives his reward. The house is in an uproar.

As the material of their feasting was waning, like a pleasant moon that declines towards the latter quarter, Moses grew more and more uneasy, as foul food or starvation was staring him in the face, night and day. As he utterly failed to sleep, he employed the silent hours of midnight to hatch a scheme for the procurement of future provender. “Twm,” quoth the young schemer one morning, “you love mutton, and so do I; and as you provided the pancakes and the pigs, as well as the fish, (a quinsey fill the throats that swallowed them!) it is now my turn to be founder of the feast. I will not only find the feast, but I will manage matters so well, that Sheeny Greeg herself shall cook it for us.”

Then he related, as Morris had informed him, how in former years the sheep had repeatedly fallen headlong from the height of Allty Craig, and been killed, and how since those times he had made a thick hedge to keep them from the edge of the precipice. “But we won’t be so particular now,” said Moses, “for I mean to get up an accident for one of the sheep. Then we may eat and be happy again; we’ll have a change this time. It was pork before, and now we’ll have mutton.”

“With all my heart,” said Twm, “only do it all yourself, then we shall see what you can do without my assistance.” Thus challenged, Moses felt it as a point of humour to proceed in the affair alone.

Explanatory of what follows, it is here necessary to quote the observation of one of our best South Wales tourists, on the subject of the Welsh hilly sheep. “I was much struck,” says Malkin, “with the difference between the hilly sheep and those of the vale; the former are not only smaller, but infinitely more elegant and picturesque in figure. They seemed to have all their wits about them, so that one would think the race had acquired its proverbial character for silliness by feeding on rich and artificial pastures, without having inherited it originally in the state of nature. When we got into the lane, we met with a flock of several hundred, which live among the rocks all the year round, only coming down in shearing time. They had us in front, and their shepherd and his dog in the rear. The bounds many of them made in avoiding us, were equally powerful and lofty with those of wild goats.”

Even such was the woolly tribe, from which the insatiate Jew was now preparing to select a victim. Ambitious of the sole credit of the enterprise, he desired Twm to stay below and leave him to follow his own plan. Scarcely thinking of the matter in hand, Twm took his seat on a gate, opposite to the lofty cliff of Allty Craig Llwyd, pondering in his mind about his distant home, the loved scenes which he had left for these, and above all, his mother, from whom he had been so long separated. Moses wound up the hill, and attained the top at the back of the cliff.

With the assistance of the farm-dog he soon drove one of the finest of the wethers into the angular nook formed by the hedge of the adjoining wood, and that which screened from the edge of the terrific cliff. The dog, being set on, barked and bit incessantly, while Moses shouted and bellowed with waving arms, till, worried by stupidity at last, the sheep bounded up, and sprang far over the hedge, and downward in the yielding air—ignorant of the yawning gulf behind the hedge, and the snare laid for his life! Moses set up a triumphant yell like that of a wild Indian, as he peered over the precipice and saw the downward movements of the poor sheep. Startled with the shout of Moses, at this moment Twm looked up, and saw the animal describing a rainbow sweep, and turning over and over in its descent through the air, and its ultimate fall into the quarry beneath, where it dropped lifeless.

So little did our hero relish this cruel affair that he would scarcely speak to Moses, when the latter expected high applause for his handywork. But the Jew-boy, nothing daunted, ran to the farmer, whom he found cobbling up an old plough in the yard, to save expense of paying a wheelwright.

“Oh dear! Oh dear!” whined Moses, with the greatest appearance of heart-touched concern, “a terrible accident has happened—one of the sheep—the fattest and finest of the whole flock—has just sprung over the hedge above Allty Craig, and broke its beautiful neck.” Morris threw down the axe he was using, and looked nearly as sorry, angry, and despondent as he felt. “Nothing but misfortunes!” cried he at last, “nothing but misfortunes for me, wretched man that I am!” his thoughts dwelling at that moment on the fine pig that he lately lost. “First a fine pig, and now my finest sheep. Verily, this must be the end of the world, such judgments could not come without reason!”

“Hadn’t we better cut his throat to save his life,” inquired Moses in the most compassionate and tender tone that he could assume, forgetting the slight anomaly which his suggestion presented; “and then, sir, hadn’t we better skin him too?” continued the young slip of Judaism. “If he isn’t bled directly, and nothing said about the accident, the women will vote him to be buried in the same grave with the hog, considering his beautiful mutton as no better than so much carrion. You know the women are so shamefully dainty in such matters.”

This wily speech won the entire approbation of Morris Greeg, and patting Moses’s shoulder, he thanked Providence that he had so faithful a servant; adding in the same breath, “be sure you don’t cut the skin.”

This gave Twm and Moses full employment for the rest of the evening, while Morris entered the house, and delivered the startling intelligence to his household that he had determined to give them all a treat, and that for this purpose he had ordered one of the finest sheep to be slaughtered, that they might have fresh mutton.

It was just as the first dinner from this promised feast was finished, on the day following, that Hukin Heer, that tall lanky cottager, whose dog had been killed by Moses, under the imputation of madness, called on Morris and Sheeny; and in a self-sufficient mysterious manner, informed them that he had a long story to tell them. As he cast a furious look at Moses, that worthy felt an inward conviction that his long story boded him no good; so taking up his hat in a hurried manner, he prepared to depart. Hukin Heer, however, told Morris, that as his tidings concerned the whole household, and that he was a man who scorned to criminate any one behind his back, he particularly wished that Moses and Twm should be present, to hear all that he had to urge against them. Moses treated his insinuations with a bold look of defiance as his insignificant features could possibly assume, yet trembling with dread that some important discoveries to his disadvantage were to be made.

Twm’s only amusement at that moment consisted in watching the terrified expression upon the countenance of the young Israelite, and in mentally commenting upon the probable consequences of Heer’s information. Now all the family were seated round; Hukin occupying a chair that commanded the passage, in case the culprits aimed to escape, and Sheeny with her female brood, bursting with curiosity to hear what diableries Hukin had to unfold.

It turned out that this unlucky cottager, on the destruction of whose cur, by the relentless hand of Moses, fled in the utmost alarm at the supposed damages done by him, according to the insinuations of Twm, under the influence of canine madness. This, Hukin knew to be a fabrication, and suspecting the rest to be so, indulged in bitter feelings of resentment against the insignificant Jew whelp, as he called him, who on false pretences had destroyed his poor dog. Brooding over his wrongs, he at times revenged himself, in the early dark winter evenings, by tearing the hedges of Morris Greeg, by which amiable pastime he repaired the deficiency of his own fuel, and gave endless labour to those parish apprentices to repair them.

One eventful evening he caught up the clue which furnished him with the means of revenge. He was returning home, after despoiling the hedges, when he heard the sound of footsteps; at once he concealed himself and his load of faggots, and like a stealthy spy, awaited the results. While in this position, by the imperfect light of a dull moon, he caught a full view of Twm and Moses. Abandoning his load of wood, he dogged their steps till they were housed in the hovel of Mike the mat-man. He then saw the inmates enjoying the lingering remains of the pig, gloating over it, and making sundry comments which might, to say the least, be considered suspicious. For several nights Heer followed them, and saw the same scene enacted; he had at last gathered a full and connected narrative of the whole affair, and it was an intense satisfaction to have these sweet means of revenge in his possession.

On the day previous to the present, in the full glow of triumphant malice, he called on Mike, and informed him that his midnight feastings were discovered. Poor Mike trembled with apprehension of the evil consequences that might accrue to him; and in the hope of propitiating the angry spirit of his revengeful neighbour, confessed all he knew, which was everything, about the matter. It seemed as if the spirit of vengeance had yielded a favourable ear to Hukin’s desires; for on this same evening, as he lurked in the wood adjoining Allty Craig, and only separated from it by the hedge, it was his lot to witness the last enormity of Moses, in driving the sheep, on which they had been feeding, over the dreadful precipice.

All these particulars, with the exception of his own part in despoiling the hedges, he narrated before the present assembled party, with the most enlarged minuteness, while the different members of the family were agitated with various feelings as they listened to his exaggerated account of the affair.

Vain would be the attempt to seek words that could do adequate justice in describing the effects of this discovery on the countenance of the economic Morris, and that amiable provider of short commons, his wife. If one groaned forth her unutterable grief, the other ground his teeth; and in the vehemence of his wrath could not help thinking that the penal statutes required amendment—that it was an infamous interference on the part of the law to call the sacrifice of a parish apprentice or two, in the way of just resentment, by the hideous name of murder; while to his thinking, it was much less criminal than clandestinely killing a pig or a sheep, that would fetch so much more money. Almost delirious with his troubles, he paced the house to and fro, at the frantic rate of five miles to the hour, muttering to himself a complete summary of the evils that had befallen him.

“Pig not mad—tickled by the sand in his ear—all eaten by the boys and the mat-man—curse their stomachs!—sheep driven over the precipice—worth ten shillings—Oh!—villainy unheard of—the world was innocent till now—all former villainy child’s play to this—the latter day is coming fast—signs like these are not given for nothing! The prophets have said”—

“What’s become of all the fine lard, you cut-throat villains?” whined Sheeny, in the most touching accents, thinking of the tesian vroy, or short cake, that was lost to her forever; while the younger lasses looked bewildered at the prophetic passage alluded, and wondering where it was to be found. As nobody answered her interesting inquiry, Sheeny continued to bite her nails and drum the devil’s tattoo with the heel of the wooden shoe; while Hukin Heer grinned like a demon at the mischief which he had made.

Both Morris and Sheeny were at length roused from their stupor by the inquiry of Hukin,—“Well, what be you going to do with them? I have a couple of hairy halters in my pockets here, that I brought for the purpose; we had better tie their hands behind them, and send them at once in a cart to jail, where they will be hanged, drawn, and quarted, as a warning to all rogues who take away the lives of innocent dogs,”—“and pigs!” roared Griffith; “and sheep!” shrieked Sheeny, as a climax to the whole.

Twm and Moses were on the alert, and in less time than it takes us to narrate the fact, Moses threw a three-legged stool at the informer, and that with such force that it fractured the elbow-bone of his right arm. In an instant Hukin recovered himself, and was about to rush on the young Jew. But Twm Shon Catty was ready, his “soul was in arms and eager for the fray.” As Hukin advanced, Twm launched a heavy oaken stool at his head, which laid his lank carcass on the floor, bathed in blood. The scene was almost taking a tragic turn when Sheeny changed its spirit by attacking Moses with a birch broom, while one of the younger was pricking him in the breech with a toasting-fork, till he blared like a beaten calf. In the confusion of the fray, Shaan attacked her father with a dirty flummery ladle, that whitened and disfigured his black beard and whiskers, as if a barber had commenced his operations, while the good man stood open-mouthed marvelling whether these were not additional signs of approaching doom.

Aware that these ladle-bastings were intended for himself, Twm caught Shaan behind, and holding her elbows fast to her sides, gave her a twist round, and inflicting a tremendous kiss on her fat blubbery lips; then pouting with passion, he loosened his hold, and springing over the prostrate carcass of Hukin Heer, retreated through the doorway in good order. Moses followed, but with considerable confusion; dodging his head, and rubbing his seat of honour in his retreat, as the visions of birch-brooms and toasting-forks haunted him long after he was far beyond their reach, whilst seating himself was made a painful operation, and he mentally thought he had undergone the same punishment as he had seen somewhere in an old print, where his satanic majesty was impaling an old witch in that portion of her body, for the convenience of which, chairs were originally invented.

CHAPTER XIV.

The flight of the Israelite and Mike. Mirth changed to grief. Killing by kindness, and saving by neglect. A bright vision, and a supernatural seánce. The end of the miserly household.

On Twm’s rushing out of the house, he sought his bed in the hay-loft, and laying himself down, laughed incessantly, at the thought of the scene just passed; at the same time wondering what had become of his luckless fellow in mischief, whom he momentarily expected to follow him. Moses, however, was so confused by his head-drubbings from the broom of Sheeny, and tail-piercing from the fork of little Gwenny, that failing to see Twm in his retreat, he ran straight forward, without knowing whither. But the very legs of Moses without the guidance of his head, seemed to have a predilection for the favourite road which led to the house of feasting; as in this instance they bore him without pause, till housed in the hovel of Mike, the mat-man.

Poor Mike, he found busied in packing up, and loading his pony with a cargo of mats, and preparing for immediate departure, fearing that day-light would send somebody to take cognizance of the share which he had taken in devouring Morris Greeg’s swine-flesh. Moses related all that had passed, and entreated that he might become his companion in his present excursion; assuring him that he had as sweet a voice for crying mats as he could meet with in a month’s march.

Mike assented, and told him to fortify his stomach with what his hut afforded, against the dangers of the midnight air, a hint which was seldom thrown away upon him. The good-natured wife of the mat-man earnestly requested her husband to divide the head of the pig (the only part left!) between himself and Moses. That youth seconded the motion; observing it was dangerous to leave any portion of it behind, as, though dead, it might tell tales, and be claimed by some of the Greeg family; feelingly remarking, “if you have any more pork, rather than you should get into a scrape, I’ll risk it, and take it all myself.—I am not so selfish as to begrudge to carry it.”

Mike winked at his wife, intimating that he knew his customer. Next morning our hero called at the mat-man’s house, with the laudable desire of putting him on his guard, intending to communicate the adventures and disclosures of the preceding day. But he was doomed to disappointment. Mike had “cleared out” three hours before, escorted by the Israelite, whilst the wife had been left behind to “take care of the things,” and to be the link that should join them to more auspicious times. This breach of good-fellowship on the part of Moses, in leaving him so abruptly, piqued and fretted him not a little. With a commendable spirit that disdained to act the paltry part of a run-away, he entered the house of Morris Greeg at the usual breakfast hour, and took his meal in silence. Sheeny kept her bed this morning, overcome by the tumults of the preceding evening, and Shaan officiated in her place.

The absence of Moses was very slightly commented upon, both father and daughter declaring it would have been well for them if he had taken himself off much sooner; yet, under all this feigned indifference, it was very perceivable to Twm that his loss was much felt by them. Under a couple of old sacks on the settle by the fire lay the damaged body of Hukin Heer, where he had been groaning all night. Without the slightest reference to the past, Twm was told that his first job that morning would be to take Hukin home in a dung-cart, charging him to put plenty of clean straw under him, so that he might ride in style and comfort.

Thus Twm had to perform an office for an enemy, who the day before volunteered to do the same for him,—under different circumstances, that he was to be pinioned like a felon, bound hand and foot, and escorted to the county jail, a reversion of the scene which Twm liked rather than otherwise. It reminded him of the gallows which the scriptural Jew had made for some one else, but eventually took his position there himself.

On Twm’s return, after depositing Hukin with his wife, whose inquiries he cut short, by urging his haste, he was surprised to find that although it was the dinner hour, no food was prepared, nor was any one member of the family to be seen or heard. This unusual stillness he considered as strangely contrasting with the bustle and agitation of the previous day, nor could he in any way account for it. At length the deep silence was feebly broken by some voices upstairs, in the softened tones of pitying condolement, succeeded by the heavy sobbing of a female, amidst the earnest and agonized prayer of a gruff broken voice, which he at once knew to be that of Morris.

At length he recognized the well-known voice of Sheeny, amidst the loud wailing of her daughters, passionately exclaiming, “It is—O God, it is—that murderous disorder, the white-plague pest!” Such was the expressive name by which that awful visitor since known by the name of small-pox, was announced to be in the house. An indescribable vague feeling of terror thrilled through his whole frame, as the dreadful fact became known to him. As in those days scarcely any one knew how to treat this remorseless enemy of the race of man, its very existence in the neighbourhood was deemed a certain messenger of doom, and even in those rare cases where the life of the infected was spared, the envious demon stamped fearful foulness on the face of beauty, and hideously scarified the smoothest cheek, so that the parent knew not the features of his child.

The first hasty thought that crossed our hero’s mind, was to fly, and escape while yet clear of the contagion; but in an instant his nobler though mistaken feelings abjured the thought, bad as they had been to him, of deserting this afflicted family in the dark day of their heavy visitation. However, his presence was no more noticed than his absence would have been. Day after day, things remained in a similar state; at length the lower part of the house was absolutely deserted, or inhabited by him alone. Even the fire was extinguished, and the house might have been uninhabited for anything to be seen to the contrary. There were no sounds, except the occasional groans of Morris, and the cries of the frightened females. The family assembled together upstairs, almost courting infection by their presence, and Twm was therefore left to provide for his own wants.

Rarely could he meet with any one to enquire, as his feelings prompted, who were the sufferers, and how they fared. The third day since the commencement of the sickness, as he sat lonely and languidly, from the disordered state of his stomach, unable to partake of the dry food before him, a shriek of women announced some fatality to have taken place. Morris came down, with streaming eyes and agitated face, and for the first time in his life grasping his hand in friendly wise, emphatically proved how suffering had subdued his selfishness, and humanized his hard heart. At length, with broken voice, he said, “She is gone—my youngest girl is gone,—and I fear my little Gwen will follow soon.”

Even while commiserating with Morris, Twm complained of a head-ache, and a loathing sickness, with a feverish burning of the whole frame, that was overwhelming him. Morris immediately saw that he was infected, and told him to go and lie down; informing his family of the feeling evinced by him for their suffering, and that he was decidedly in the disorder. Then taking his staff he hurried to the different cottages that were thinly scattered among the lonely mountain cwms or dingles, with the hope that either kindness or considerations of interest would induce an elderly female or two to engage with him as nurses, to watch and attend the sick.

Accordingly, two that had gone through the ordeal of the frech wen, or the white pest, as the small-pox was called, accompanied him home. They commenced their office by making a regular, roasting fire, and feasting themselves in the best manner the house afforded, attending to number one first, as it behoved all nurses to do, their patients for the time being of course quite a secondary consideration. Feasting to inaugurate their arrival, they averred was an ancient custom, and must be adhered to. He knew not whether it was an ancient one; but that it is a convenient one, none could deny. Twm soon found himself at the height of the malady. Well for him was it, that the fever and other accompaniments of this fearful disorder removed from him all desire for food—for none was brought to him; none called to offer their kindly offices, nor to inquire how he fared; and he had to feel in the acutest degree the abandoned lot of that “no man’s child,” the sick and suffering parish apprentice. His bed in the hay-loft was an old hop-sack, half filled with the chaff of oats; and his covering an old tattered blanket, and a musty rug that had served several offices for horses.

Thus, with the whistling of the wind through the numerous crevices of the crazy walls, and the rain dripping on him at times, through the imperfect rotten thatch, he remained hours, days, and dreary nights, groaning away his time, impatiently longing for death, or speedy recovery. When daylight dawned, his mind wearied by aches and pains of the body, and by a complete absence of the power of thought, would seek some occupation and amusement in speculation on the formation of the dark heavy folds of the numerous cob-webs that waved to and fro over his head, from the mouldy beams and rafters, like the triumphant flags of squalid penury; while the squeaking of mice, that ran in troops about him, became the miserable music that served to vary the monotony of his heavy hours.

One night, while doubly darkened, both by the deep shades of midnight, and his eyes scaled by the glutinous adhesion of the putrid “pest,” lonely and uncared for, he was cheered and comforted in a manner as mysterious as it was delightful. In after years, when referring to the circumstances about to be detailed, marvellous and incredible as it may appear, he always protested with a solemnity that he deemed the subject called for, that he was neither absorbed in slumber at its occurrence, nor under the influence of the slightest delirium, but wakeful and sensible as ever he was during his healthful mid-day avocations.

Turning upon his humble bed, wearied by the long and continued gloom, weakened by continual aches and pains, a chorus of sweet voices broke upon his ear, ravishing from the beauty of its strains. In an instant afterwards, the wretched gloom was dispersed by a brilliant light which burst into the loft, and made all the old familiar objects radiant with a most unearthly brilliance. Simultaneously with the sight and sound, pleasant sensations sprang within his breast, and every pain had vanished. While striving with the efforts of reason to account for what he had felt and mentally beheld, to his unutterable wonder, a tall female form appeared beside his lowly bed, in full glow of youth and beauty, arrayed in costly attire.

She had nothing about her allied to what he called the supernatural—all seemed perfect reality—and although exceedingly lovely, and benevolent in aspect, she was nothing more nor less than a living “lady of the land,” in widow’s weeds of the costly habiliments of the present time. As he sank abashed from her fixed and smiling gaze, she extended one of the finest hands he had ever beheld, and pointed to two marriage rings, one above the other, on the third finger of the left hand. He gazed steadfastly on the rings, and, as he thought, he saw a third one above the others, of a much paler hue; but on viewing it closer, it appeared simply a white narrow silken ribbon, tied in that peculiar fashion, called a true-lover’s knot. Twice he looked from the finger to the face, struggling to give utterance to the question that was trembling on his lips, as to the meaning indicated, when a shriek from the house thrilled through his heart; the glorious vision with the heavenly accompaniments of light and music, were in an instant gone.

The lovely picture vanished, leaving poor Twm more chagrined than ever was Tantalus. Like the mirage, it vanished and faded away, leaving the weary gazer disappointed and dispirited. But still the heart of Twm was comforted with high, though baseless hopes, that fortune had some precious gift in store for him, which time would yet bring forth.

The pleasurable sensations excited in the breast of our worthy, by what he ever after called his “glorious vision,” in healing the mind, had the auspicious effect in cicatrizing his body. But as he recovered his sight, and found the fever abandoning him, his appetite increased, and he became at length tremendously hungry, with apparently nothing within his reach to appease his inward cravings; and he was yet too weak to quit his loft in search of any food.

At times, indeed, somewhat nerved, or rather maddened by his rage for food, his weak hands would rustle in the pea-straw that was heaped between his bed and the wall; and occasionally, after a long search, to his great joy, he would discover an unbroken pea-shell that had escaped the searching of the flail, while in the act of thrashing in the barn. He had heard tales of shipwreck and disaster, when lots had been cast between the mariners as to which should be killed to furnish food for the rest. He could believe them all now, whatever doubt he might have had before. If he could now discover a neglected pea-shell, in spite of the soreness of his hands and mouth, he would open it and devour it with the utmost avidity. Just as this wretched resource was failing him, one day, after a vain and heart-aching search for another pea-pod, a sudden rustle in the straw startled him, and in great alarm he drew back his hand, in the dread of coming in contact with a rat.

From this feeling he was agreeably relieved by the clucking of a hen, that in the same moment descended through a hole in the floor of the loft into the stable below. This homely “household fowl” now became his “bird of good omen,” which in after years he adopted as his crest; for after a short search he discovered no less than three of her eggs. This was indeed “manna in the wilderness” to his declining hopes. A spring in the desert to the parched pilgrim; a port and safety to the shipwrecked mariner; wealth unexpected to the victim of poverty. Not one of those electrifying “God-sends” was ever welcome with greater heartfelt thankfulness, than the humble prize presented to our hero. But this assistance, however welcome at the time,—and wildly welcome it most truly was,—proved after all but temporary.

Thus, although recovering fast from the horrors of the small-pox, he was in the perilous jeopardy of becoming a victim to starvation. Yet hope was strong within him, and wild, young, and thoughtless as he was, he was no stranger to the comfort to be derived from a dependence on Providence.

While the cravings of hunger assailed the poor parish apprentice with unrelenting wolfishness, very different was the treatment of the suffering children of the house. The neglect visited upon the poor parish apprentice, was avenged by the attention paid to the children of Morris. Twm’s neglect proved his salvation, while the unremitting kindness (mistaken though it was), shown to the farmer’s offspring, proved their destruction, for Morris literally killed them with kindness. Without judgment, or advice, except from those self-interested conceited nurses, who were more ignorant than herself; Sheeny Greeg sought every delicacy to coax the waned and pampered appetites of her afflicted ones.

Every breath of pure air studiously excluded from their room, they were almost suffocated by the quantity of clothes in which they were wrapped. She gave them the most delicate cakes that the homely hands of her assistants could contrive, with spiced and sugared ale, and even wine; so thoroughly was the accumulating spirit of avarice swallowed up by the nobler and more powerful passion of affection for their perishing young ones; a feeling after all, more eulogized than it really merits, as it is but another mortification of human selfishness.

Three victims had already succumbed to the ravages of the disease, and their fourth child now lay at the door of death. Lamentations and groans were continual, but no proper means for the recovery of the patients were adopted. A poor hedge carpenter came from the distant village of Mawn Dee, and brought with him the last covering of the victims of disease, placing them, with assistance, in the slight alder coffins; the parents took their heart-rent final look, and sank insensible with excessive grief;—and yet the nurses feasted. They continued to roast and boil, piously hoping their valuable services would be long wanted; and although none of the family could partake of their cookery, yet, the nurses feasted! These good ladies, however, were rather disturbed at this time in their comfortable doings, as some of the Mawn Dee women, like the vulture which smells the warfield and the human gore afar off, followed in the wake of the carpenter, hoping by a little canting condolement with the family, to be engaged; but finding the field occupied, they were guilty, as their opponents said, of the heinous offence of offering their services gratis, to sit up in their turn and watch the sick.

This, it must be said, was ever a welcome office to persons of this description, especially at a substantial house; as on such occasions as watching the sick, and laying out the dead, feasting is as prevalent as at weddings. As the paid nurses who assumed the consequence of regulars, failed to eject the volunteers, who were more numerous, they revenged themselves by giving them all the work to do except what appertained to swilling and mastication; their own veteran talents bearing the full brunt of that important piece of service, which was not to be trusted to mere mercenary recruits.

Superstition was rampant amongst these old hen-wives. All sorts of intimations concerning future events were made out of very simple occurrences. No one must go under a ladder, if they would enter the matrimonial noose. Salt was a very unfortunate article of diet, whilst candlewicks were made a medium for the discovery of a coming death. Some of these old grannies dilated upon corpse candles seen by them previous to the deaths of the young women of the house; others dilated on the awfulness of a spectral burial, where shadows of the living supported the bier of the departed towards the church-yard.

One night, between twelve and one, while the three coffins and their contents presented a woeful sight, lying side by side on the oak table, Morris, afflicted as he was, assisted his wife in supporting by the fireside his fourth daughter, whose death they also deeply dreaded, as an old cottage woman, while she basted a loin of mutton roasting before the fire, dwelt much on the certainty of supernatural appearances, illustrating her convictions by instances of her own experience. All at once, the current of her discourse was arrested by a shudder that overcame and struck her dumb, on hearing a rumbling and irregular noise, as of falling furniture, which also terrified the group about the fire. The noise increased, and at last seemed as if somebody was stumbling in his way in the dark.

Some shrieked, some rose and ran to remote corners, covering their head with their aprons, while others sat breathless, as if nailed to the bench, and dissolved in streams of perspiration, their eyes starting from their sockets—when a figure with the air and rush of a maniac darted in, tore the roasting meat from the string, and disappeared with it, uttering in a dismal hollow tone,

“O God, I am famished by these wretches!” The consciences of the farmer and his wife were dreadfully wrung, as they recollected the poor apprentice Twm, whom they had left in the depth of the malady which had deprived them of three of their children, to live or to die, as he might; nor would Morris allow anybody to rescue the meat, but snatching a loaf from the shelf, he entreated Twm to come in and eat his fill at the fire. But the youngster having secured the bread, re-entered his hay-loft, and with the ravenousness of a starved hound devoured his precious prey in darkness. That was the sweetest meal ever eaten by our hero.

In narrating this event in after life, he used to say that the theft of this joint saved his life. He was then as ravenous as a wolf, and was only endowed with supernatural strength for the moment, to effect his purpose. While yet the farmer, with tears of real penitence, was calling out to him, a loud scream from his wife convinced him that his fourth child was also dead.

With wild and insupportable agony, Morris fell upon his knees, and with interrupting sobs exclaimed, “I see the hand of Heaven in this, and a heavy judgment has befallen us for our cruelty to the poor boy; but he will live! he! the lad whom we treated fouler than the beast! he will outlive this pest, while I and mine perish.”

The suffering of the unhappy man was pitiable and heart-rending to witness; and on the very day of his children’s burial, with loud cries of remorse and sorrow, he expired.

Twm recovered, according to the farmer’s prediction, which was further verified, inasmuch as the remainder of his children did not live to see the end of the year; and his wife, losing her senses, was ever after a wretched moping idiot.

CHAPTER XV.

The return of our hero to Tregaron. His welcome from old friends, cronies, and acquaintances. Is engaged by Squire Graspacre, and is elevated socially and physically.

After setting out early in the morning, and walking all day over the rugged mountain road, the heart of Twm Short Catty thrilled with delight, and the tears filled in his eyes, when, late in the evening, his own native place, the humble town of Tregaron appeared before him. Each object that met his eager gaze was familiar; not a shrub but Twm knew it, not a spot but was remembered in Twm’s mind by some vagary or other practised either by himself or the renowned Watt; and although his feet were so blistered that he could scarcely move, he attempted to make his limbs partake of the new vigour which sprung up in his heart, and essayed to run, but failing in his aim, fell down completely mastered by exhaustion and fatigue. Whether, like Brutus, he was re-nerved by breathing awhile on the bosom of his mother earth, or that the thoughts within, of home and its association, gave him strength, he rose much refreshed, but with considerable pain continued the short untraced portion of his journey.

Entering the town, at length, just as the darkness began to veil every object, he came to his mother’s door, which was open, and cast an inquiring look before he entered. Catty had long dismissed her scholars, and sat in the chimney corner with her back towards the door; whilst Carmarthen Jack was busily engaged upon an artistic combination upon the handle of a ladle. He was a thoroughly business man, as far as spoons and ladles were concerned, and on this occasion he sat sullenly busy in scooping out the bowl of a new ladle.

Twm’s merry trick-loving soul is not to be subdued by his troubles; having drawn his flat-rimmed old hat over his eyes, he leaned over his mother’s hatch, and in a feigned voice, begged for a piece of bread and cheese, saying that he was a poor boy, very hungry and tired, who was making his way home to Lampeter. “We are poor folk ourselves, and have nothing to give,” said Carmarthen jack, rather gruffly. “Stop!” cried Catty, “he’s a poor child, Jack, a bit of bread and cheese is not much, and somebody might take pity on my poor Twm, and give him as much, if he should need it.”

The affectionate heart of Twm could no longer contain itself, but opening the latch, he burst forward, dashing his hat on the ground, and falling on her neck, giving the most ardent utterance to the word “mother,” and after the tender pause of nature’s own embrace, he cried with streaming eyes, “My good, kind, charitable mother! you shall never want bread and cheese while your poor Twm has health and strength to earn it.” Warmly returning his embrace and kisses, Catty long clasped her boy, and was quite terrified to see his pale lean cheek, and altered looks. Ashamed of the exposure of his pitiless nature, Jack now came up, shook hands and condoled with him, but Twm had seen the man, and loved him not.

Twm was an excellent judge of human nature, and he knew well the duplicity and cunning of his father-in-law, and shunned him accordingly. Twm would never fraternize harmoniously with those he did not like. In this, he was invariably honest.

After being refreshed, Catty eagerly enquired of all that had happened to him since he left home, and wept much as he detailed his narrow escape from starvation and the small-pox. By twelve o’clock next day, his tale was known to everybody at Tregaron.

The catastrophe at Morris Greeg’s, of course, was considered a judgment from heaven for his miserly propensities; and Ianto Gwyn again set his poetical muse at work, and after a slight effort wrote a pathetic ballad, to the great edification of old women and tender-hearted damsels, giving a true and particular account of the whole affair; to which was attached a moral on the cruelty of mal-treating parish apprentices, and stuffing them with mouldy bread and sour flummery. This interesting ballad was daily sung by Watt, the mole-catcher, to the English tune of Chevy Chase, which gained the good-will of all those old cronies who had taken deep offence at his numerous tricks.

Carmarthen Jack, although so careful of his bread and cheese, was determined not to be outdone on this occasion, but brought the graphic art to perpetuate his stepson’s tale; that is to say, he carved on a wooden bowl the figures of four beings, well-attended, in bed, with the scythe of death across their throats, while in the distance a meagre boy was snatching a joint of meat from the fire. The effort, artistically regarded, was not calculated to carry away the Royal Academy’s prize; the idea perhaps was better than the execution; but altogether it gained Jack very great applause.

Right glad were all Twm’s cronies to see him again at Tregaron; but dearer than all to him was the welcome of the curate Rhys, with whose books he was again permitted to make free, while he profited by his instructions and conversation. He had now been at home about three months, and recovered his health, strength and spirits to perfection; when his mother fancied he had become an eye-sore to her husband, who she thought looked at him with the scowling brow of a step-father, which Twm’s conduct, she might imagine, justified, as his behaviour towards Jack had been very unconciliating, ever since the bread and cheese adventure.

With this impression, Catty once more waited on Squire Graspacre, to solicit that some employment should be found for her boy, as she could not afford to keep him in idleness. The tale of his sufferings at Gwern Ddu, interested the squire in his favour; and he felt some reluctance to send him again as a parish apprentice. The worthy curate, Rhys, had also spoken a kind word in his late pupil’s favour; and Carmarthen Jack, gaping, hat in hand, looked as if he would say much to get rid of his step-son, could he hit on words to his purpose. Amused by his simplicity and awkward gestures the squire asked him,

“Well, Jack, what would you advise me to do with Catty’s boy?” This plain question met with as blunt an answer, “Make him your servant boy, sir, if you please.” “And so I will, old hedgehog!” cried the squire, slapping him on the shoulder, “Your oratory has settled the matter.”

Accordingly, our hero next appears as the squire’s man at Graspacre-Hall. This was an agreeable change in life to him, where he lived, as they say in clover; and by his good temper and turn for mirth, gained the good-will and admiration of his fellow-servants, particularly the girls, with whom he became an especial favourite. Behold him now in the seventeenth year of his age, with his looks and habits of twenty, gay, happy, and as mischievous as an ape; kissing and romping with the girls, caring for none of them, but showing attentions to all, while he jeered and mocked the cross-grained and disagreeable, and whenever he could, raised a laugh at their peculiarities. His employments at the squire’s were various, among which, waiting at table every day, neatly dressed, and carrying his master’s gun, and attending him during his shooting excursions, formed the principal.

To these, Squire Graspacre, who since the death of his wife was ever wench-hunting, aimed to add the noble office of pimp, which Anglicized, means, the honourable office of wench-procurer, to satisfy the lustful appetite of the squire. Twm, however, had been swayed too long by the counsels of Rhys the curate, to lend himself to any such service; and having by his conversations with him, and by the tenor of his readings, imbibed a taste for romantic honour, he was not without a secret hope that his great father might some day own him, and destine him to a very different sphere in life. With the growth of these notions, rose in his mind a distaste for servitude, and an ardent longing to shine in a sphere allied to literature and respectability.

CHAPTER XVI.

Twm goes the way of all flesh, and “falls in love.” So does the Squire, with Twm’s maiden. Twm defeats his master’s scheme. The adventures of farmer Cadwgan’s ass. Twm makes his exit from Squire Graspacre’s “local habitation.”

The squire and his man Twm returning one evening from grousing on the hills, in their descent towards the valleys had to pass by a small farm-house, inhabited by a tenant of the squire’s, who whispered Twm, “This is the keep, the close, that contains better game, and can afford livelier sport than any I have had to-day.” Twm by his silence testified his ignorance of his drift; but he resumed, “What! you don’t understand me? haven’t you seen this farmer’s plump partridge of a daughter, the pretty Gwenny Cadwgan, you young dog! I am determined to have that bird down, some way or other, and you must help me. She is fine game, and well worth bringing down. She will take time, I know, but if she should be shy why then

“I’ll weedle, coax, and try my arts,
For I can play a thousand parts;
When she shall weep, I’ll laugh and sing:
The devil to my aid I’ll bring.
She’ll ne’er resist me long, I ween,
For many a victory I have seen;
The wench will kick, but what of that?
I’ll bear the brunt: she’s plump and fat.”

Before Twm could reply, the squire alighted and entered the cottage, at the door of which the farmer and Gwenny Cadwgan, now grown a fine and blooming young woman, met and welcomed their landlord. Some oaten bread, butter, and cheese, and a cup of homely-brewed ale were put before him; and while he ate, the pretty Gwenny carried a portion to Twm, as he held the horses in the yard. While he received the welcome food from the hand of the happy smiling girl, he perceived the blush with which she gave it, and felt in his breast certain sensations no less new than agreeable.

Thus, while each other made brief allusions to their days of childhood, a tear started in the eyes of Twm, on seeing which the bright eyes of Gwenny were also suffused, till the pearly drops over-ran her fresh ruddy cheeks. Her father then calling her in, she suddenly shook hands with, and left our hero, who in that hour became a captive to her charms, while the innocent girl herself then felt the first shooting of a passion that daily grew, in sympathy with his own.

The squire having finished his hasty lunch, he remarked to his tenant Cadwgan in a hurried manner, that he should have company the next day to entertain at his house, and would thank him to let his lass come to the hall to assist in attending on them. The farmer of course, assented in words, for what small farmer would dare to deny his landlord such a favour, though his heart might tremble with apprehensions?

After the squire’s departure, Cadwgan became deeply distressed at the predicament in which he found himself; to deny his landlord, was probably to lose his farm; and to assent to his specious proposal, was to endanger, if not utterly ruin the innocence of his darling daughter; as since the death of Mistress Graspacre, more than one of the neighbouring damsels had to rue their intimacy with the squire, who inveighled them to the hall with all sorts of arts, pretences, and excuses, and then contriving that he should be alone with the object of his lust, had paid them a little of that “delicate attention” which he had previously recommended to the father of Twm. The poor farmer passed a restless night of bitter reflection, and saw daylight with an agonized spirit; but the active mind imbued with honourable ideas, never fails in due season to work its own relief.

When Twm appeared next morning on horse-back before his door, with a pillion behind, Cadwgan’s terrors had vanished, his indignation at the premeditated injuries intended him, was roused, and with braced nerves, and a firm heart, he determined to deny the squire, and abide the consequences, be what they might. But honest nature was elsewhere at work in Cadwgan’s favour, and unknown to him, had raised a friend to save him from the impending perils, to the preservation of both his farm and his more precious daughter, in the person of young Twm Shon Catty.

On his journey home the last evening, while listening to his master’s commands, and hearing his plan to inveigle the innocent Gwenny, Twm was mentally engaged in studying some mode to preserve her from his clutches; and at length heroically determined to save the object of his admiration, even at the risk of losing his place, and being cast again on the wide world. He fed his fancy all night in dwelling on her beauty, and the merit of preserving her, while he ardently enjoyed in anticipation the sacrifice he was about to make for her sake.

The morning came, and the squire gave the dreaded order, “Take the horse Dragon, put a saddle and pillion on him, and bring the farmer’s lass behind you here; tell Cadwgan not to expect her back to-night, but she shall be brought to-morrow, and by that time, Twm, we shall have shot the plump partridge, and found her good game, I doubt not.” Although Twm had been preparing himself to give a doughty reply, and so commence the heroic character he had modelled, yet when the moment came, his resolution failed him, and the high-sounding words were not forthcoming; although the determination to disobey remained as strong as ever. He rode off, through Tregaron, and up the hills, in a melancholy mood, without any settled purpose, except that of straightforward resistance to the orders he had received. As he jogged on listlessly, he was suddenly roused from his reverie by the braying of Cadwgan’s ass, that was grazing in a green lane, which he was about to enter. Such an animal being a rarity in the country, Twm, with surprise, audibly muttered, “What the devil is that!”

An old woman at that moment opening the gate, which she civilly held for our hero to pass into the lane which she was leaving, hearing his words, replied, “It is only Cadwgan’s ass.” Twm, whose thoughts ran entirely on the farmer’s fair daughter, mistaking what she said, rejoined, “Cadwgan’s lass, did you say?” “You are very ready with your mocks and pranks, Master Twm,” cried the old woman, slamming the gate against the buttocks of the horse, “but you know very well that I said Cadwgan’s ass, and not lass! for I should be very sorry to compare the good and pretty Gwenny Cadwgan to such an ugly ill-voiced animal.” Twm was amused at the error he had made, made the good dame the amende honourable, bade her good day, and rode forward with new spirits, for this little adventure had furnished him with the means of deliverance for little Gwenny, and a defeat to his master’s unlawful desires.

The farmer’s mind being made up, as before observed, to refuse the attendance of his daughter at his landlord’s, he was astonished to hear Twm say, “Master Cadwgan, it was Squire Graspacre’s order to me, that I should saddle this horse, come to your house, and, with your consent, bring your ass to him, on the pillion behind me.” Cadwgan stared doubtfully, and Twm resumed, “I hope you are too sensible to question or look into the reasonableness of his whims, and will be so good as to catch the strange animal, which I passed on the road, that we may tie him across the pillion.”

Cadwgan immediately concluded this to be a providential mistake of the young man’s, that might have the most desirable effect of relieving him from his apprehended trouble, and with a ready presence of mind said, laughing, “To be sure it is no business of mine to look into the oddness of his fancies, and he shall have my ass by all means.”

“Put an L to ass, and ’twill be lass,” said Twm seriously, and with emphasis, “and such is the squire’s demand; but,” said the youth with, rising enthusiasm, “I will risk my life to save your daughter from his snares, and will feign that I thought he said ass instead of lass, to be brought on the pillion.” Affected by this instance of generosity, the farmer, as well as his lovely daughter, burst into tears, thanking and blessing him; whilst the former told him that if he lost his place through the adventure, his home was always open to him. Twm was not slow in thanking them for their kindness, but a smile from Gwenny rewarded him more than anything said, or anything promised could do.

While Cadwgan went out to catch the long-eared victim, Twm spent a delicious half-hour in the company of fair Gwenny; and took that opportunity to protest the ardour of his affection for her, and vowed that whatever fortune favoured him with the means of getting a livelihood independent of servitude, it would be the glory of his life to come and ask her to be his own. The maiden heard him with streaming eyes and heaving breast, nor withdrew her cheek when her lover imprinted on it affection’s first kiss; she considered it as a sacred compact, the seal of a true lover’s faithful covenant; one never to be broken by the intrusion of another.

Cadwgan at length returned, with his charge in a halter, grumbling and abusing the beast at every step, in consequence of having led a pretty dance in chase of her. With the assistance of Twm and a neighbouring cottager, he now tied the animal’s legs and lifted her into the seat of the pillion, a situation that her struggling and resistance indicated to be more elevated than comfortable. Twm, however, rode on slowly with his grotesque companion, without the occurrence of an accident, till they arrived at Tregaron; when the whole town, men, women, and children, came to enjoy the strange sight, amidst roars and shouts of laughter. The ass either was not comfortable, or she felt her asinine dignity assailed, and therefore “he haw’d” her disapproval of the proceedings. She further manifested her displeasure by making a strong attempt to reach terra firma, eventually thinking it unjust to make her ride when she was perfectly able and willing to walk.

Straining every nerve to liberate her captive limbs, she at length succeeded in breaking the cord by which she was fastened to the pillion, and tumbled in a heap to the ground, where she struggled hard, and soon shook off every remnant of her hempen gyves; and in all the pride of high achievement and newly acquired freedom, ran with all her might through the town, brandishing her heels to right and left whenever any person approached to impede her career, till through a long narrow lane she reached the mountains. Here she seemed to defy her numerous pursuers; but after a long chase, which lasted till dusk, she was surrounded, secured, and placed in her former situation behind our hero on the pillion.

At length he reached Graspacre Hall, and made his approach at the back of the house. His step-father assisted him and his companion to alight, leading the latter to the stable, while Twm went to inform his master of his arrival, and the cause of his long delay. A tremor suddenly seemed to paralyze poor Twm, well knowing the wrath his disappointed master would shower down upon his devoted head. He mentally thought he should be thankful to anybody who could liberate him out of this dilemma; but after his fit of apprehension had lasted a few minutes, he plucked up his courage and his breeches at the same time, exclaiming, “Well! he can’t kill me for it:” and thus self-comforted he entered the house.

The squire at this time was seated at the head of the table, pushing down the bottle among his friends, principally consisting of the neighbouring gentry.

In the course of the day he had sent several times to know whether Twm had arrived. When little Pembroke at length went in to announce his return, he desired he should be immediately sent in, and Twm approached him with a burning cheek and an agitated heart. He questioned him in an undertone, asking if he had brought her, and where he had been so long; to which Twm replied, “Yes, sir, I have brought her, and much trouble I had with her, for she didn’t like to come, thinking perhaps you meant her foul play; and once she escaped off the pillion into the mountain.”

“The devil she did!” cried the squire; “but you caught her again?”

“Oh yes, sir, after losing much time, I have brought her at last, and she is now much tamer than at first; and you can do what you like with her.”

“That’s very well,” said the squire; “I like the notion that she is very tractable.”

“Oh! you’ll find she’ll do anything now, though I had to make her know her right position. She rolled off the pillion in Tregaron, and showed her legs most dreadfully.”

“Fie! fie!” said the squire, “I hope you did not look at them?”

“Faith, but I did then, and very pretty they looked. But you’ll be able to give your own opinion, sir, by and bye.”

“A good lad, Twm, a good lad, remind me to give you a golden angel for this day’s work; but what have you done with her? where is she?”

“Why, sir,” cried Twm. “I tied her up to the manger and locked the door, to prevent her escape.”

“Shame, Twm, shame! you ought not to have done that, for she will think it was by my orders, and hate me perhaps for my supposed cruelty,” quoth the squire, thinking all the time that Cadwgan’s lass, and not his ass was the subject of discussion.

“No, sir,” replied Twm, “but it is likely though, that she will have an ill-will towards me, as long as she lives, for it.”

“Well, well,” said his master hastily, “take her from the stable into the housekeeper’s room, and tell Margery to comfort her and give her a glass of wine.”

This was too much for Twm, and the smothered laugh burst out in spite of his efforts; on which, his master with a severe brow, asked how he dared to laugh in his presence. “Indeed I could not help it,” cried Twm, “but I don’t think she ever drank a glass of wine in her life, and perhaps might not like it.”

“Why, that’s true; then tell the butler to give out a bottle of the sweet home-made wine for her—let it be a bottle of the cowslip wine, and say that I am very sorry for the trouble and vexation she has had.”

“Yes, sir,” cried Twm, who made his bow and retired to the servants’ hall, where he made them acquainted with the squire’s freak of having farmer Cadwgan’s ass brought there on a pillion behind him; and that it was his master’s orders that she was to be brought into the house-keeper’s room, and a glass of wine given to her, and that Margery was to make her comfortable.

They were all aware of their master’s occasional eccentricities, and that he was as absolute in demanding obedience to his wildest whims, as to the most important matter in the world. With one accord they therefore brought the ass, not without great trouble and opposition on the part of the poor animal, into the housekeeper’s room, where Glamorgan Margery spread a small carpet for her to lie on, and amidst the side-aching laughter of the servants, offered a glass of wine, which no persuasion could induce her to accept.

The squire had given orders that no person was to answer the bell the rest of the evening but Twm. It was now rung, and in went our hero, when he was asked, “How is she now?” “Rather fatigued sir; she doesn’t like wine, nor would she touch a drop of it.” “Well, well,” said the squire, “if she likes ale better let her have some, with a cold fowl and something of the nicest in the house, though perhaps she would prefer a cup of tea to anything. After she has taken the refreshment she chooses, tell Margery to put her to bed, in the green chamber, then lock the door and bring me the key. I can then visit her when I am ready, you know Twm, and depend upon it I will reward you in the morning.” Here Twm’s risible faculties were again oppressed to bursting, but a look from his master checked him, though he bit his lip till the blood started in the aid to check his laughter.

Squire Graspacre now secretly anticipated the completion of his scheme, anxiously waiting for the departure of his guests, who by their noisy hilarity had long given notice that a little more devotion to the bottle would lay them under the table. The wily squire however desisted, before he had passed the boundary of what topers call half and half, considering in the mean time, that his plan would best succeed by not appearing before Gwenny Cadwgan till midnight, when all his household would be asleep, and himself supposed to have retired to his room.

After some trouble, which was heightened by their forced suppression of laughter, that however, broke out in spite of them, the servants got the donkey up stairs, having previously fed her with bread, oaten cakes, and oats, on her rejection of ale, wine, fowl, and tea, which to their great amusement they had successively offered her in vain. Having brought the poor animal into the green room, the best chamber in the house, and kept only for particular guests, they placed her on the fine handsome bed; the legs being already tied, they fastened them also to the bed-posts. Twm heightened the drollery of the scene by cutting two holes in a night-cap, drawing through the donkey’s ears, and slitting it at the edge, he drew the cap down carefully towards the eyes. The bed-clothes were then carefully drawn up to the ass’s neck, the curtains half drawn, and the first ass that ever slept in a feather bed was then left to enjoy its slumbers as best it could. They bade her good night, locked the door, and gave the key to their master.

The guests at length dispersing, they all rode off as well as their muddled heads would let them, to their respective homes; the squire, as was his custom, locked the door himself, and saw every light in the house out before he retired. At length he gained his chamber, and all was still in Graspacre-Hall. The amorous squire, chuckling at his luck as he thought of the fair lass in the green-room, grew too impatient to wait till the proposed hour of midnight, and leaving his candle on his own table, took off his shoes, and softly approached the casket that he deemed contained his precious jewel.

Applying the key, he opened the door very gently, and cautiously approaching the side of the bed, said in a whisper towards the pillow, “Don’t be alarmed, Gwenny, my dear, ’tis I, the squire; fear nothing, my girl, this will be the making of your fortune, my dear; and if you are as kind and loving as I could wish you to be, you may soon become the second Mrs. Graspacre.”

Hearing no reply, he considered that according to the old usage, silence gives consent, and proceeded to bend his face down to kiss the fair one, when a severe bounce inflicted by his incognita’s snout, knocked him backwards off the bed to the floor, and set his nose a-bleeding.

After recovering himself a little, though labouring under the delusion that the blow had been struck by the hand of the fair maiden, he exclaimed in an under-tone, “You little wixen! how dare you treat me in this manner?” The answer received was a loud and repeated “he-haw,” with the clattering of hoofs against the bedposts. Now hoofs are suggestive, and the squire rather believed in the supernatural. He again proceeded towards the bed, but was completely horror-struck at the loud bray which the terrified ass sent forth; while the poor terrified animal, after a hard struggle, liberating her limbs, struck him a severe blow on the forehead with her hoof, and getting off the bed, made a terrible clatter with her shod feet over the boards of the room. The unfortunate squire, although hitherto a loud decrier of superstition, now felt a thrill of the utmost horror pervade him, while he decreed himself ensnared by the enemy of man, as the punishment of his guilty intentions; and after a clamorous outcry fell senseless on the floor.

The servants having but concealed the light, expecting some denouement of this sort, now rushed in, and saw their fallen master ghastly pale, with streams of perspiration running over his forehead, while his wildly-staring eyes alternately looked at, and turned from, the monster of alarm. When he had sufficiently recovered to learn the real state of affairs, from little Pembroke, who had been made Twm’s confidante in this matter—how that wight had brought the farmer’s ass according to his orders behind him on the pillion, although he had been in some doubt whether he had said Cadwgan’s ass or Cadwgan’s lass, the squire’s rage was boundless.

Squire Graspacre’s rage can be better imagined than described, and all the dormant fiends of evil were at once awakened in his bosom, and the feeling which first actuated him was that of revenge upon Twm, and secondly shame at having been duped, and that with the knowledge of all his household. Exasperated at the trick put upon him by a mere youngster, and a menial, and scarcely less provoked at the exposure he had made of himself before his servants, down he rushed into the hall, and snatched a heavy horsewhip, unlocked the door, and made his way towards our hero’s chamber over the laundry; but when he reached the bedside, prepared to inflict the severest punishment that the thong of a whip was capable of, how great was his mortification to find the bird had flown! His chagrin and resentment were anything but lessened, when he took a piece of paper off the bed, on which, in a large hand, were written these pretty lines:—

If from lass you take the letter L.
Then lass is ass if I have learnt to spell;
Yes ass and lass methinks are coupled ill.
Though human asses follow lasses still!
An ass were I too—could I so arrange ill,
If now I stay’d to claim my promised angel.

CHAPTER XVII.

Twm finds that his father-in-law is as churlish as ever, but Carmarthen Jack comes to grief in consequence. The Squire turns reformer. His children arrive at the hall. A tender Devonian. Twm satirizes the cook. Thrashes the young squire, and then “disappears.” Calls upon Cadwgan and Rhys. An adventure on the hills.

Twm reached his mother’s at Tregaron about one o’clock in the morning, and alarmed her greatly by the account he gave of his flight from the squire’s, and the cause which led to it. Jack consoled poor Catty by assuring her that her son would go to the devil, and that ruin would come upon them through his tricks, to a certainty. Number one again, as the reader will see, with very little affection for his wife’s offspring. It is a selfish world, and Jack did as Rome did, none the less eagerly because it always suited his own convenience. He concluded by saying that they ought to turn poor Twm adrift, and leave him to himself in order to conciliate the squire. While Jack beneath the bed-clothes, was grunting these suggestions of worldly wisdom, Catty half-dressed, was sitting dejectedly in the chimney corner.

Having caught the drift of his father-in-law’s mutterings, he rose abruptly, snatched up his hat, and while striding to the door, cried, “Good night, mother.” Alarmed at his precipitate movement, and the tone in which he spoke,—“Where are you going, Twm?” said Catty. Turning around, while he held the door in his left hand, he replied, “Anywhere mother—the world is wide—and I’ll go headlong to the devil, rather than stay here, where I am not welcome.” With that he closed the door, and was in a moment out of sight, notwithstanding the cries and entreaties of his mother, who ran after, and earnestly sought to bring him back.

Catty, with a bitter conscience, now found that her son had a step-father, and she a husband, who was a rude and churlish tyrant. To give him his due, Jack was far from being regardless of her sorrow, but showed the tenderness of a husband in comforting her, in a manner most natural to himself. “What signifies crying for such an imp of a devil as that?” said this kind step-father: “if he starves in the field by being out to-night, it will save him from dying at the gallows, where he would be sure to come some day or other.”

This tender-hearted speech had the unexpected effect of immediately curing Catty’s grief, which turned to a desperate fit of rage, and without a word to signify the transition wrought by his oratory, she snatched up a stout broom-stick from the floor, and be-laboured him with all her strength, as he lay beneath the bed-clothes, till he roared like a baited bull. When the strength of her arm failed, the energy of her tongue commenced; and after rating him soundly, she concluded her harangue with eloquent pithiness, hoping that she had left him a shirtful of bones; and expressing a devout hope that he would eventually arrive at that elevated position in society which he had described as the probable fate of her darling son. After which exertion and speechifying, she thought proper to disappear.

Jack, although he received some hard blows, by dodging under the bed-clothes, escaped better than his help-mate intended he should; he soon rose, dressed himself and went to his master’s sauntering sullenly about the outhouses till daylight, when a servant informed him, after narrating Twm’s trick on his master, that he was to take Cadwgan’s ass home.

Squire Graspacre, since the death of his wife, gave such free range to his licentious pleasures, as placed him, especially at his years, in a most unseemly light. His only son had been two years at Oxford, returning only occasionally during the vacations; while his two daughters on the death of their mother, were sent to a boarding-school at Exeter. Thus in his own family he had no witnesses of his vices and follies. He soon found, however, that in Wales, his offences against religion and morality were not to be committed with impunity. The respect in which he was formerly held by the country people gradually declined, while those who had daughters became extremely shy, and sent their female inmates out of the way whenever he approached.

The squire was not slow to discover these changes, and all the pride of his nature, that pride which loved ambition and power, which demanded implicit obedience, and loved to sway the sceptre of power, had aroused him within; determined to subdue the glaring insolence, as he deemed it, of his neighbours. Never deficient in penetration, he was not long in discovering this change in the bearings of his tenants and neighbours, which to a mind like his, proud, fond of domineering, and being looked up to as the superior—the grand central luminary of his sphere, round which all others moved as silent and respectful satellites—was a very hell.

The minds of men, however, are not to be overruled, and with a wisdom rare as effective, he immediately resolved, as the only mode of re-establishing his credit and happiness, to retrace his steps—to which end he sent for his daughters home, at a time when his son was about to return from Oxford—and thus, by the presence of his children, place a restrictive guard upon his future conduct. With this change in his ideas, it will be no wonder that Twm Shon Catty was again taken into favour, and replaced in his former situation.

At length the merry bells of Tregaron announced the arrival of the heir, and the young ladies of Graspacre Hall, which mansion soon became a scene of festivity. The meeting of the squire with his daughters was ardently affectionate; but his son Marmaduke had nothing of cordiality in his nature. His figure was tall and thin, with loose joints and ill-knit bones, while his countenance indicated both phlegm, and a fidgetty, nervous peevishness. He bore the marks of late and dissipated hours upon his countenance. His face was sallow, and his eyes sunken; he had the unmistakable air and tout ensemble of a rouè and a libertine.

He was by no means prepossessing, whilst his pride and self-sufficiency made him an object of dislike to all who approached him. He scrupled not to say openly that he hated Wales and Welshmen. He condescended, however, to say, that until he could get a clever English servant, in the place of the last, who ran away from him, he must put up with one of the Welsh savages. Accordingly, our hero was appointed to be his temporary valet, and ordered to attend exclusively on the young squire.

With the ladies came their aunt, the squire’s younger sister, a very affected fantastical spinster from Exeter; who gave every fashion its Devonshire latitude in her conformation to it, carrying the mode to an extreme that left London absurdity far in the back-ground. The Misses Graspacre were neither imitators nor very ardent admirers of their aunt, whose silly affectation of excessive delicacy became their standing-point of ridicule, which they put in practice on the evening of their arrival.

The hearty girls wanted something substantial for their supper, after travelling their long journey; but their aunt intimated her desire to have something that would be light upon the stomach. The poet expresses the old lady’s opinion when he wrote in homely phrases:—

Sup on dainty calf-foot jelly,
Never sleep with well-filled belly;
Sup upon the lightest food,
Rice; or anything that’s good.
Mind you never eat cold meat!
If you’d sleep, that is no treat!
The nightmare black you’ll have, be sure!
But suppers light are just the cure.

But great was the aunt’s dismay on finding a duck and green peas brought to the table. She resolved, however, even on this fare, to show her superior Devonshire breeding; and while the young ladies lifted their peas from their plates to their mouths in half-dozens or more at a time, she, delicate soul, cut every pea in four, and swallowed a quarter at a time!

Another circumstance of note happened at this supper, which, as it relates to our hero, must be told. It seems that during Twm’s disgrace, and consequent absence from the hall, the servants there indulged themselves in making remarks on his conduct, and its probable consequence. This discussion displayed their various dispositions. Some spoke of him with charity, and dwelt upon his rare qualities of good nature and cheerfulness; while others took a malignant pleasure in speaking of his satirical and mischievous propensities. Among the latter was the cook. Twm, on his return, heard of her kindness, and determined to take the first opportunity of showing his sense of the obligations she had laid him under. On the removal of the remains of the duck and its accompaniments, the company having just been helped round with tart or pie, their attention was suddenly arrested by the voice of Twm in the passage, who loudly sung the following distich:—

“Apple pie is very rich,
And so is venison pasty;
But then our cook has got the itch,
And that is very nasty.”

Ye gods! what sounds for ears polite! The young ladies laughed immoderately on perceiving the distress of their aunt, who showed a wry-faced consciousness of having partaken food prepared by unclean hands; her countenance underwent various contortions, and she mentally thought of the old proverb about the obligatory rule set down upon each member of humanity, that we must all eat a peck of dirt in our lifetime, but she devoutly hoped that all her share was not to be eaten at one meal. Those awful thoughts had a tragic ending, for they terminated in the grand climax of a shriek and a fit. The squire’s anger was instantly kindled against Twm, probably from an unquenched spark of his former resentment, which he evinced by telling his son to “give that rascal a good thrashing.”

Proud of his commission, out ran Marmaduke; and finding Twm in the hall, ran up and struck him a blow in the face; but great was the amazement of the servants to see the young man turn upon him like a lion, and with the most dexterous management of his fists overpowering their young master in an instant, whom he left groaning with pain, and covered with bruises, and then made a precipitate retreat.

While walking to Tregaron, it occurred to Twm, that for that night at least, he should be favoured with a lodging by his constant friend, Rhys, the curate. Thither he went, and found the worthy man by the parlour fire, with a book in his hand, and papers before him, busily employed in preparing for the press a new edition of his Welsh Grammar. He was received by him with his usual kindness; and when Twm told him his tale, with the important addition that he must leave his native place for ever, and that immediately, he showed the goodness of his heart by assuring him of a retreat for the present, and a little pecuniary aid on his departure. He however gave him a friendly lecture on the impropriety of his conduct; observing that if he must be satirical, he ought to choose the subject for his lash from the famous among the great and wealthy, and not the puny and defenceless, to attack whom, he said, evinced a paltry and most dastardly spirit; concluding with the pithy injunction, “while you live, whatever your state while on earth, act the generous and manly part; and never, never, either manually, or with the lash of satire, war with the weak.”

These words formed in a great measure the leading rule in Twm’s after life. He never forgot them, and all the more because they came from the lips of one whom he revered and loved; and however reprehensible the after vagaries of Twm’s life may have been, their harsher features were considerably modified by the remembrance of the words, “War not against the weak!” Our hero was heartily pleased with his preceptor, inasmuch, that amidst all his observations and lectures he imputed to him but slight blame for his retaliation on young Graspacre; but when he vowed further vengeance, should he ever meet him alone in the mountains remonstrated with him on the risk he ran, urged the necessity of self-preservation, and advised him not to endanger himself needlessly.

The next morning Rhys assured Twm that he had reflected on the peculiarity of his case, and found it by no means so bad as he had imagined. “As to leaving this place,” said he, “I see no necessity; merely keep out of the way awhile, and in due time make your submissions to the squire; as he is by no means a hard man, I have no doubt but all will speedily be well again.” Twm adopted this idea, though he ill-stomached the thought of submission, or of asking pardon for an act of manliness which he would on a similar case of aggravation repeat.

Thus matters rested for the present; and in the dusk of the evening he crossed the hills towards Cadwgan’s, and soon had the grateful satisfaction of seeing once more his beauteous mistress, sitting by her father before a cheerful fire. Her mild kind face was unusually pale, but brightened on his approach; and when he related his new mishap, and that he thought of immediately quitting the country in consequence, her cheek assumed an ashy paleness, and she nearly fainted in her father’s arms. Cadwgan dissuaded him from the thought of quitting his native place for such a trifle, and advised him by all means to follow up the worthy curate’s suggestion; and when the fair Gwenny repeated her father’s wishes as her own, Twm at once acquiesced, and resolved not to quit.

Thus time passed on pleasantly, for some days, when our hero said he longed exceedingly for a day’s coursing on the neighbouring mountains. Cadwgan remarked that the squire had shown no desire to pursue him, as he had heard at Tregaron and he conceived there would be no danger; and so in accordance with his opinion, he lent him his dog and gun, both great favourites, and never before entrusted to any one breathing. He advised him to confine his excursion to a certain remote hill called Twyn Du (Black Hill) which being rugged of ascent and marshy, seldom invited the steps of the sons of pleasure in the character of sportsmen.

Thus with dog and gun, and accoutred with a shot-belt, our hero felt himself another and superior being to what he had ever been before, especially as Gwenny assured him that the sportsman’s paraphernalia became him exceedingly. He shook Cadwgan’s hand, kissed the lips of his fair mistress, and gallantly sallied forth. Having gone a few yards, he turned his face back to assure them, that he should return and well loaded with game.

Twm enjoyed himself thoroughly. There was a complete sense of freedom and independence in his sport which more than pleased him; with light heart, cool head, and steady aim, he brought down bird after bird, filling his bag, and carolling old Welsh airs the while. He had been on Twyn Du about an hour and a half, and in that time had killed several birds, when the report of his gun attracted others to the spot. He could hear several persons on the hill contiguous, and saw one well mounted, descending into the deep dingle that, like a gulf, yawned between the two hills, and making his way up the steep side of Twyn Du.

He now felt a presentiment that this visit portended him no good; but scorning an ignominious flight, he carelessly paced the brow of the hill till the sportsman approached, when, to his great amazement, who should present himself before him but his inveterate foe, Marmaduke Graspacre. He approached Twm with the fury of a demoniac, asking how he dared fire a gun on those grounds, and after a few harsh words of abuse, which our hero returned with interest, he took an aim at Cadwgan’s pointer, and instantly shot him on the spot.

This butcherly, cowardly act, aroused the indignation of our hero. He felt his Welsh blood course madly through his veins. The thought too, that this was Cadwgan’s dog, his favourite pointer, the animal petted and nursed by his own sweet Gwenny, drove Twm furious, and he was further aggravated by the young squire demanding his gun, and laughing the while at his distress and rage. The youth was not formed of stuff so tame as to endure his insolent triumph. Snatching up his loaded gun with desperate rapidity, he in a moment lodged the contents in the head of the squire’s fine hunter, on which his enemy sat taunting him. No sooner had Marmaduke reached the ground, disengaged himself from his fallen horse, and stood up, than Twm flew at him, and disregarding his threats, with his dexterous fists inflicted the most perfect chastisement; leaving him in a far worse predicament than after their first encounter.

By this time the men who attended the young squire, hearing the report of the guns, and fearing that their young master had fallen in with poachers, made best of their way down across the dingle, and up the sides of Twyn Du.

Roused by their shouts, Twm left his vanquished foe groaning on the ground by the side of the dead hunter, and darting down the opposite side he made a safe retreat. This was an adventure which constituted the turning point of our hero’s life. The magnitude of the consequences it involved, he scarcely dreamt of at that moment.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Twm is “wanted.” Hides himself in a wood. Love takes him to Cadwgan’s house, where he is welcomed. Parson Evans acting as “detector.” Twm escapes in the disguise of a female. Affectionate parting with the farmer and Gwenny.

No sooner was Marmaduke Graspacre taken home, and the affair made known by him to his father, with some little exaggeration against the assailant, such as the trifling mis-statement that the blows inflicted on him were by the butt-end of the fowling-piece, instead of the fist, than the squire’s indignation was roused.

“As this is not the first offence, and my forbearance has encouraged his atrocious conduct, I am now determined to make an example of him,” said he, and immediately sent a servant for Parson Evans, who, in the capacity of magistrate, was ordered to take cognizance of the affair, and send constables in all directions to arrest the culprit. This was an office that well accorded with this malignant man; he had not the generosity enough to forget and forgive the follies of youth; and had a bloodhound been set upon Twm’s track, he would not have scented him out with more pleasure than Parson Evans.

The hue and cry instantly was raised and spread abroad, and excited as great a commotion throughout the country as if a convicted murderer were chased through the land. All Twm’s haunts were searched, especially his mother’s and farmer Cadwgan’s; in each of which places there was heaviness and wailing for his misfortunes; and Parson Evans, who went there in person, took care to assure them, that when caught, all the world could not save him from the gallows, as he had attempted to murder the young squire of Graspacre-Hall.

But with all the vigilance of his enemies, Twm’s retreat remained undiscovered and those who were friendly disposed towards him began to wonder among themselves what had become of him. Some thought that, in a fit of despondency, he had drowned himself; and others, that he had escaped into the neighbouring counties of Pembroke, Carmarthen, or Brecon; or that he had shipped himself in some vessel at Aberayon, or Aberystwyth, and got off in safety. The constables, however, had visited each of these places, and at length returned without any further intelligence than that their journey had been in vain.

While the search was most hot, our hero concealed himself in a small patch of marshy underwood, a spot on which the keen eye of suspicion never glanced, his pursuers having passed the edge of it many times without a thought occurring of seeking him there. In this retreat he fed himself on nuts and blackberries, and in the night roved about for recreation, but returned to his green-wood shelter before day-light. Even here, Twm’s love of mischief was as prominent as ever.

One night, while the moon gave a good light, he found a large deep hole, close by his retreat. Knowing that his pursuers would very probably pass that way shortly, he covered over the opening with sticks and a thin layer of earth and leaves. Presently came Parson Evans, who had separated himself from the rest of the searchers, and coming to the trap, immediately sunk over-head, to the depth of twelve feet, giving a wild and very unparsonic yell as he descended. He bawled loudly for help, but Twm bounded from his retreat, and shouting down the hole, “Ha! ha! Evans the fox is trapped at last,” made best of his way to another part of the forest.

His concealment and life in the woods continued four days, when, exceedingly tired of his solitude, he one midnight ventured to Cadwgan’s door, and both surprised and gratified the farmer and his kinder daughter, when they heard the lost one’s voice once more. They rose and let him in immediately, made a fire, gave every necessary refreshment, and then persuaded him to go to bed.

Twm remained hidden here a week, when suspicion fixed upon Cadwgan’s house, although searched before, as the probable place of concealment. One day, Gwenny ran in a fright to tell her father to conceal Twm immediately, as the constables, headed by Parson Evans, were coming. Twm started up and said, “Bolt the door for ten minutes, and I shall be safe.” Gwenny replied that they could not be there in that time, as they were then descending the opposite side of the Cwm, which was three long fields off, and that they approached slowly, with fox-like cunning, so as to excite no suspicion of their purpose.

With that, at Twm’s request, they both went up stairs with him, for a purpose which he said he was there to explain to them, as neither of them could conceive in what manner he was going to preserve himself. They all remained above ’till the loud summons of authority, in the raven voice of old Evans, brought Cadwgan down, when the cleric magistrate told him, in no gentle terms, that there was a suspicion attached to his house, as the place where the young villain, Twm Shon Catty, was concealed.

The farmer replied, “I must say this is very hard usage, as I have no one with me but my daughter and my eldest sister, who has come on a few weeks’ visit; but, as you are come, you may search in welcome.” After a brief scrutiny below, they all went up stairs, where sat, busily employed at their needles, the fair Gwenny Cadwgan and the ingenious Twm Shon Catty, excellently disguised in the dress of Cadwgan’s late wife; which having been the property of a tall women fitted him very well. His face was slightly coloured with the juice of blackberries; beneath his chin was pinned a dowdyish cap, which in the scant light of a small window, by the aid of a pair of spectacles he appeared a complete old granny.

On the entrance of these amiable visitors, he turned his full spectacled face on Parson Evans, muttering, in the tone of an old woman, which he mimicked well, “lack a day! lack a day! this is sad usage;” then whispered Gwenny, who took the hint, and, while they were searching, laid some hog’s lard on different parts of the stairs, so that, on their descent, the precious party, with their rascally leader, slipped and fell headlong down from top to bottom, to the great amusement of those above. On being charged with this contrivance, each denied all knowledge of, and the quick witted Gwenny accounted for the cause of their accident by saying that they had been carrying butter and lard to the store, up stairs, the whole morning.

In addition to this, Twm emptied the contents of a certain piece of crockery upon the devoted heads of the searchers, just as they emerged from the doorway, and when he discovered the splutterings and surprise manifested by the parson, shouted down from the upper window, “Dear! dear! I thought you lazy folk would be half a mile from the house before now. Well well! ye’ll get a washing for nothing.” The parson muttered something very like a curse, while the constables “d—d” the old woman unceremoniously.

They were no sooner gone than Twm assured Cadwgan that he saw there was no safety for him except in flight, which must take place that very night. His plan, he said, was matured, that he had no fear but he should do well, and that his only regret was in parting with them. He purposed, he said, to make his way towards Carmarthenshire, or perhaps farther and seek employment among the farmers; or, what was more agreeable to him, he might, perhaps, get to some village where he could set up a school; so that after saving a sum of money to begin life with, he should return and make Gwenny his wife. With tearful eyes Cadwgan expressed his admiration of his plan, while poor Gwenny wept herself almost into fits, at the thought of his perils, and sudden departure.

“At any rate, my boy, thou shalt not go penniless to wander the wide world,” said Cadwgan, and put an old pocket-book, containing several angels, and near twenty shillings in silver, which Twm reluctantly took, promising its return doubly when fortune favoured him. “I have two favours more to ask,” said he; “the first is, that you will make the best of my affair when you tell my poor mother and the worthy Mr. Rhys of my flight, and my future plans in life; and my next request is, that you will give me this old woman’s dress, with the red cloak belonging to it, as it will answer for a disguise should I be troubled before I get far enough off.” Cadwgan kindly acquiesced, though he smiled at the latter whimsical fancy. At length, thus attired to avoid observation, with his own clothes in a bundle, he took an affecting leave of them, and made a hasty departure from their friendly door.