The general report of a liberal English squire in Cardiganshire, who patronized and upheld the customs of the Welsh, penetrated to the very extremities of the principality; and became at last so strangely exaggerated, that, he was represented as the patron of the learned: consequently many of the humbler sons of the church took long journeys to be undeceived. Of the many who called upon him with a view of seeking his patronage of their literary undertakings, one especially took his fancy; a young clergyman named John David Rhys, before named as the author of the Bidder’s song. But poetry was not his forte; his energy and perseverance in the favorite study of Welshmen, British antiquities, and systemizing his native language, deserved encouragement and applause. He was then composing a Welsh grammar, and had actually commenced a dictionary. As he spoke English very well, the squire soon understood the merit of his undertakings, and promised his patronage and good offices; in the mean time requesting him to remain on the footing of a friend beneath his roof, till something could be done for him. This excellent person he now fixed upon to succeed Evans in the school and curacy; stipulating, that for his fulfilment of the latter, he was to have thirty pounds, and for the former ten pounds a year. Fortunate for Rhys would it have been had the old rector outlived the squire’s lady, in which case it is more than probable he would have filled the living instead of Evans, whom the squire never liked. This change in the mastership of the school was a fortunate event for young Twm Shôn Catti, who had caught the mania for rhyming, among the wandering harpers and bards, as they called every rhymester who could manufacture verses in either of the four-and-twenty legitimate Welsh measures. When he found his new master a kind young man, an historian, antiquarian, and something of a poet, the “homage of the heart” was immediately paid him. Twm thought him the wisest man in the world, when he heard him speak of the battles fought by the Britons in ancient times, against the Romans, Danes, and Saxons. This was to him a knowledge the most estimable, and he longed to be enabled also, to talk about battles and to write patriotic songs. Having now his information from a better source, he soon learned to despise the jargon and misstatements of Ianto Gwyn, with whom he argued strongly, and proved to him that Geoffrey of Monmouth was a fabulist, and no historian; that it was not Joseph of Arimathea who christianized Britain; and that the Britons were no descendants of Brute, nor of Trojan origin; with various other such knotty points. The great deference which he paid his master, his attention to every word which fell from his lips, with his close and successful application to his lessons, gained him the esteem and admiration of Rhys, with whom he became a great favorite. This amiable young clergyman found much satisfaction on discovering a youngster with taste sufficient to appreciate his favorite pursuits; and took pleasure in explaining to him every subject of his enquires. A thirst for information possessed the boy; and he rummaged the most dry and tedious works connected with Welsh antiquities, with an avidity that was astonishing even to his master.
Well would it have been for Twm had he continued his diligence in this honorable course, but in his breast the love of learning was shared by his love of mischief, and his admiration of his master divided with his predilection for the comical vagaries of Wat the mole-catcher: and in the end, his acquaintance with that worthy proved anything to him but fortunate. About eighteen months after Rhys’s appointment to the school, one evening in the Christmas holidays, Wat asked him if he would take a share in a freak that would keep them up the greater part of the night. Twm immediately assented, without enquiring its nature; enough for him that it was a scheme of merry mischief, in the prospect of which his heart ever bounded. This idle whim of Wat’s was nothing more than to pull down the signs of all the public houses and shops, which being few, was easily done, but the greater difficulty was to suspend them from, or attach them to, the tenements of others, in which they however succeeded. This trick elicited some humour; and a satirical application was discernible in the new disposal of the boards. When the light of day discovered their handy-work, great was the astonishment of the alehouse-keepers and others, to find their signs vanished, and gracing the fronts of their neighbours’ houses; and the anger of the reverend Evan Evans was boundless, on perceiving the “Fox and Goose” over his rectory house door, with the words proceeding from the mouth of Reynard, “I have thee now;” and under the pictorial figures “Good entertainment for man and horse.” A crowd was in consequence collected about his door, and the provoking laughter of the people stung him to the bitterest degree of resentment. Squire Graspacre, from indolence or dislike to all business except farming, declined being in the commission of the peace himself, and put the parson in his stead. Having now attained the summit of his ambition, as rector and justice of the peace, his overweening presumption and conceit become daily more conspicuous; and therefore this slur upon his consequence became intolerable. The actors in this simple freak became at length known, in consequence of the secret being intrusted, a very common case, to a confidential friend.
Although the twenty shillings reward which the parson offered could not induce the poorest to be base enough to become an informer, yet an idle spirit of tattling among the women brought it at length to the ears of Mistress Evans, and her husband soon became possessed of the whole particulars. He instantly made his complaint to the squire against both Twm and Wat, who merely reprimanded, cautioned for the future, and dismissed them.
The circumstances under which young Twm Shôn Catti was educated, now suddenly occurred to him. “What the devil is to become of that mischievous young rascal?” said he, one day, to Rhys the curate, whom he then informed of the particulars of his birth, and of his deceased wife’s whim of having him well educated, in consequence of his being a slip of Sir John Wynne’s. That connexion being entirely closed by the death of his wife, he no longer felt himself bound or inclined to notice him. When Rhys gave so good an account of his proficiency, he was surprized to hear the squire exclaim “I am sorry for it, for he has no prospect in the world but labour or beggary. As he has already had too good an education for his circumstances, he must be instantly dismissed from school. Since Sir John does not think proper to protect his son, I don’t see why I should.” Twm and his master parted with mutual regret, for latterly they were more like companions than master and scholar; and the generous Rhys could not restrain a tear on beholding a youth of so much promise destined to the uncertain wilderness of a hard and cold world, especially after having evinced a superiority of taste and intellect, that under favorable auspices, would have enabled him to shine and flourish in his day. Twm remained awhile at his mother’s, a big boy of fifteen, idling away his days without any view to the future. Greatly concerned on his account and her own inability to support him, Catti went one day to the squire’s, and implored him to do something for her son; and he at last generously decided to send him as a parish apprentice to a farmer, whose grounds were situate in the neighbouring mountains.
CHAP. IX.
Twm’s new master and mistress, with their daughters. His pranks and buffetings at Cwm du. This humorous-beginning chapter ends tragically.
The farmer to whom Twm had been assigned, was named Morris Grump, who possessed a considerable farm, freehold property, consisting of small fields occupying either side of a deep narrow mountain dingle, the centre of which was threaded by a large brook, that in winter aped the boisterousness of a river, and was, near the farm, crossed by a fallen tree, answering the purpose of a rustic bridge, worn flat by the feet of passengers. This cultivated defile extended about three miles, and, with the farm, was called Cwm du, [77] signifying the Black vale, or dingle, from the deep shade which the acclivious sides of the mountains threw over it, a great part of the day. This lonely ravine was poorly wooded, but many objects combined to array it with a hue of the romantic. Instead of thorn, or other coppice, the hedges were of furze, always green, and in summer with a rich yellow blossom, intermixed, here and there, with the purple-flowered heath, which in Scotch literature has been immortalized as the mountain heather. The trees were stunted, of stubby, dwarfish, yet fantastic growth, with the heads generally snapped off in the winter storms, and the branches spreading afar. The large loose stones, that had parted from their parent rocks, and rolled to the banks, and into the bed of the brook, were covered, or rather patched, with a grey and yellow lichen, as were the bare hungry-looking ribs of the mountains, which, unfleshed with soil, shewed, repulsively gaunt; strongly contrasting with the small corn fields and green meadows below. The brook, on a continual descent, was broken by many small, and some large, falls, down its rocky bed, chafing to a white foam against its various impediments, and roaring with the futile rage of a petty torrent.
At the upper end of Cwm du stood the farm house, so called, of Morris Grump, with its barn, ricks, and the group of outhouses usually appertaining to such a place. At the further extremity, the dingle terminated in a vast flat patch of black mountain marsh, where all the people of the neighbouring country repaired to cut their turf for firing. All else, on either side the valley of Cwm du, was mountain—a wild uncultured wilderness; the surface of which was diversified with pretty lakes or alpine pools, on which floated various aquatic fowl; flocks of sheep; long-maned untamed horses; furze and heath; quarries; caves; gulfs; intersecting brooks; and the horizon closed with the distant mountain peaks, one above another, strangely but most grandly clustered.
In this secluded place, with a wife, six grown-up daughters, and one man-servant, Morris Grump lived, in the most penurious manner, scarcely allowing himself or family the common necessaries of live. This was to Twm a most grievous change, where he was continually compelled to embrace his antipathies, and disconnect himself from all the felicities most dear to him. He loved books, rural festivities, rambling, and all those modes of passing his time which were most allied to idleness; but in this house not a book was to be seen, nor the sound of mirth, harp, or song ever heard; nothing but work, hard work, seasoned with the shrill tones of scolding women, and the deep growls of the farmer. The state of a slave, in a more agreeable climate, was enviable compared to poor Twm’s.
It has been complained that the improvements in modern cookery have caused the human race to devour more than twice the quantity of food requisite or beneficial; Molly Grump, the mistress of this mountain mansion, had no idea of inflicting such an evil on her kind, and therefore as an antidote to gluttony and intemperance, took care that her food and drink should be neither too savory nor gustful. Her habits were, to bake a large quantity of bread at once, so that it might soon get hard and mouldy; steep an immense portion of the matter for flummery, until as sour as verjuice; mix water with the milk, buttermilk, and whey; and make the cheeses for home consumption hard enough to answer the purpose of cannon balls, in case the felicities of Cwm du should ever tempt our foreign enemies to invade it.