The general report of a liberal English squire in Cardiganshire, who patronized and upheld the customs of the Welsh, penetrated to the extremities of the neighbouring counties, 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 favourite study of Welshmen, British antiquities, and systemizing his native language, deserved encouragement and applause. He had been 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. The change was a fortunate one for Twm Shon Catty, who, as we have before seen, had already a name for composing doggerel, and had even tried his muse in the orthodox four-and-twenty 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 he was 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 learnt to despise the jargon and misstatements of Ianto Gwyn, with whom he argued boldly, and proved to him that Geoffry of Monmouth was a fabulist, and no historian; that it was not Joseph of Arimathea who christianized Britain, but Brân ab Llyr, the father of renowned Caractacus, 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 favourite. The amiable young clergyman found much satisfaction on discovering a youngster with taste, sufficient to appreciate his favourite pursuits, and took pleasure in explaining to him every subject of his enquiries. 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.
It would perhaps have been fortunate for Twm had this thirst for study remained unchecked by any less noble desire. But joking and learning, “larks” and Latin, practical jests and Welsh history, are scarcely likely to agree well. Watt the mole-catcher occupied his attention, and, in the end, his acquaintance with that personage was an ill wind which blew nobody good.
About eighteen months after Rhys’s appointment to the school, one evening in the Christmas holidays, Watt asked him if he would take a share in a freak that would keep him up the greater part of the night. Twm immediately assented, without enquiring its nature; enough for him it was that it was a scheme of merry mischief, in the prospect of which his heart ever bounded.
This idle whim of Watt’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 ale-house-keepers and others, to find their signs vanished, and gracing the fronts of their neighbours’ private houses; and the anger of the reverend Inco Evans was boundless, on perceiving the “Fox and Goose” over the 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 or 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. A most unlucky old carl of a Scotch pedlar at this moment very innocently entered the house, taking it, as the sign imported, for a tavern, and unstrapping his huge pack, laid it on the clerical magistrate’s table, calling about, “hollow! Fox and Goose;” on which the reverend host and his spouse appeared, she laughing at the jest, and he frowning with the aspect of a demon.
“Ah ye ’re come,” said the facetious Scot, “by my saul aw never kenn’d twa that looked the characters sa weal afore—a merry guse an a sour fox! come gi us a pot of your best half and half.” The lady ran out laughing, but Inco sourly answered, “O yes! friend, thou shalt have half and half to thy heart’s content;” and turning his back, shut and locked the door, leaving the poor pedlar in gaping wonderment.
“They’re an aufu’ time coming! I’se warrant they’re brewing the beer. Hech, sirs, this is a strange place o’ ca’, and they wouldna’ find sic a vile ’yun, frae John o’Groat’s to John o’ Aberdeen’s!” But his rumination on the subject was cut short by the return of Inco, who unlocking the door, was followed in by two serving damsels, each bearing a pewter vase containing something less fragrant than the sweets of Araby, which they duly discharged in the face of the unconscious pedlar, accompanied with Inco’s exclamation “there’s half and half for you!” and the girls retreated in roars of laughter, while their poor victim cursed them for vile nanny goats of the mountains.