Such was the state of matters when Moses, who seemed to be loitering about without any particular purpose in view, encountered them, and, laughing loudly at the cautious and careful way in which they continued to guard their prize, assured them that Twm had given up the idea of outwitting such a wary and clever party, and was at that moment drinking his wine with their master, whom he allowed to win the wager.
“Allowing, indeed!” quoth a sharp-tongued lass, as she stopped her harrow to listen, “pretty allowing, when he could not help himself!” “Aye,” cried the other girl, “so the fox allowed the goose to escape, when she took to flight and escaped his clutches!”
Rosser and the plough-boy exulted in their anticipated reward of a skin-full of strong beer. Thus the whole party was excited to a high pitch of triumphant mirth. Moses was, of course, a decoy, and his report had really the effect of throwing them off their guard, which another circumstance contributed to aid. The rural party had rested, sitting on their ploughs and harrows, at one end of the field, while they listened to their informant; and now were about to resume their labours, when a hare started from the adjoining thicket, crossing the ground towards the opposite hedge.
Suddenly the halloo arose; away ran the ploughman and girls, over hedges and ditches, and away ran the yelping sheep-dog, amid the clamour of shouting and barking; but the wondering oxen stood still, and their grave looks of astonishment gradually changed to a more animated expression of alarm on the arrival of Twm Shon Catty.
Having loosed his captive hare to decoy the clowns, he availed himself of their absence to dress the black ox in a white morning gown,—that is to say, a sheet, which became him much, and contrasted with his complexion amazingly; and the white ox he attired in a suit of mourning, formed of the burial pall which he had borrowed from the clerk of Llandingad church for that express purpose; and, having unloosened his fair friend from the yoke, they suddenly disappeared through a gap in the hedge.
Although busily engaged in the gentlemanly pastime of the chase, the husbandry worthies now and then glanced towards the plough, but seeing, as they thought, the white ox safe, returned to it at a leisurely pace, till quickened, as they neared it, by the singular sight before them; and their petty vexation at losing the hare was now swallowed up by the terrible circumstance of their loss of their especial charge. A suitable lamentation followed, of course, which was succeeded by fear and trembling, from a conviction that Twm Shon Catty dealt with the devil; and that the hare which they had chased was no other than the foe of man in disguise. This reasonable and self-evident assumption quite satisfied their merry master, who deemed himself quite compensated for his loss by the hearty laugh he enjoyed.
Twm and his singular charge entered Llandovery in triumph, the white ox being gaily decorated with ribbons, and the half-starved, but trustworthy, Moses seated on its back. Loud were the huzzas and laughter by which he was received by the juvenile part of the population of Llandovery; not one of whom enjoyed the sight more than the good-humoured Prothero, who cheerfully paid the bet, and from a tavern window had full view of the scene, which he declared excited his laughter till his heart and sides ached with the agreeable convulsion.
Twm did not confine himself to love of beef and mutton. He had higher aspirations which evinced a very ardent passion for horse-flesh; and pursued it with all the fiery zest of a first-love, when impeded by difficulties the most insurmountable.
The lady of Ystrad Feen, still sitting on his heart like a night-mare, and pinching it with pain rendered him, however amusing to others, miserable enough within himself. Lassitude, chagrin, and bitterness, often betrayed themselves in his countenance and manners, and were only transiently removed by the hilarity of the company with which he mixed, or the freaks which he played, in his ill-combined humours of mirth and sorrow. Reckless of consequences, he now entered into the follies less innocent than hitherto detailed; led to them, however, more by a spirit of youthful wildness than by any really criminal intention.
In one of his many walks he found himself one day at Machynlleth, in Montgomeryshire, and who should he see but his old enemy Inco Evans of Tregaron, riding into the town on a fine grey horse? “Ho, ho!” quoth he, “my dear friend still alive! Now is that horse to be mine or his?” said he to himself, as he produced a copper coin; “now heads for Inco, and tails for Twm,” added he, as he tossed the penny high up in the air. On its fall to the ground he found that fortune had declared against the parson.