THE grandfather of Twm Shon Catty. Squire Graspacre on morality. Sir
Jno. Wynn, the practical exponent of it—and our hero the result thereof.
Catty, the mother of Twm, lived in the most unsophisticated manner at
Llidiard-y-Fynnon, with an ill-favoured, hump-backed sister, who was the
general drudge and domestic manager. Their mother had long been dead,
and their father, the horned cattle, a small farm and all its
appurtenances, had been lost to them about two years. This little farm
was their father’s property, but provokingly situated in the middle of
the vast possessions of Squire Graspacre, an English gentleman-farmer,
who condescendingly fixed himself in the principality with the laudable
idea of civilizing the Welsh.
The most feasible mode of accomplishing so grand an undertaking, that
appeared to him, was, to dispossess them of their property, and to take
as much as possible of their country into his own paternal care. The
rude Welsh, to be sure, he found so blind to their own interests as to
prefer living on their farms to either selling or giving them away, to
profit by his superior management. His master-genius now became apparent
to everybody; for after ruining the owners, and appropriating to himself
half the neighbouring country, the other half became his own with ease,
as the poor little freeholders found it better to accept a small sum for
their property, than to have all wasted in litigation, and perhaps,
ultimately, to end their days in prison.
The maternal grandfather of Twm Shon Catty, was the last who held out
against the tyranny of the squire. He triumphantly won his cause; but
because he could not pay the costs, he was imprisoned by his own
solicitor, in the county gaol of Cardigan, where it is said he died of a
broken heart. The squire then gained his ends. The farm-house
(separated from the land, which was added to another farm) became the
dwelling of the old farmer’s two daughters: not a gift, as they had to
pay annually about twice as much rental as they ought to have paid.
It was soon after this admirable settlement of his affairs, that the
squire had a grand visitor to entertain at Graspacre Hall, who was no
less a personage than Sir John Wynn, of Gwydir, in North Wales, whose
sister our deep-scheming squire had just married, with the politic view
of identifying himself with the Cambrian principality, and becoming one
of the landed proprietors of the country. One day, after a long ride
with his noble guest, over his far-spreading hills and vales, it was poor
Catty’s lot to be observed by these lordly sons of affluence. She was
spinning wool at the cottage door, a work which she seldom performed
without the accompaniment of a song; and at that time she was giving
utterance to a mournful ditty, as the recent death of her father had
naturally attuned her mind to melancholy, and cast a cloud over her usual
cheerfulness.
The great men stopped their horses: “a fine girl, Sir John,” cried the
squire.
“You are right!” said the baronet: “I wonder if she would object to a few
delicate attentions from a man of honour?”
“Object! my dear sir, I am surprised that you should ask the question.
The girl is poor and friendless, and has just buried her father. My dear
sir, it would be kind of you, if you were to call and offer her those
‘delicate attentions’ of which you speak.”
The amorous baronet was not slow to avail himself of this very amiable
suggestion, delivered with a significant leer which could not be
mistaken; he called for several successive evenings at Llidiard-y-Fynnon;
but we may very reasonably question the _delicacy_ of the attentions he
proffered to the fair Catty. The sequel to the adventure soon became
notorious, and the maiden Catty became the mother of our redoubted hero,
thence, with an illusion to his father, called Twm Shon Catty.