Our hero, however, had a bold heart, and if a little better fed, would have endured all, and with that indifference and vein of whim which were natural to him, turned Misery herself into a scarecrow of mirth rather than terror. His wretched scanty meals did much to tame him, and he ate his breakfast of highly-watered milk porridge, with a hungry, and at the same time loathing, stomach. His dinner was either of very sour flummery and skim-milk watered, or for variety, broth, made of rusty bacon, or equally rusty dried beef or mutton; which being made in large quantities, was generally warmed and served up three or four succeeding days: and when Twm and his fellow servant (a half idiot lout,) vainly hoped that this species of drenching was over, they had the mortification to find a quantity of water added, to spin it out for another meal. When spared from out-door work, Twm became a drudge for the women; after the work of the day was over, and each resting in the chimney corner, there was always a job for him, of some kind or other. By the time he had been there six months, it was pitiable to see him, in the depth of winter, in his wooden clogs without stockings, and his happy laughing face rendered pale and sorrowful. Yet with all these drawbacks he preserved his turn for mirth, and in the evening would recite either ghost-stories or war-tales of old times, which he had heard from Ianto Gwyn or his master Rhys, that astonished and amused his auditors, at least part of them, for Molly Grump told him ’twas more fitting he should mind his work than give his time to telling lies and idling; and her eldest daughter Shân always echoed and imitated her mother, both in scolding and uttering wise saws.
The employment which they found for him in-doors, sometimes gave him an opportunity of repairing the deficiency of his stomach and warming his icy hands. One day, having brought in some turf and furze which he had chopped for baking plank, or bakestone, bread, while Shân had turned her back a little, he snatched up the last cake taken from the fire, and doubling it up, thrust it into his breast, and attempted to make a hasty retreat to devour it. The great heat against his stomach, however, gave him infinite pain, which, like the Spartan boy he had determined to endure rather than be detected; but not having been favored with so stoical an education, he at length gave way to nature, and roared most loudly as he ran out and across a field, while Shân and her two younger sisters followed in full chase, to rescue the bread which the former immediately missed. Twm soon gained the mountain, when the girls gave up the pursuit, and he sat down and ate his bread undisturbed, hiding what remained beneath some stones, for a future meal, determined to abide the consequence of his theft rather than that of starvation. A severe thrashing from the farmer, some blows from his wife, much scolding from both as well from the echo Shân, with deprivation from dinner, were the attendants of this feat; and instead of being permitted to sit with the rest, to partake of a meal, he was ordered to give some hay to the cows: “and mind,” cried Farmer Grump, “that you give more hay to the cow that yields you most milk, than to the cow that gives but little.” “I will, be sure of it!” said Twm, pointedly and in a sulky tone; and immediately carried his two arms full of hay and threw it under the water spout. “There!” cried he, as the farmer came out and looked with astonishment, “that is the cow which gives me most milk, for your cursed broth and porridge is almost wholly made from this never-failing udder.” This cost him another beating, but it was the last, for the farmer received a hint that it would not be safe to repeat the experiment, as Twm vowed to his fellow servant, that if again struck he would fell his assailant to the ground, like an ox: while his resolute and altered look convinced him that he meant to keep his word.
In the early part of the next summer, that dreadful malady, the small pox, made its awful visitation to Morris Grump’s house, and like a terrific fiend laid its talons alike on young and old, and remorselessly swept them off to the grave. The two younger daughters were the first infected; and in a few days after, two more were taken ill, and Morris’s house presented the appearance of an hospital. Morris’s wife, as well as himself, from the excessive anxiety natural to parents in such unhappy circumstances for the preservation of her offspring, took, like thousands of others, the wrong course, and literally killed them with kindness; while the humbler inmates of the house, who had no share in her affection or concern, were as truly saved by absolute neglect. Thus, while without judgement or advice, except of those who were as ignorant as herself, she sought every delicacy to indulge and pamper the appetites of her own afflicted ones, giving them spiced ale sugared, and even wine, in her terror of losing them, she suffered the poor apprentice Twm, who was also deep in the small pox, to languish unattended, without enquiring after him, or sending him the common necessaries of life, utterly indifferent whether he lived or died.
On the first appearance of this disorder, the farmer’s ploughman left him and went home, so that except Grump’s own family, there were none in the house but Twm, who, if preserved from the small pox ran great danger of starvation. His bed was an old hop-sack half filled with oat-chaff, and his covering an old tattered blanket and a musty rug, which had filled similar offices for the horses. His bed-chamber being a portion of the hay-loft, poor Twm remained hours and days without food, groaning away his time, and until blinded by his malady, amusing himself by counting the number, and pondering on the formation, of the cobwebs that hung like sorrow’s garlands from the mouldy beams and rafters, while the squeaking of the mice in the rotten thatch, served for music. At other times, somewhat nerved by the cravings of his stomach, his weak hands would rustle in some pease-straw that happened to be placed there, and now and then, to his infinite joy, find an unbroken pea-shell that had escaped the searching of the flail, which, in spite of the soreness of his hands and mouth, he would open, and with avidity devour its contents.
As in those days there were none who knew how to treat this disorder, in general it was looked upon as the certain harbinger of death, when the terror and confusion which took place on its appearance, was deplorable in the extreme. Two of the farmer’s children, which had first been taken ill, now died; and a third in a day after, when Morris himself was discovered to be infected. Loud cries and lamentations became incessant day and night; and some of the neighbouring old cottage wives who offered their services came there to assist—and this to some of them was a welcome office, as on such occasions as watching the sick, or laying out the dead; feasting is as prevalent as at weddings.
Among these old hen-wives and grannies, tales of superstition prevailed in abundance; some spoke of the 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 churchyard.
One night, between twelve and one, while the three coffins and their contents presented a woeful sight, lying side by side on the long oak table, Morris, afflicted as he was, assisted his wife in supporting 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 of somebody stumbling in his way in the dark; groans, mutterings, and approaching human steps succeeded:—some shrieked, some rose and ran to remote corners, covering their heads 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 now recollected the poor apprentice boy Twm, whom they had left in the depth of the malady which had deprived them of three of their children, to live or 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 had entered his hay-loft, and with the ravenousness of a starved hound devoured his half raw prey in darkness. 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 agony that seemed to have humanized his hard heart by the bitter arrows of affliction, Morris fell on his knees, and with interrupting sobs, exclaimed “I see the hand of God in this, and a judgement, a heavy judgement 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 me and mine will 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 prophecy, which was further verified, inasmuch that 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.