Twm’s face indicated his deep chagrin, as he listened to the response, and the old man seeing him vexed, asked him to walk in and rest himself, an invitation that he gladly accepted. “What, I suppose you thought to be at Llandovery to hear the great preaching there to-day?” said the man’s wife, a little fat woman who was carding wool by the fire. “No,” replied Twm, “I never heard of any preaching that is to be there.” “That’s very odd,” rejoined the old man, “as the whole country has been crowding there to hear the good Rhys Prichard, the great vicar of Llandovery.” “I have heard he is very popular,” said Twm.
“Popular!” screamed the weazon-faced old man, as if indignant at the coldness of our hero’s eulogy, “he is the shining light of our times, and hardly less than a prophet; wisely has he called his divine book the Welshman’s Candle, for it blazes with exceeding brightness, and men find their way by it from the darkness of perdition. When it is known that his health permits him to preach, the country hereabouts is up in swarms, to the distance of two score miles and more. Then, the farmer forsakes his cornfield, the chapman his shop, and every tradesman and artizan quits his calling, to listen to the music of his discourse. Infirmity alone has kept me from going to hear him to-day; but my wife is no better than an infidel, and would rather listen to a profane fiddler, or a vagrant harper, than the finest preacher that ever breathed out a pious discourse.”
This was too much for any woman to listen quietly to, without saying a word or two in reply, and his spouse assured Twm that he was a miserable dreamer, whose brains had been turned by the ravings of fanatical preachers; that some months ago he ran three miles, howling, thinking he was pursued by the foul fiend, when it turned out to be only his own shadow; and that when a patch of the mountain furze was set on a blaze to fertilize the land, nothing could convince him that the world was not on fire, and the day of judgment come, till he caught an ague by hiding himself up to the chin in the river for twelve hours.
“Facts are stubborn things,” and as these were most unpleasant ones to be served up at his cost, for the entertainment of a stranger, the old man’s reply was angry and indignant, and the war of words seemed likely to degenerate into one of actual blows, when the violent galloping of a horse drew their attention, and in an instant a steed and rider passed the door; but suddenly checking his speed he returned, and calling at the cottage door, asking in a tone of authority if a lady had passed that way towards Llandovery within the last half hour.
The old man, trembling as he spoke, protested that no lady had passed for many hours; on which the bluff horseman told him as he valued his life, that neither he nor his wife should appear on the outside of the cottage door till he gave them leave. The old man assured him of his entire obedience, when the fellow quietly crossed the road, and effectually concealed himself and horse behind the opposite turf-stack.
This scene had received all attention from Twm, who had recognized in the despotic horseman, his late dearly-remembered friend, Dio the devil. He suspected Dio’s intentions and prepared forthwith to take part in some approaching business in which his presence had not been reckoned upon. He asked the timorous old cottager if he possessed such a thing as a long-handled hedge bill-hook, to which the poor dotard, his teeth chattering the while, replied in the negative. On searching the cottage, with the assistance of his mistress, to his great vexation he could find no weapon, but a blunt old hatchet, and a rusty reaping hook.
While they were yet seeking, Twm’s ear, sharpened to the utmost by the excitement and impending danger, heard another horse approaching, his heart caught fire at the sound, and with almost fierce vehemence he called to the people of the cottage, “Give me some weapon in the name of God! to defend you and myself from having our throats cut;” but it only increased their terror and confusion.
As he still spoke, there stopped opposite the cottage, a lady on a beautiful white horse, and the horseman darted forward from behind the turf-rick, and producing pistols demanded her money. The lady protested, in the most piteous and earnest tone, that she had accidentally left her purse behind and must be indebted to a friend at Llandovery, should she fail to meet her husband there, for some small change.
A momentary thrill, mysteriously strange and unaccountable, overcame our hero, as he caught a view of the lady’s face, and recognized one that he felt certain he had seen before; and when, or where, he could not recollect; and the enquiring thought was checked in its birth by the consideration of her present danger. “I’ll not be disappointed for nothing,” cried the ruffian, “Dio the devil is not to be fooled, and my pretty lady of Ystrad Feen, I have depended on a good booty from you to-day, so that unless in two minutes you strip, and give me every article in which you are clothed, a pistol bullet shall pass through your fair and delicate body.”
The fair horseman begged for consideration, and promised a liberal reward for any mercy shown to her. But the scoundrel laughed scornfully in her face, and cocked his pistol, on which she uttered a loud scream and fainted, when he immediately approached to dismount, strip, and rifle her.