ANOTHER lecture in Welsh. “Courting in bed.” Our hero’s education
progresses. The Curate’s school.
Whilst our lovers were regaling themselves upon milk and flummery, Twm
Shon Catty was concocting and putting into execution his first practical
joke, for while they sat side by side at the goodly oak table, he
fastened them together by the coat and gown with a peeled thorn spike,
which before the introduction of pins, was used by the fair sex to unite
about them their various articles of attire.
This freak being performed, Twm stole off unperceived, and getting on the
outside of the door, he was joined by Watt the mole catcher, and a party
of children instructed for the purpose, in a loud and astounding cry of
mad bull! a mad bull! at the same time forcing before them into the house
a little trotting calf, whose buttocks were tortured by Twm’s ox-goad
till he reared and capered up to the very table where the lover’s sat.
Catty screamed, and both jumped up mutually terrified, as sudden fear had
magnified the little animal to the proportions of an enormous brute of an
enraged bull, whose uninvited visit and uncalled for appearance at their
dinner table, portending nothing less than death. When Twm and Watt’s
laughter at length undeceived them, the spoon merchant, who had been so
liberally assisted with spoon and meat, found to his dismay, that with
his heart Catty had carried away the skirt of his coat, by the sudden
jerk of rising from their seats; and had the gods made Jack poetical, he
might have exclaimed with the renowned Mr. Tag,—{31}
The lovely maid on whom I dote
Hath made a spencer of my coat.
The wicked urchin who caused this unsanctioned union continued with his
mischievous party, their laughter long and loud, and Catty’s grumpy
sister Juggy, for the first time in her life, astonished them with a grin
on the occasion. Twm received a severe rebuke from his parent, and poor
hapless Jack, with the view of propitiating an evil spirit that might
prove troublesome to him hereafter, made him a present of a new spoon,
which, because it was merely a common one he ungratefully threw into the
blazing turf fire, that on this festal occasion glowed on the hearth in a
higher pile and wider dimensions than usual, and demanded one of his best
box-wood ware.
Jack would have given it to him immediately but for the intervention of
his mother, who forbade the indulgence. No sooner, however, was he gone
than Twm watched his opportunity and purloined as many of the better sort
as he could conveniently take away unperceived, and sold them at the
cheap rate of stolen goods, to an old woman named, or rather nick-named,
Rachel Ketch, from some supposed resemblance in her character to that
finisher of the law, although some persons roundly asserted that she was
in fact a relict of one John Ketch, Esquire, of Stretch-neck-Place,
Session Court, Carmarthen.
As no further consequence followed this act of unprovoked delinquency, it
was scarcely worth mentioning, except that it stands as the first of the
kind on record; and when discovered, Twm’s over affectionate parent did
not punish him for it,—an omission that might have watered the root of a
vast tree of after enormities, but the mirthful mind rarely produces such
an upas monstrosity.
We come now to the era of his history when our hero entered another scene
of life, in that of a new school, which event was ushered in by an
unlooked-for circumstance, that must be first narrated.
To our English readers it may be a piece of information if we make known
that in some parts of Wales, “Courting in bed” is very common. It was
so, at least when the first and second editions of this work were issued,
but now is confined only to a few particular districts. Some of our
readers may be shocked; but when they are assured that the custom
embraces nothing which is not consistent with the strictest honour, they
will perhaps accord our ancient custom a little more charity. This
comfortable mode of forwarding a marriage connexion prevailed very
generally at Tregaron, to the great scandal and virtuous indignation of
the lady of Squire Graspacre. It was amazing to witness with what energy
this good gentlewoman set about reforming the people, by the forcible
abolishment of what she pleased to call, this odious, dangerous,
blasphemous, and ungodly custom.
Her patronage was for ever lost to any man or woman, youth or maid, of
the town or country, who was related to, or connected with any person who
connived at bed courtship. There was not a cottager who called at the
great house for a pitcher of whey, skim milk, or buttermilk, as a return
for labour in harvest time, but was closely examined on this head; and
woe to those who had the temerity to assert that there was no harm in the
custom; or that the wooers merely laid down in their clothes, and thus
conversed at their ease on their future plans or prospects; or who denied
that such a situation was more calculated for amorous caresses and
endearments than sitting by a scanty fire in a chimney corner.
Mrs. Graspacre was certainly a very virtuous—a very termagant of decorous
propriety. If any person dared, in her presence, to advocate this
proscribed and utterly condemned mode, disdaining to argue the point, she
would settle the matter in a summary manner, peculiarly her own, by
protesting she would have a woman burnt alive who would submit to be
courted in bed.
In the course of two years there were no less than four young men, and
twice as many damsels, turned away from her service for courting in the
hay-loft; and on these occasions the poor girls never escaped personal
violence from the indignant and persevering Mrs. Graspacre. She also
assured them in language undistinguished for choiceness or delicacy, that
“they were not to try and hoodwink her by telling her it meant nothing.
She knew better, she had not lived all these years to be lied to and
cheated by a common w—e.” In her flaming zeal for decorum, the tongs,
the poker, the pitchfork, or the hay-rake, became an instrument of
chastisement. A double advantage was discovered in the terror thus
created, the dignity of her sex being in the first place asserted and
supported: in the next, the offenders preferred running away without
payment of their wages, to standing the chance of having their heads or
arms broken with a poker, or their bodies pierced by the terrible prongs
of a pitchfork.
All the lowly dependents of Mrs. Graspacre found it their interest to
become her spies, who soon vied with each other in giving the earliest
intimation of any amorous pair who committed this most diabolical
offence; and those who were least forward in bringing intelligence on
this score, immediately sunk in her esteem, and were mulct of their
allowance of skim milk and blue whey.
But in time the old hen-wives of the neighbourhood discovered the virtue
of sycophancy and the efficacy of a little seasonable cant! and when they
were not warranted by real occurrences, they contrived to conciliate
their patroness by drawing upon their fertile imagination and inventions;
at other times, their knowledge of Mrs. Graspacre’s failing served their
own revenge. Let anybody offend them, and they immediately went to the
lady with a manufactured tale, doing more credit to the imagination than
the heart. Their enemy had been found courting in bed with Miss
So-and-so, which was the signal for immediate condemnation without trial.
Not satisfied with these auxiliaries in the cause of virtue, the zealous
Mrs. Graspacre enlisted on her side a very powerful champion, in the
person of the reverend Mr. Inco Evans, the curate of Tregaron. Great was
her mortification to find her attempts on the rector fail of success, as
he declared it dangerous and ungenerous to interfere with the
peculiarities and long-established customs of the people; especially as
he conceived it was rarely that any bad consequences ensued from the mode
in question; but when the evil really occurred, if the faithless swain
delayed making due reparation, a gaol, exile from his native place, or a
compelled marriage, was the consequence, a penalty incurred. “Besides,”
quoth the worthy rector, with a hearty laugh, “that was the very way in
which I courted my own wife, and many persons who are no enemies of
virtue, consider it the best mode in the world, and were I young again,
ha, ha, ha! egad, I think I should pursue the same fashion.”
“And I too!” cries Mr. Graspacre, “as I have no objection in the world to
the custom.” The reader’s experience of the squire will certainly give
him credit for speaking truth in this instance. The notions of morality
would be highly forwarded by courting in bed. But as for Mrs. Graspacre,
had the faces of all the foul-fiends been united in one for the purpose
of producing a _ne plus ultra_ of concentrated devilry, it would not have
surpassed the amiable expression upon her face. “You, Mr. Graspacre!
_you_! I’m astonished; but”—(with a severe glance at the rector) “when
the shepherd goes astray, no wonder the silly sheep follow his example!”
With that, she bounced out of the room, and slammed the door in a high
fit of indignation, aggravated by the calm looks of the rector, and the
provoking tittering of her liege lord.
The rector’s honest dissent from her scheme of reformation, Mrs.
Graspacre considered a direct declaration of hostilities, and therefore,
by her peculiar creed of morality, she felt herself bound to vilify his
name, and most piously longed for his death, that the cause of virtue
might be supported by the talents of her favourite curate, who was now,
she said, on a poor stipend which he increased by keeping a school in the
church.
The reverend Inco Evans, the curate, played his cards well; he was a
hard-featured man, with lowering brows and a complete ploughman’s gate;
insolent to his poor parishioners, and a very awkward cringer to the
great. But flattery, direct or covert, does much, and in time completely
won him the favour of the great lady. She encouraged his patience by
assuring him that the vicar, in his declined state of health, could not
possibly live long; and his death, happen when it might, must appear, to
all unprejudiced christians, as a judgment, for advocating, or not
prosecuting, that execrable custom courting in bed.
As the living had long been promised to him, the hopes and expectations
of Mr. Inco Evans were very sanguine. Waiting for dead men’s shoes is
rather a wearisome thing, especially if the object of your affectionate
solicitude be apparently in the best of health; but the curate was
hopeful, and patient; and as he was no less ambitious than sycophantic
and impervious, he looked forward with confidence to the period when he
should strut forth in a fire-shovel hat, as vicar of the parish, and a
magistrate in the county.
Notwithstanding that the living was promised him by the lady, he was
aware that she was not always paramount, and therefore lost no
opportunity of insinuating himself in the squire’s favour. He would
laugh loudly to the injury of his lungs, at the squire’s most vapid
jokes; praise the beauty of his snub-nosed children, and call curs,
pointers; tell him where the prettiest lasses in the parish were to be
found; with many such _honourable_ civilities, that Squire Graspacre at
length discovered him to be a very useful sort of person.
When Sir John Wynn of Gwydir paid his before mentioned visit, his sister
introduced and recommended our curate, as a right worthy divine who
deserved preferment; and the baronet promised to remember her
recommendation, if anything turned out, within his power, to benefit him.
Much time had elapsed, and nothing followed this agreeable promise; but
Inco Evans persevered in his sycophancy, and if the labour and dirty work
be properly estimated, he certainly justified his claims to a good
living—in his majesty’s plantations, beyond the seas; to which he ought
to have been inducted at the expense of government, and, as the artful
Dodger says, he should have
“Gone abroad for the good of his health,
But not at his own expense!”
He soon saw the weak side of his lady patroness: and anxious to
strengthen his influence by promoting her views, he gave great
encouragement to those boys in his school who brought him the piquant
tales of their grown up brothers and sisters. Much scandal was afloat at
this time respecting the loves of Carmarthen Jack and Catty of
Llidiard-y-Fynnon; he would almost have given his right hand to know how
it was carried on. But Jack was wily; and though Catty possessed little
book-learning, she had enough knowledge to outwit the curate. These
lovers only went out at night, and took care to choose a solitary place
for their meetings, so that getting information was, in their case,
difficult of attainment. At length the cunning man thought he had hit
upon a plan.
Little Twm Shon Catty, being the natural child of Sir John Wynn, was of
course the illegitimate nephew of the great lady; a relationship which
she, however, disdained to acknowledge; but the cunning curate took the
liberty of observing one day, it was a great pity that the slightest drop
of the noble blood of the Wynns, however perverted and polluted, should
be run to waste and be neglected. Proceeding in this drift, he
insinuated that if the boy Twm Shon Catty were removed to his school, he
should not only be instructed and improved, but that he, the curate,
might thereby learn from the youngster something of his mother’s
proceedings; and especially, whether she entertained her lover in the
legal or the proscribed manner. This was striking on the very string
that made music to her busy, meddling, troublesome soul;—she of course
warmly approved of his idea, and put it into immediate execution. Thus,
the very next day, in her own and in her brother’s name, little Twm Shon
Catty was ordered for the future to be sent to the curate’s school, which
of course was complied with accordingly.