—“Some there were bards, that in their sacred rage
Recorded the descents, and acts of every age;
Some with nimble joints that struck the warbling string;
In fing’ring some unskill’d, but used right well to sing
To other’s harp; of which you both might find
Great plenty, and of each excelling in their kind,
That at the Stethva [245b] oft obtain’d a victor’s praise,
Had won the silver harp, and worn Apollo’s bays;
Whose verses they deduced from those first golden times,
In sundry forms of feet, and sundry suits of rhymes.
In Englyns [245c] some there were that in their subject strain;
Some makers that again affect a loftier vein,
Rehearse their high conceits in Cowyths; [245d] other some
In Owdels [245e] theirs express, as matter haps to come.So varying still their moods, observing yet in all,
Their quantities, their rests, their measures metrical;
For to that sacred art they most themselves apply,
Addicted from their birth to so much poesy,
That in the mountains those who scarce have seen a book,
Most skilfully will make, as though from art they took.”
Among the given subjects for a Cowydd, or Poem, was “Govid,” or Affliction, for which it turned out that there was but one who had written on it, and, to Twm’s unutterable surprise, he heard his own poem of that title recited, and more than all, a prize awarded to it by the umpires. Lady Devereux, who had attached her name to this effusion, was called upon to receive the meed of her talents. That lady, who sat by her father, as one of the audience, now rose with dignity, and said with some emotion, that the poem so highly honored; was not of her composition, but had been sent to her by its author, a person of taste and ingenuity, whom she was bound ever to esteem; as to his valour and courtesy she had once been indebted for the preservation of her life. Then naming Mr. Thomas Jones, as the author, she pointed him out; and, amid loud and long applause, a handsome silver medal was placed round his neck.
But why should we prolong, by intermediate detail, the ultimatum so easily inticipated by the reader? Our hero won also the miniature silver harp, and the gold cup at the races; the admiration of the ladies at the ball, and withal, the wonder and esteem of the Breconians. But alas! the buoyancy of spirits, and exultation of heart, which owed their evanescent existence to these distinctions, was soon doomed to give way to feelings of contrasting severity. Now, while in the zenith of his glory, confidently anticipating, as the final crown of his happiness, the willing hand of his mistress, a note for him arrived at the inn, from the fair widow, that threw him into absolute despair—she told him in plain terms, that unless he could outwit her, all his hopes of her hand would be utterly in vain. This intimation he could understand only as a formal permit to wear the willow as soon as he pleased; that she was otherwise engaged, and had altogether done with him.
Meeting Miss Meredith in the walks soon afterwards, he sought an explanation with much earnestness, but she only burst out into laughter at his “serious sad face,” as she called it, and made her escape from his importunities. This confirmed the worst construction which he had put on her conduct, and the “vile caprice and inconsistency of woman,” became the subjects of his bitterest railing. Hearing that her company had preceded her in the way home, next evening, and that she was about to follow them alone, he resolved to way-lay, and put her under contribution, at any rate; which he conceived would be one way, at least, of outwitting her, and perhaps the right one.
Disguising himself in a heavy great coat, and a rough hairy travelling cap, which had always been his treasury, in preference to a pocket, in case of being at any time overpowered by numbers on the road, as no suspicion would attach of money being there concealed; he took his stand by the gate, that in those days led from the town into the mountains, through which the road ran to Llanspyddyd, Trecastle, and Llandovery. At length the gay widow arrived, and Twm immediately caught a firm hold of her bridle, and, in an assumed snuffling tone of voice, demanded her money. She begged hard for mercy on her pocket, but in vain; and gave at last a considerable sum, which, she said, was the whole contents of her pocket. Our hero, while placing the booty in the crown of his cap, declared himself quite satisfied: “And so am I!” cried the spirited widow, and, at the same moment, grasped his cap and its whole contents, laughing aloud as she galloped away from him, she cried, “thus the widow outwits and triumphs over Twm.”
Here was our hero, at length, in a deplorable dilemma;—shorn of his laurels, and at once a bankrupt in love and fortune; as the cap contained the whole of the money brought with him to Brecon, as well as what he had gained there. This inauspicious adventure, although it damped his spirits for the time, had the ultimate effect of rousing his latent energies to the highest pitch. He was not long in hatching a scheme to forward his purposes, that, however, required the aid (which was offered to him) of Powell and his two friends. Twelve o’clock the next morning saw him dismounting at the door of Ystrad Fîn, accoutred in a military costume, intended as a disguise, to gain immediate admittance as a stranger. To his great dismay, instead of finding the door fly open to his knock, as he expected, it appeared to have been barricaded against him. The lady of the mansion, with pompous formality, appeared at the window, like the warder of a fortress holding a parley at an outpost. In a gay spirit of bantering, she declared, that the military uniform became him exceedingly, and begged to know what rank he held in the army. Our hero parried these home thrusts with but an ordinary degree of grace, and, in a bowed spirit, intreated admission to the inner walls. The lady Joan was quite peremptory in her refusal, declaring, that having lately heard so much to his disadvantage, she had decided to break off all future acquaintance with him as a lover; “especially,” added she, “as, instead of the witty person I thought you, I find you quite a dull animal, that any school-girl might outwit.” Here she indulged in a provoking laugh, and bade him “good-bye,” as she turned to close the window. “Nay then,” said Twm in a desponding key, “if we are indeed to be henceforth strangers, as we have been friends, true and warm friends, you will give me your hand, at least, in parting.” She slowly stretched out her hand at the window, and our hero, with the eager spring of a hungry tiger, darted forward, grasped her wrist with his left hand, and drawing his sword with the right, exclaimed in a tone of fury, “Revenge at least is left me—by yon blessed sky above us, I’ll be trifled with no longer—off goes your hand, unless you consent to our union this instant, and on this very spot.” “Lord! don’t squeeze so hard and look so fierce,” cried the lady of Ystrad Fîn. Twm, with increased boisterousness, resumed, “On your answer will depend whether, for the remainder of your life, you will have a single, or a pair of hands—for on the pronouncing of a negative, this hand, this soft white hand, beautiful as it is, will instantly fly, severed from the wrist.” “I would not so much care,” cried the lady of Ystrad Fîn, “but for your horrid name; I could not endure to be called Mrs. Twm Shôn Catti.” “I have protested bitterly, and will not be forsworn,” cried Twm, “that here, even here, with your hand thus stretched through the window, the marriage ceremony shall be performed; and so your answer at once without evasion.” “The parson of our parish is gone to a christening,” said the lady of Ystrad Fîn. “Yes or no!” roared the terrific Twm, menacing the threatened blow. “Well then, as I could not handle a knife and fork, or play my spinnet, or give you a box on the ear when I want pastime, I may as well say—yes!” “Bless thee for that,” cried Twm in extacy, and eagerly kissed the captured hand. With his left hand he drew forth a small bugle, and blew a loud blast that was re-echoed by the surrounding mountains. Immediately a party of ten persons, wearing masks appeared, one of which was arrayed in a clerical habit, who without further ado commenced the marriage ceremony, Twm the while holding her hand through the window.
The wedding service had been more than half gone through, when four windows of the first floor were suddenly opened, and several persons put their heads out, while, with the most sideshaking peals of laughter, they looked down on this singular wedding. The “ho, ho, ho!” of the merry Prothero, was heard with surpassing loudness; and, “Well done Twm,” were the first words that the spirit of titillation permitted him to utter. Notwithstanding this interruption, the ceremony was finished, and parson Hughes pronounced them man and wife. Unwilling to loosen the hand which he now considered his own, our hero held it fast till he entered the house through the window. Once within the mansion that now called him master, an amazing change of circumstances took place.—The lady endearingly asked forgiveness for her latter conduct, while Twm intreated the same for himself. Squire Prothero had been the author of many good offices to our hero; having conciliated Sir John Price, who, although a proud man, was also something of a humorist, as he proved himself in this instance. A plan was concerted to throw every impediment in the way of Twm’s union, for him to surmount them as he could, to afford sport for the old baronet and his merry friend Prothero, in which trickery the lady herself was by promise compelled to join, which accounts for her latter conduct. Being ushered by his bride into the drawing-room, our hero was introduced to, and well received by more than one stranger—namely, Sir John Price, and his own father! On the following day their public wedding took place in Brecon, when our hero’s friend Powell was also united to the amiable Miss Meredith. These parties being made happy, little remains to be added. Evans of Tregaron, had soon after, to add to his other losses, that of his clerical gown, on account of a fine chopping boy affiliated on him by the luckless Bessy Gwevel hîr; and his magisterial functions were also numbered with “things which were, but are not.”
The annals of those times evince that our hero filled various civil offices of the first rank in the good town of Brecon, with great ability; and “Thomas Jones, Esq.” shines conspicuously on the list of its mayors and sheriffs; but no where more honourably than in the pages of his early friend Rhys—the Doctor Rhys—whose undoubted testimony crowns him with the fame of an accomplished herald and antiquary. A single anecdote, illustrative of his good humour in late life, shall close this book. “Bless me!” cried the lady mayoress one day to her husband, as they passed arm in arm through the street from church, “the people are always laughing to think of my having married you.” “I don’t wonder,” replied the hero of these adventures, “for I always laugh when I think of it myself.”
THE END.
PRINTED BY J. COX, ABERYSTWYTH.