History of Twm O’r Nant—Eagerness for Learning—The First Interlude—The
Cruel Fighter—Raising Wood—The Luckless Hour—Turnpike-Keeping—Death in
the Snow—Tom’s Great Feat—The Muse a Friend—Strength in Old
Age—Resurrection of the Dead.
“I am the first-born of my parents,”—says Thomas Edwards. “They were
poor people, and very ignorant. I was brought into the world in a place
called Lower Pen Parchell, on land which once belonged to the celebrated
Iolo Goch. My parents afterwards removed to the Nant (or dingle) near
Nantglyn, situated in a place called Coom Pernant. The Nant was the
middlemost of three homesteads, which are in the Coom, and are called the
Upper, Middle, and Lower Nant; and it so happened that in the Upper Nant
there were people who had a boy of about the same age as myself, and
forasmuch as they were better to do in the world than my parents, they
having only two children, whilst mine had ten, I was called Tom of the
Dingle, whilst he was denominated Thomas Williams.”
After giving some anecdotes of his childhood, he goes on thus:—“Time
passed on till I was about eight years old, and then in the summer I was
lucky enough to be sent to school for three weeks; and as soon as I had
learnt to spell and read a few words, I conceived a mighty desire to
learn to write; so I went in quest of elderberries to make me ink, and my
first essay in writing was trying to copy on the sides of the leaves of
books the letters of the words I read. It happened, however, that a shop
in the village caught fire, and the greater part of it was burnt, only a
few trifles being saved, and amongst the scorched articles my mother got
for a penny a number of sheets of paper burnt at the edges, and sewed
them together to serve as copybooks for me. Without loss of time I went
to the smith of Waendwysog, who wrote for me the letters on the upper
part of the leaves; and careful enough was I to fill the whole paper with
scrawlings, which looked for all the world like crows’ feet. I went on
getting paper and ink, and something to copy, now from this person, and
now from that, until I learned to read Welsh and to write it at the same
time.”
He copied out a great many carols and songs, and the neighbours,
observing his fondness for learning, persuaded his father to allow him to
go to the village school to learn English. At the end of three weeks,
however, his father, considering that he was losing his time, would allow
him to go no longer, but took him into the fields, in order that the boy
might assist him in his labour. Nevertheless, Tom would not give up his
literary pursuits, but continued scribbling, and copying out songs and
carols. When he was about ten he formed an acquaintance with an old man,
chapel-reader in Pentré y Foelas, who had a great many old books in his
possession, which he allowed Tom to read; he then had the honour of
becoming amanuensis to a poet.
“I became very intimate,” says he, “with a man who was a poet; he could
neither read nor write, but he was a poet by nature, having a muse
wonderfully glib at making triplets and quartets. He was nicknamed Tum
Tai of the Moor. He made an englyn for me to put in a book, in which I
was inserting all the verses I could collect:
“‘Tom Evan’s the lad for hunting up songs,
Tom Evan to whom the best learning belongs;
Betwixt his two pasteboards he verses has got,
Sufficient to fill the whole country, I wot.’
“I was in the habit of writing my name Tom, or Thomas Evans, before I
went to school for a fortnight in order to learn English; but then I
altered it into Thomas Edwards, for Evan Edwards was the name of my
father, and I should have been making myself a bastard had I continued
calling myself by my first name. However, I had the honour of being
secretary to the old poet. When he had made a song, he would keep it in
his memory till I came to him. Sometimes after the old man had repeated
his composition to me, I would begin to dispute with him, asking whether
the thing would not be better another way, and he could hardly keep from
flying into a passion with me for putting his work to the torture.”
It was then the custom for young lads to go about playing what were
called interludes, namely, dramatic pieces on religious or moral
subjects, written by rustic poets. Shortly after Tom had attained the
age of twelve he went about with certain lads of Nantglyn playing these
pieces, generally acting the part of a girl, because, as he says, he had
the best voice. About this time he wrote an interlude himself, founded
on “John Bunyan’s Spiritual Courtship,” which was, however, stolen from
him by a young fellow from Anglesey, along with the greater part of the
poems and pieces which he had copied. This affair at first very much
disheartened Tom; plucking up his spirits, however, he went on composing,
and soon acquired amongst his neighbours the title of “the poet,” to the
great mortification of his parents, who were anxious to see him become an
industrious husbandman.
“Before I was quite fourteen,” says he, “I had made another interlude;
but when my father and mother heard about it, they did all they could to
induce me to destroy it. However, I would not burn it, but gave it to
Hugh of Llangwin, a celebrated poet of the time, who took it to
Llandyrnog, where he sold it for ten shillings to the lads of the place,
who performed it the following summer; but I never got anything for my
labour, save a sup of ale from the players when I met them. This at the
heel of other things would have induced me to give up poetry, had it been
in the power of anything to do so. I made two interludes,” he continues,
“one for the people of Llanbedr, in the Vale of Clwyd, and the other for
the lads of Llanarmon in Yale, one on the subject of Naaman’s leprosy,
and the other about hypocrisy, which was a refashionment of the work of
Richard Parry of Ddiserth. When I was young I had such a rage, or
madness, for poetising, that I would make a song on almost anything I
saw—and it was a mercy that many did not kill me, or break my bones, on
account of my evil tongue. My parents often told me I should have some
mischief done me if I went on in the way in which I was going. Once on a
time, being with some companions as bad as myself, I happened to use some
very free language in a place where three lovers were with a young lass
of my neighbourhood, who lived at a place called Ty Celyn, with whom they
kept company. I said in discourse that they were the cocks of Ty Celyn.
The girl heard me, and conceived a spite against me on account of my
scurrilous language. She had a brother, who was a cruel fighter; he took
the part of his sister, and determined to chastise me. One Sunday
evening he shouted to me as I was coming from Nantgyln—our ways were the
same till we got nearly home—he had determined to give me a thrashing,
and he had with him a piece of oak stick just suited for the purpose.
After we had taunted each other for some time, as we went along, he flung
his stick on the ground, and stripped himself stark naked. I took off my
hat and my neckcloth, and took his stick in my hand; whereupon, running
to the hedge, he took a stake, and straight we set to like two furies.
After fighting for some time, our sticks were shivered to pieces and
quite short; sometimes we were upon the ground, but did not give up
fighting on that account. Many people came up and would fain have parted
us, but we would by no means let them. At last we agreed to go and pull
fresh stakes, and then we went at it again, until he could no longer
stand. The marks of this battle are upon him and me to this day. At
last, covered with a gore of blood, he was dragged home by his
neighbours. He was in a dreadful condition, and many thought he would
die. On the morrow there came an alarm that he was dead, whereupon I
escaped across the mountain to Pentré y Foelas, to the old man Sion
Dafydd, to read his old books.”
After staying there a little time, and getting his wounds tended by an
old woman, he departed, and skulked about in various places, doing now
and then a little work, until, hearing his adversary was recovering, he
returned to his home. He went on writing and performing interludes till
he fell in love with a young woman rather religiously inclined, whom he
married in the year 1763, when he was in his twenty-fourth year. The
young couple settled down on a little place near the town of Denbigh,
called Ale Fowlio. They kept three cows and four horses. The wife
superintended the cows, and Tom with his horses carried wood from
Gwenynos to Ruddlan, and soon excelled all other carters “in loading, and
in everything connected with the management of wood.” Tom, in the pride
of his heart, must needs be helping his fellow-carriers, whilst labouring
with them in the forests, till his wife told him he was a fool for his
pains, and advised him to go and load in the afternoon, when nobody would
be about, offering to go and help him. He listened to her advice, and
took her with him.
“The dear creature,” says he, “assisted me for some time, but as she was
with child, and on that account not exactly fit to turn the roll of the
crane with levers of iron, I formed the plan of hooking the horses to the
rope, in order to raise up the wood which was to be loaded, and by long
teaching the horses to pull and to stop, I contrived to make loading a
much easier task, both to my wife and myself. Now this was the first
hooking of horses to the rope of the crane which was ever done either in
Wales or England. Subsequently I had plenty of leisure and rest, instead
of toiling amidst other carriers.”
Leaving Ale Fowlio, he took up his abode nearer to Denbigh, and continued
carrying wood. Several of his horses died, and he was soon in
difficulties, and was glad to accept an invitation from certain miners of
the county of Flint to go and play them an interlude. As he was playing
them one called “A Vision of the Course of the World,” which he had
written for the occasion, and which was founded on, and named after, the
first part of the work of Master Ellis Wyn, he was arrested at the suit
of one Mostyn of Calcoed. He, however, got bail, and partly by carrying,
and partly by playing interludes, soon raised enough money to pay his
debt. He then made another interlude, called “Riches and Poverty,” by
which he gained a great deal of money. He then wrote two others, one
called “The Three Associates of Man, namely the World, Nature, and
Conscience;” the other entitled “The King, the Justice, the Bishop and
the Husbandman,” both of which he and certain of his companions acted
with great success. After he had made all that he could by acting these
pieces, he printed them. When printed, they had a considerable sale, and
Tom was soon able to set up again as a carter. He went on carting and
carrying for upwards of twelve years, at the end of which time he was
worth, with one thing and the other, upwards of three hundred pounds,
which was considered a very considerable property about ninety years ago
in Wales. He then, in a luckless hour, “when,” to use his own words, “he
was at leisure at home, like King David on the top of his house,” mixed
himself up with the concerns of an uncle of his, a brother of his father.
He first became bail for him, and subsequently made himself answerable
for the amount of a bill, due by his uncle to a lawyer. His becoming
answerable for the bill nearly proved the utter ruin of our hero. His
uncle failed, and left him to pay it. The lawyer took out a writ against
him. It would have been well for Tom if he had paid the money at once,
but he went on dallying and compromising with the lawyer, till he became
terribly involved in his web. To increase his difficulties, work became
slack; so at last he packed his things upon his carts, and with his
family, consisting of his wife and three daughters, fled into
Montgomeryshire. The lawyer, however, soon got information of his
whereabout, and threatened to arrest him. Tom, after trying in vain to
arrange matters with him, fled into South Wales, to Carmarthenshire,
where he carried wood for a timber-merchant, and kept a turnpike gate,
which belonged to the same individual. But the “old cancer” still
followed him, and his horses were seized for the debt. His neighbours,
however, assisted him, and bought the horses in at a low price when they
were put up for sale, and restored them to him, for what they had given.
Even then the matter was not satisfactorily settled, for, years
afterwards, on the decease of Tom’s father, the lawyer seized upon the
property, which by law descended to Tom O’r Nant, and turned his poor old
mother out upon the cold mountain side.
Many strange adventures occurred to Tom in South Wales, but those which
befell him whilst officiating as a turnpike-keeper were certainly the
most extraordinary. If what he says be true, as of course it is—for who
shall presume to doubt Tom O’ the Dingle’s veracity?—whosoever fills the
office of turnpike-keeper in Wild Wales should be a person of very
considerable nerve.
“We were in the habit of seeing,” says Tom, “plenty of passengers going
through the gate without paying toll; I mean such things as are called
phantoms, or illusions—sometimes there were hearses and mourning coaches,
sometimes funeral processions on foot, the whole to be seen as distinctly
as anything could be seen, especially at night-time. I saw myself on a
certain night a hearse go through the gate whilst it was shut; I saw the
horses and the harness, the postilion, and the coachman, and the tufts of
hair such as are seen on the tops of hearses, and I saw the wheels
scattering the stones in the road, just as other wheels would have done.
Then I saw a funeral of the same character, for all the world like a real
funeral; there was the bier and the black drapery. I have seen more than
one. If a young man was to be buried there would be a white sheet, or
something that looked like one—and sometimes I have seen a flaring candle
going past.
“Once a traveller passing through the gate called out to me: ‘Look!
yonder is a corpse candle coming through the fields beside the highway.’
So we paid attention to it as it moved, making apparently towards the
church from the other side. Sometimes it would be quite near the road,
another time some way into the fields. And sure enough after the lapse
of a little time a body was brought by exactly the same route by which
the candle had come, owing to the proper road being blocked up with snow.
“Another time there happened a great wonder connected with an old man of
Carmarthen, who was in the habit of carrying fish to Brecon, Menny, and
Monmouth, and returning with the poorer kind of Gloucester cheese: my
people knew he was on the road, and had made ready for him, the weather
being dreadful, wind blowing and snow drifting. Well! in the middle of
the night my daughters heard the voice of the old man at the gate, and
their mother called to them to open it quick, and invite the old man to
come in to the fire! One of the girls got up forthwith, but when she
went out there was nobody to be seen. On the morrow, lo, and behold! the
body of the old man was brought past on a couch, he having perished in
the snow on the mountain of Tre’r Castell. Now this is the truth of the
matter.”
Many wonderful feats did Tom perform connected with loading and carrying,
which acquired for him the reputation of being the best wood carter of
the south. His dexterity at moving huge bodies was probably never
equalled. Robinson Crusoe was not half so handy. Only see how he moved
a ship into the water, which a multitude of people were unable to do.
“After keeping the gate for two or three years,” says he, “I took the
lease of a piece of ground in Llandeilo Fawr, and built a house upon it,
which I got licensed as a tavern for my daughters to keep. I myself went
on carrying wood as usual. Now it happened that my employer, the
merchant at Abermarlais, had built a small ship, of about thirty or forty
tons, in the wood, about a mile and a quarter from the river Towy, which
is capable of floating small vessels as far as Carmarthen. He had
resolved that the people should draw it to the river by way of sport, and
had caused proclamation to be made in four parish churches, that on such
a day a ship would be launched at Abermarlais, and that food and drink
would be given to any one who would come and lend a hand at the work.
Four hogsheads of ale were broached, a great oven full of bread was
baked, plenty of cheese and butter bought, and meat cooked for the more
respectable people. The ship was provided with four wheels, or rather
four great rolling stocks, fenced about with iron, with great big
axle-trees in them, well greased against the appointed day. I had been
loading in the wood that day, and sending the team forward, I went to see
the business—and a pretty piece of business it turned out. All the food
was eaten, the drink swallowed to the last drop, the ship drawn about
three roods, and then left in a deep ditch. By this time night was
coming on, and the multitude went away, some drunk, some hungry for want
of food, but the greater part laughing as if they would split their
sides. The merchant cried like a child, bitterly lamenting his folly,
and told me that he should have to take the ship to pieces before he
could ever get it out of the ditch.
“I told him that I could take it to the river, provided I could but get
three or four men to help me; whereupon he said that if I could but get
the vessel to the water, he would give me anything I asked, and earnestly
begged me to come the next morning, if possible. I did come, with the
lad and four horses. I went before the team, and set the men to work to
break a hole through a great old wall, which stood as it were before the
ship. We then laid a piece of timber across the hole from which was a
chain, to which the tackle—that is, the rope and pulleys—was hooked. We
then hooked one end of the rope to the ship, and set the horses to pull
at the other. The ship came out of the hole prosperously enough, and
then we had to hook the tackle to a tree, which was growing near, and by
this means we got the ship forward; but when we came to soft ground we
were obliged to put planks under the wheels to prevent their sinking
under the immense weight; when we came to the end of the foremost planks,
we put the hinder ones before, and so on; when there was no tree at hand
to which we could hook the tackle, we were obliged to drive a post down
to hook it to. So from tree to post it got down to the river in a few
days. I was promised noble wages by the merchant, but I never got
anything from him but promises and praises. Some people came to look at
us, and gave us money to get ale, and that was all.”
The merchant subsequently turned out a very great knave, cheating Tom on
various occasions, and finally broke, very much in his debt. Tom was
obliged to sell off everything, and left South Wales without horses or
waggon; his old friend the Muse, however, stood him in good stead.
“Before I left,” says he, “I went to Brecon, and printed the ‘Interlude
of the King, the Justice, the Bishop, and the Husbandman,’ and got an old
acquaintance of mine to play it with me, and help me to sell the books.
I likewise busied myself in getting subscribers to a book of songs called
the ‘Garden of Minstrelsy.’ It was printed at Trefecca. The expense
attending the printing amounted to fifty-two pounds, but I was fortunate
enough to dispose of two thousand copies. I subsequently composed an
interlude called ‘Pleasure and Care,’ and printed it; and after that I
made an interlude called the ‘Three Powerful Ones of the World: Poverty,
Love, and Death.’”
The poet’s daughters were not successful in the tavern speculation at
Llandeilo, and followed their father into North Wales. The second he
apprenticed to a milliner, the other two lived with him till the day of
his death. He settled at Denbigh in a small house, which he was enabled
to furnish by means of two or three small sums which he recovered for
work done a long time before. Shortly after his return, his father died,
and the lawyer seized the little property “for the old curse,” and turned
Tom’s mother out.
After his return from the South, Tom went about for some time playing
interludes, and then turned his hand to many things. He learnt the trade
of stonemason, took jobs, and kept workmen. He then went amongst certain
bricklayers, and induced them to teach him their craft; “and shortly,” as
he says, “became a very lion at bricklaying. For the last four or five
years,” says he, towards the conclusion of his history, “my work has been
to put up iron ovens, and likewise furnaces of all kinds, also grates,
stoves and boilers, and not unfrequently I have practised as a smoke
doctor.”
The following feats of strength he performed after his return from South
Wales, when he was probably about sixty years of age:—
“About a year after my return from the South,” says he, “I met with an
old carrier of wood, who had many a time worked along with me. He and I
were at the Hand at Ruthyn, along with various others, and in the course
of discourse my friend said to me: ‘Tom, thou art much weaker than thou
wast when we carted wood together.’ I answered that in my opinion I was
not a bit weaker than I was then. Now it happened that at the moment we
were talking there were some sacks of wheat in the hall, which were going
to Chester by the carrier’s waggon. They might hold about three bushels
each, and I said that if I could get three of the sacks upon the table,
and had them tied together, I would carry them into the street and back
again; and so I did; many who were present tried to do the same thing,
but all failed.
“Another time when I was at Chester I lifted a barrel of porter from the
street to the hinder part of the waggon, solely by strength of back and
arms.”
He was once run over by a loaded waggon, but, strange to say, escaped
without the slightest injury.
Towards the close of his life he had strong religious convictions, and
felt a loathing for the sins which he had committed. “On their account,”
says he, in the concluding page of his biography, “there is a strong
necessity for me to consider my ways, and to inquire about a Saviour,
since it is utterly impossible for me to save myself without obtaining
knowledge of the merits of the Mediator, in which I hope I shall
terminate my short time on earth in the peace of God enduring unto all
eternity.”
He died in the year 1810, at the age of 71, shortly after the death of
his wife, who seems to have been a faithful, loving partner. By her side
he was buried in the earth of the graveyard of the White Church, near
Denbigh. There can be little doubt that the souls of both will be
accepted on the great day when, as Gronwy Owen says:—
“Like corn from the belly of the ploughed field, in a thick crop, those
buried in the earth shall arise, and the sea shall cast forth a thousand
myriads of dead above the deep billowy way.”