Twm encounters Tom Dorbell. The quick encounter of their wits, in which our hero has the advantage. Twm rescues a high dignitary of the church. Twm’s triumphal entry into London in a bishop’s carriage.
It was yet only four o’clock the following morning, when our hero was once more upon the road. The stars were bright as at midnight, and the fine bracing frost, the glory of our northern clime, seemed to have purified his blood, and at the same time excited his fancy, so that both mind and body were sweetly attuned, and in the full glow of enjoyment. It might be thought the knowledge he had gained of Gwenny’s coquettings would have disheartened him; but his residence at Ystrad Feen, with his communion with the “lady of his vision,” had a little tinged his mind with something of romantic forebodings, that overshone the rusticity of earlier impressions.
Elastic and lusty were his healthy limbs, as they bounded to the music of his heart, while he strode forward on the highway, exulting in the thought that the day had at length arrived on which his eyes were to be regaled with a sight of the far-famed city of London.
In this happy spirit, he successively passed through Langley Broom and Colnbrook, anxiously hoping to reach Hounslow by mid-day. Thus, light of heart, and full of brilliant anticipations, he continued to bound along the road.
In this overweening fit of enthusiasm, he considered danger of every sort entirely out of the question; and this, too, if he knew the truth, while he wandered over the very hot-bed of robbers, both foot-pads and equestrians! Deluded by such a course of cogitation, he began to jeer himself on his simplicity in keeping his pistols loaded, and considered whether he had best fire them off for amusement or not.
Before he had formed his resolution, he was startled to hear a rude and heavy tread close at his heels. Sudden as the thought, he turned round, and reeled some steps backward at the sight that presented itself! In the advanced light of the morning, he beheld a villainous-looking powerful man, with a long black-beard, who might have passed for the high-priest of a Jewish synagogue. He grasped a pistol that was levelled at his head, while his forefinger seemed actually pressing on the trigger. By his ominous silence, and the fierce glare of his eye, Twm conceived that murder and not robbery was his object, till the ruffian roared, “Garnish or die!”
“Wha—what is garnish?” stuttered Twm.
“Money, and be d—d to you, or here goes!” replied the bearded man, without the slightest touch of the dialect of the people whose chin-trimmings he had assumed. Our hero saw at once that this prepared ruffian was not to be trifled with, and that an instant’s delay might cost him his existence; therefore, he immediately produced from his bosom the packet entrusted to him by Sir George Devereaux.
As the robber reached to snatch it, Twm’s wits were at work; assuming the dialect and foolery which he knew passed among the English for Welsh, “Here wass the money, look you now, but God tam! it wass not mine, but you shall haf it in the tifel’s name, only let master see I wass praave, and show fight for it, look you, and not gif it up like a craaven.” With that he gave it into the fellow’s hand, saying, “Now, her begs, and solicits, and entreats you to be so kind ass to shoot some holes in hur cott lappets, just a pounce or two, look you, to prove hur hard fight and praavery.”
“Aye, with the greatest pleasure in life!” cried the ruffian, laughing. Here Twm put off his coat in an instant, and threw it over a bush on the roadside. When the robber fired at it, Twm leapt up, laughing with idiotic glee, crying, “Got pless hur for a praave marksman! that was a noble pounce, look you! But now another pounce for tother lappet, and I wass have great praise for praavery!”