“A change took place in your destiny; you honoured me beyond my merits, and bade me stand to the world in a new character. You called me friend, your sole friend, in a faithless world; nay, lady, your lover; I loved, and love you with a pure but unconquerable flame! Blame me not if I am presumptuous;—it was your own condescension, your own encouragement, that made me so, and elevated me to an equality with yourself. You gave me hopes to be the future, the only husband of your choice. You stretched forth your hand to aid my efforts, as I eagerly climbed towards the darling object of my aim; but before I attained the summit, you, madame, in the spirit of caprice or treachery, dashed me headlong downwards, to perish in despair.
“Your great and wealthy friends will praise you for this, while the mincing madames and the insipid misses of Brecon shall learn a noble lesson by your conduct, and emulating you, become in their day as arrant coquettes and tramplers on manly hearts, as their limited powers and vanity will permit. But enough! you shall have your generous triumph,—and from this hour I tread the world without an aim, a wanderer in the wilderness, reckless of everything. Advancement, estimation, I here abjure; nor, from this hour, would I raise my hand to save from annihilation the being I am—for life is henceforth hateful to me.
“Lady, farewell!—never more will I cross your path; but you may hear of my wayward steps,—and if in me you are told of a wretched idiot, a being whose mind had perished while his frame was strong, remember that it was yourself who wrought that mental desolation. Or, if they name me as a lawless being, plunged head-long into deeds of guilt, remember it is you, you, madame, who are the authoress of my crimes and sorrows, and, may be, of an ignominious death. And now, madame, farewell!” On which he darted out, mounted his horse, and rode off; while the unhappy lady of Ystrad Feen, whose agitation choked her utterance, caught a last glimpse of him, and fell on the parlour floor in a swoon.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
Fine Arts at a discount. Hungry Moses, whose appetite was his ruin. New tricks and jokes on Ready Rosser. Parson Inco once more.
Twm left Ystrad Feen in no enviable state of mind. He was in a similar temper to that of a child when deprived of a favourite toy, and as he urged his horse with speed in the direction of Llandovery, he determined never to place faith in woman again,—a resolution which underwent some slight modification before he reached the “Cat and Fiddle,” a diminutive-looking ale-house, where for the present he decided to take up his quarters.
Notwithstanding his chagrin, he could not help smiling at this whimsical sign, then newly painted,—a droll-faced creature of the feline race, drawn, as an enthusiast in melody, erect on her hind feet, her eyes turned up in ecstacy, while her open mouth seemed to be mewing music, or tow-rowing harmony at a fine rate, in concord with the fiddle that she handled with the most artist-like taste, and professional gravity. If the sign was to his taste, a sort of homely snuggery in the form of a small parlour, and a good-humoured-looking fat landlady, were no less so.
Dinah Dew, the widowed mistress of the Cat and Fiddle informed him that she owed her sign to the skill of a poor tramping painter, who had run into her debt, to the enormous amount of five shillings and sevenpence half-penny, for board, washing, lodging, and drinking: and the poor fellow being penniless and without work, “I let him free,” said she, “for the sign, and gave him a shilling and a brown loaf over.”
This liberal patronage of the fine arts, (for the sign included music, poetry, and painting,) gave Twm a favourable opinion of his hostess. She apologized to him for the absence of her hostler, and said he was a poor ragged fellow with a pregnant wife, and two children; by trade a mat and basket maker; also a waiter at two other taverns; and an occasional husbandry servant with several farmers, who employed him in their busy times. “The fellow is well enough,” said the little round woman, “but for his cormorant appetite; and eat what he may, he never looks better for it. Indeed your horse would scarcely be safe with him, but that this is not the most hungry time of year.”
“I knew such another once,” thought Twm, his mind reverting to the hungry house of Morris Greeg; as he went forward on his walk over the fields. The said “hostler” soon overtook him, to ask his commands about his horse. Twm looked with compassion on the ragged Guy Fawkes figure before him, and conceived that he might earn a fair livelihood by merely walking over the farmer’s grounds, as all the kites and crows must inevitably flap their departing wings at his approach. Twm looked into a keen pair of ferret eyes, that glistened above a high-bridged parrot nose, and found no difficulty in identifying the miserable Moses of past days.