To the great satisfaction of our hero, his onset was auspicious; he succeeded without noise in wrenching off numerous planks, and in a short time entered the building. He made up at once to the grand object of his enterprise, and approached the mighty brute with deference; then patting him kindly with a patronizing air, he called familiarly by his name, which he had learnt was Bishop, from the fair resemblance perhaps, of his outward bull to the outward man of the lord of the lawn sleeves; or, in his dignified rotundity, to some specimens of that princely priest of our favoured land. Bishop having sniffed and snorted a little, wondering at the temerity of the two-legged animal that so daringly sought his acquaintance treated his advances as due homage, and resumed his easy contemplative posture, like a politic Autocrat that condescendingly gives audience to a loyal peasant. Guessing the yearning of his mighty mind, and no less mighty carcase, our hero presented him with a small bag of oats, to conciliate his good-will, which being graciously received, gave goodly omen of the magnanimity of his disposition.
Twm now proceeded to his task of enlarging the opening for his egress. After having heaved up, with his crowbar, two of the uprights which formed the ribs of the old cow-house, from which he had removed its sinews the planks, just as he was enjoying his conquest over his worst obstructions, he found to his dismay, that he had reckoned without his hostess, as Lady Fortune claimed more from his exertions than he thought due. A strong square heart-of-oak piece of timber ran along, horizontally, the whole length of the building, which nothing but a saw could remove. As the bull, Bishop, was too lordly and unaccustomed to diminish his lofty altitude by dropping on his knees, like the meek docile camel, and too stiff and heavy to spring like the active dog, nothing remained but to remove in some way, the stout wood that formed a bar across his furious-looking forehead.
As he considered the noise of sawing would rouse the Philistines of Llwynmawr, for an instant Twm’s inventive powers were at a stand; but they soon rallied, and he how had to strike a bold stroke, that promised anything but success, while certain failure would otherwise be his lot. From the bag he took two pairs of top-boots which he had provided, and drew them, one at a time, with the toes pointing backward, on the feet of the bull, Bishop, who seemed at first modestly to decline such an unusual honour. But as Twm was very pressing, he meekly submitted, like a bashful maid to don her wedding robes, or like King Richard, to have fortune buckled on his back; for he in fact endured to have his boots corded above his knees.
Twm now took the crow-bar to the front of the house, and fixed it firmly through an old-fashioned iron ring in the farm-house door, so as utterly to prevent the opening of it from the inside. Fastening next a halter to the bell attached to the sledge-shaft, he instructed Tommy Thomas to ring and roar “fire” with all the strength of his arms and might of his lungs; applying as he spoke, a candle to the hay on the sledge, while he retreated to saw, amid this din, the stubborn wood that barred alike the bull’s departure and the progress of the enterprise.
Whiz, crick, crack went the blaze! ding, dong! went the clapper of the bell! fire, fire! roared the scare-crow voice of little Tommy Thomas; Twm’s saw being unheard through the prevalence of these mightier sounds. The squire was the first awakened by the unusual noise, and terrible was the fat man’s fright on seeing the blazing pyramid that illumined the whole house inwardly, and all over the yard, while he beheld some little devil ringing the bell and roaring “fire!” like a sergeant major while drilling a battalion.
The activity of a fat man in a fright is truly ludicrous. The nimbleness of the thinnest frightened tailor that ever hid himself behind a fishing-rod, was mere sluggishness compared to the flea-hopping trips of Squire Prothero, although almost too large to conceal himself behind a church, in some mountain parishes of Wales. Down stairs he rolled, ten steps at a time, and tried in vain to open the outward door. Up he rushed again, as if his unbreeched hams and shirted shoulders had wings appended to them, to assist his upward flight, bellowing “fire! fire!” till hoarseness silenced him.
Just as he lost his voice, he found a deputy for it in a broomstick, with which he ran into the men’s room, cudgelling Ready Rosser and the rest through the bed-clothes, till they roared a dissonant chorus to the hoarse bass of “fire, fire!” “get up and be d—ned to you, or be fried in your own tallow!”
Still the bell rung, and still Tommy Thomas lustily roared “fire!” Ready Rosser, overwhelmed with fear and stupidity, proved his name to be henceforth a misnomer, having, with the rest of the clowns, utterly failed to open the door. Running up stairs again, they met the squire at the top, flourishing his cudgel like a flail about their heads. In his extremity, to give poor Rosser his due, he tried the notable plan of rising above his troubles by climbing up the chimney; but when he had nearly attained the top, like many other ambitious aspirants, he lost his footing, and tumbled down to the bottom, blackened with soot, and smarting with his bruises. At length this scene of confusion received a turn by the adventurous daring of Gaby Snipe, a parish apprentice boy, who, squeezing himself through a narrow casement, dropped to the ground, and ultimately succeeded in removing the crow-bar and opening the door.
During this scene of dire confusion, Twm’s enterprise had progressed swimmingly, and he had his worship the bull out of the cow-house, through the horse-pond, over the snow-clad field, and into a lane that led to the parish road, which brought them to a sheep-cot on the high mountain top, that almost overhung the mansion Ystrad Feen. Just as he had bestowed his precious charge within the aforesaid shelter, he was joined by little Tommy Thomas, terribly out of breath with running and laughing. Our hero had also his full share of laughter, daylight having now pretty well advanced, in noting the paces of the mighty brute as he stamped it along in his top-boots, with, the toes reversed, being the first of the family, as he deemed, that ever was honoured with such a dashing leg and heel trimmings.
Tommy Thomas related that on the descent of Gaby Snipe, he quitted his bell-rope and hid himself awhile to witness the result of the outpouring from the house. The rush was whimsical to witness, for fear, as usual, had exaggerated the danger, and when in the yard they ran to and fro like scared rabbits, not knowing what to do, nor what was required of them. The hay being all consumed, and the fire self-extinguished, Ready Rosser called out, “water, water!” which, in their confusion and imperfect state of wakefulness, they dashed, by pailsful, at one another, till at length a general fight commenced in the farm-yard; and when the squire came and parted them, not one could tell how the fray began, any more than they could account for the stirring incidents that had frightened them all out of their senses.