After Watt had finished, our hero struck his emblem of office upon each floor, and repeated the following:—
Who’ll come to the wedding of Catty my mother?
Come mother, come daughter, son, father, brother,
And bring all your cousins, and uncles, and aunts,
To revel the feast at our jolly courants.
Haste, haste to the Bidding, ye stingy scrubs!
And out with your purses, and down with your dubs.Come Gwenny and Griffith, and Roger and Sal;
Morgan, Meredith, and Peggy and Pal;
Come one, come all, with your best on back,
To see mother married to spoon-making Jack;
He’s a spoon for his pains, as ye all shall see soon,
But lucky at finding a bowl to his spoon.Haste, haste to the Bidding! my friends, if you please,
For lack of white money bring good yellow cheese,
And butter, but not in your pockets alack,
Bring bacon or mutton well dried on the rack.
So endeth my story; come, haste we, friend Watty;
Now God save the King, and his friend Twm Shon Catty!
Twm’s delivery of these lines excited much mirth and laughter, and, added to those of the real Gwahoddwr, drew more than ordinary attention to this Bidding. Many of the children of the different houses had been Twm’s school-fellows, and the pupils of his mother, which had the effect of influencing them, and became a sort of tie, to claim their presence at her bidding. As Jack’s friends were in Carmarthenshire, another Gwahoddwr was appointed by his master to go with him to call on his at his own native place; and so liberal was the squire on this occasion, that he sent them both mounted on horses of their own.
Jack and his Bidder had no great success, as his friends reproached him for his perverse intention of marrying a strange woman in a far land; and finding but little pleasure in the subject or manner of their lectures, he made a precipitate retreat. Jack blushed for his countrymen, and he had sufficient native delicacy to see that their liberality would contrast disadvantageously with the warm generosity of Catty’s friends. He therefore bribed Ianto Gwyn, the harper, who had acted as his bidder, to silence; and brought with him to Tregaron, in a hired cart, the common contribution of a bridegroom,—namely, a bedstead, a table, a stool, and a dresser. These, he feigned had been bought with his bidding-money, received at Carmarthen. Friday is always allotted to bring home the Yestavell, or the woman’s furniture; consisting generally of an oaken coffer or chest; a feather-bed and blankets; all the crockery and pewter; wooden bowls, piggings, spoons, and trenchers, with the general furniture of the shelf; but as Catty was already provided with every thing of this kind, she had but little to add to her stock.
The landlord of the public-house originally called “The Lion,” but with a sign resembling a more ignoble animal, causing it to be ultimately known by no other designation than that of “the cat,” offered Jack his parlour to receive his Cardiganshire friends in. Accordingly, on the Friday before the wedding, he was busily employed in receiving money, cheese, and butter, from them, while Catty was similarly engaged at her residence, with her partizans, which were not a few. This custom in Welsh is called Pwrs a Gwregys, or purse and girdle; and is, doubtless, of very remote origin.
At length the long-looked-for, the important Saturday arrived; a day generally fixed upon for the celebration of the hymeneal ordinances, in Wales, from the sage persuasion that it is a lucky day, as well as for the convenience of the Sabbath intervening between it and a working day—a glorious season of sunshine to the children of labour.
Jack was agreeably disappointed to see a great many of his Carmarthen friends had repented of their unkind treatment of his bidder, and had now come to make amends. They came mounted on their ponies, and honourably paid their Pwython; that is to say, returned the presents which he or his relatives or friends had made at different weddings. Jack’s resentful and sudden disappearance, had a beneficial effect on the feelings of his friends and countrymen; and a jealousy of yielding the palm for liberality to a neighbouring country, stirred a spirit of emulous contention among them, which ended in a resolution that a party should attend the wedding, and bear with them the Pwython of the others, who had an aversion to travel such a very distant journey, being nearly five and twenty miles, a distance in those days which was considered no joke, but which we now, in this age of steam and locomotion, bridge over in five and twenty minutes.
After depositing their offerings, and partaking of a little refreshment, twelve of the bridegroom’s friends, headed by Ianto Gwyn the harper, mounted their ponies and called at Catty’s house, to demand the bride; and Watt the mole-catcher and Gwahoddwr, who added to these functions the father to Catty, expecting their arrival, at length heard without appearing, the following lines, delivered by the merry harper, from the back of his pony.
Open windows, open doors,
And with flowers strew the floors,
Heap the hearth with blazing wood,
Load the spit with festal food
The crochen [58] on its hook be placed,
And tap a barrel of the best!
For this is Catty’s wedding day!
Now bring the fair one out, I pray.
On which Watt, with the door still closed, made this reply without appearing.