“A neighbour’s child one day asked me to lift him up to Rachel Ketch’s thatch, to take from it a wren’s nest, which he had long watched, and said he was sure that the young ones were on the eve of flying. It was a winning little urchin that made the request, and I could not refuse him. The moment that I raised him to a standing position on my shoulders, he eagerly thrust his little hand into the thatch, and cried, ‘Dear, dear, how cold!’ when a snake which he had felt, that had destroyed the young birds, coiled itself round in the nest, darted out into his face, and the youngster shrieked and fainted in my arms. I carried him home, where he soon died of the fright, for it appeared he was not stung.
“Supposing there was a nest of these reptiles in the old rotten straw thatch, I poked it in all directions with a long hooked stick, and at last felt something attached to it. As I drew it forward and examined it, to my great astonishment, I found it to be an old woollen stocking, closely stuffed with various golden coins. Here was a discovery! I felt myself a man for ever! The old woman was at this time in Carmarthenshire, where she had gone to enforce her claims to certain debts among her former neighbours; and therefore, having no fear of detection, I pushed back the golden prize and went away, intending to return for it at night. As I anxiously watched the hours and minutes pass away, reflecting on my newly-acquired wealth, a raging savage spirit of avarice so possessed me, that I determined to plunder old Rachel’s cottage of all the money I could find.
“Night came, and with breathless haste I made an entrance through the thatch, on the side furthest from the street, and at midnight went away with a heavy booty, the greater part of which I buried beneath the floor of my own cottage, determined to seek an opportunity of quitting Tregaron for ever. Fortune seemed to favour me beyond my hopes; Squire Graspacre having a numerous herd of fine pigs, engaged me to drive them to England, and sell them at a good price; I have done so, and pocketed the cash, not one farthing of which will the squire ever handle. To relate all my rogueries since I became a grave man, would take too much of your time; so here ends my story.”
Twm had heard Watt’s tale with sorrow and regret, and his spirits were fast sinking below zero, when a party of Cardiganshire lasses, who were making their annual journey to weed the gardens in the neighbourhood of London, passed opposite the tavern door where our worthies were sitting. With heart-touched delight, our hero recognized the comfortable and not unpicturesque costume of his native country; and his satisfaction was still increased when he found among the rural damsels, two Tregaron girls; one of whom, named Martha Gwyn, was a fast friend of Gwenny Cadwgan’s. These poor girls expressed their gladness to see their long-lost “neighbour’s child,” as their homely but touching phrase went; but their recognition of Watt amounted to such terror and abhorrence that the rose of health and innocence faded on their cheeks, while their expanded eyes were fearfully fixed on his countenance, as if something unearthly met their stony stare.
At length they found words to say that he was charged, not only with the robbery of Rachael Ketch’s cottage, but with murder; that the constables were out to search for him in all quarters, and that Squire Graspacre had sent out a man to supersede Watt in the care of his pigs.
This unexpected news, and the evident horror evinced by the fair maidens for him, quite overcame Watt, and he showed unmistakable signs of the fear which had taken possession of him. From Martha Gwyn, Twm learned that poor Gwenny’s affection for him was unchanged, but it was thought, for all that, said the candid girl, that she will be married to a Breconshire farmer’s son, who met her in Herefordshire, when she went a hop-picking there.
“But if Gwenny has him,” said Martha, “it will be for the sake of making a home for her poor father.”
Twm’s generous heart prompted him to give each maiden a piece of silver; and, having made them eat heartily of a good homely, substantial meal of cheese and bread and ale, he dismissed them on their journey. Watt, in great agony of mind, exclaimed—
“Oh God, where shall I fly! all my supposed security I find but a dream, and misery alone awaits me! When I told you the tale of my enormities, I kept back the relation of one crime—a dreadful one—which, lost as I am, I felt averse to acknowledge, and too heart-smote with the consciousness of its atrocity, to turn to it my most secret thought—’twas a deed of blood, the crime of murder!
“You remember a tall, thin, skeleton-like man, generally dressed in a suit of grey, who lived in a cottage on the mountain, in the neighbourhood of Tregaron, known by the nickname of Stalking Simon the Mooncalf, from his wandering by moon-light over the hills. This man was known to be a spy, employed and paid by all the neighbouring farmers. His habits were, to sleep all day and to spend the night on the hill, watching to identify the hedge-pluckers and sheep-stealers. Many poor persons who depended on their nightly excursions for fuel, while they deemed themselves unobserved of any human being, cutting down a tree, or drawing dry wood from an old hedge, would suddenly find themselves in the presence of Stalking Simon. So instantaneous was his appearance, as to startle his victims with the idea of an apparition suddenly sprung up through the ground, as his approach was never seen till close upon them.