At this moment young Twm, humanely feeling for the stranger’s ill treatment, informed him of his error in mistaking that house, the residence of the clergyman and magistrate of the town, for a tavern. Adding that be feared the constables were sent for, to put him in the stocks. It need scarcely be added, that Sawney was soon many miles away from Tregaron. Hop-o-my-Thumb never used his legs and his seven-leagued boots to such express purpose as did Sawney, for he pushed on as though he knew terrors were behind, and the safety of the body depended upon the speed of his legs. 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 became daily more conspicuous; and therefore this slur upon his consequence was intolerable. The actor 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 Watt, who were merely reprimanded, cautioned for the future, and dismissed.
The circumstances under which Twm Shon Catty was educated, now suddenly occurred to him. “What the goodness is to become of that young imp of mischief?” said he, one day, to Rhys the curate, whom he had informed of the particulars of the birth, and his deceased wife’s whim of having him well educated, in consequence of him being a slip of Sir John Wynn’s. That connection 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 surprised to hear the squire exclaim—“I am sorry for it, for he has no prospect in the world but labour and beggary. As he had already had too good an education for his circumstances, he must be instantly dismissed from the school. Since Sir John does not think proper to protect his son, I don’t see why I should. As the poet very properly says:—
“Too much learning makes a man a fool;
I’d have no lad attend too long at school:
Give him a taste, then turn him out adrift;
In knowledge, at the least, he’s had a lift.”
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 favourable auspices would have entitled 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, Catty went one day to the squire, 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.
CHAPTER X.
The family of the Welsh farmer. Not a bright look-out for our hero.
Morris Greeg, the farmer to whom the parish had consigned our hero, as an apprentice, possessed a small freehold farm, fourteen miles up the mountain; and thither, in the company or custody of Watt the mole-catcher, Twm was now marched. Dull and joyless was their journey, unenlivened either by incident or the charms of scenery. On their arrival at the destined spot, Twm could scarcely forbear shuddering at the prospect before him. The farm-house was a low long building, under the same roof as the cow-house and stable, and as the whole was covered with a black mass of rotten thatch, composed of varied patches of half-perished straw and fern, the only signs of its being inhabited by humanity were a chimney, with two or three farm implements lying at the hovel door.
The farm, called Cwm y Gwarm Ddu, (Black marsh dingle,) was abbreviated usually to Gwern Ddu; the latter word, be it known to our English readers, is pronounced Thee. The land of which it was composed, had been anciently cribbed from the mountain, according to the Havod un-nôs [72] system. Being too remote from any other settlements to be noticed by any of the parishioners but the shepherds, who were bribed to silence by occasional refreshment as they passed that way, the appropriation remained long unquestioned. And when of later years some of the nearest farmers became troublesome busy-bodies on the occasion, a few days’ labour given gratis in harvest time by Morris Greeg’s grandfather and father, made all quiet again, till latterly, the farm of Gwern Ddu became incontestably a freehold property.
Twm felt no great wonder that its existence, as narrated by Watt, remained so long unknown, and wished an earthquake had been so good as to swallow it before he had been destined to enter its precincts.