TWM SHON CATTY improves under a more able tuition. Watt’s vagaries, and
the troubles and trials of a poor pedlar. Twm begins his apprenticeship
to a Cardiganshire farmer.
Determined to witness the humble festivities of the “lowly train,” Squire
Graspacre had been among them the whole evening, disguised like a rough
mountaineer husbandman, and was heartily gratified, although his apparent
incivility of conduct had nearly subjected him to harsh treatment from
the jovial ale-fraught rustics, who, of course, but little relished his
strange behaviour. His deficiency in the Welsh language had been
concealed by alternately feigning deafness and drunkenness, which, with
the aid of the pipe left him free from suspicion. The morning of Sunday
after the wedding, which is called _Neithior_, being come, the happy pair
stayed at home, receiving their friends who called with their good-will,
which they manifested by the payment of _Pwython_. The day was drank
out, but not as in every other respect, save the diminishing of ale, each
seemed to recollect it was the Sabbath, and tossed off their cups in
quietness.
On Monday morning the supply of ale was exhausted, tottering legs waggled
homeward, and all was again quiet. Like prudent accountants, Jack and
Catty reckoned up the amount of their wedding gifts, and found the amount
to be twenty-seven pounds eight shillings and sixpence, besides fourteen
whole, and twenty-two half cheeses, the greater part of which they soon
turned into cash.
In these days, when the value of money has been so much decreased, the
amount of the _Pwython_, and presents at a Welsh wedding, have been known
to reach more than treble the sum here stated; especially when the
friends of the party have been numerous, and headed by the patronage of a
wealthy and liberal master and mistress, who generally enlist their
friends and visitors under the hymeneal banners of a faithful servant,
the architects of whose humble fortunes they become, by laying themselves
the foundation stone.
As, from this part of our history, the hero will rise in importance,
those who have hitherto stood forward, must proportionably draw back, to
give him due place; especially Jack and Catty; the grand drama of whose
lives has been closed by a matrimonial union; whence, henceforth, they
must sink into inconsiderable personages.
In consequence of the squire’s liberality on the celebration of Catty’s
wedding, and a general report prevailing that he was inclined towards the
Welsh, a protector of their customs, a general good-will towards him was
manifested by the country people. But his popularity reached its
culminating point when he gave forth the opinion that the Welsh female
costume was a useful, elegant, and picturesque one, and for once, a scion
of John Bull became popular with us.
When he eulogized the Welsh harp, and gave, in addition to various pieces
of silver at different times, a golden angel to Ianto Gwyn for his
performances at Jack and Catty’s wedding, he gained a few steps more into
their good opinion. But when he declared that bed courtship should not
be abolished, there was a burst of enthusiasm in his favour in every
breast, especially among the females. During this new impulse given to
the reign of happiness, the great lady at the hall and her favourite
curate hid their diminished heads; the former declaring that it was
utterly impossible that the world could last many months longer, while
such immorality and ungodliness was practiced under the auspices of a
declared patron.
Whether it was the influence of this alarm, or the bitterness of baffled
malignity, that preyed on her mind, certain it is, she was soon thrown on
a sick bed, and considered seriously indisposed. The squire, to his
honour be it said, although unfortunately married to a very disagreeable
woman, allowed a sense of duty to supply the place of affection, when his
attentions were so indispensably needed. During her illness, the worthy
old rector, who had been ill but a single week, died; and Squire
Graspacre, against his own judgment and feelings, well knowing that such
an arrangement would be agreeable to his wife, inducted the curate,
Evans, into the vacant living. In a fortnight after, however, she died
herself; a circumstance, perhaps, that gave no real sorrow to any
creature breathing.
The general report of a liberal English squire in Cardiganshire, who
patronized and upheld the customs of the Welsh, penetrated to the
extremities of the neighbouring counties, and became at last so strangely
exaggerated, that he was represented as the patron of the learned;
consequently many of the humbler sons of the church took long journeys to
be undeceived. Of the many who called upon him with a view of seeking
his patronage of their literary undertakings, one especially took his
fancy; a young clergyman named John David Rhys, before named as the
author of the Bidder’s song.
But poetry was not his forte; his energy and perseverance in the
favourite study of Welshmen, British antiquities, and systemizing his
native language, deserved encouragement and applause. He had been
composing a Welsh grammar, and had actually commenced a dictionary. As
he spoke English very well, the squire soon understood the merit of his
undertakings, and promised his patronage and good offices; in the mean
time requesting him to remain on the footing of a friend beneath his
roof, till something could be done for him. This excellent person he now
fixed upon to succeed Evans in the school and curacy; stipulating, that
for his fulfilment of the latter, he was to have thirty pounds, and for
the former ten pounds a-year.
Fortunate for Rhys would it have been had the old rector outlived the
squire’s lady, in which case it is more than probable he would have
filled the living instead of Evans, whom the squire never liked. The
change was a fortunate one for Twm Shon Catty, who, as we have before
seen, had already a name for composing doggerel, and had even tried his
muse in the orthodox four-and-twenty Welsh measures. When he found his
new master a kind young man, an historian, antiquarian, and something of
a poet, the homage of the heart was immediately paid him. Twm thought he
was the wisest man in the world, when he heard him speak of the battles
fought by the Britons in ancient times, against the Romans, Danes, and
Saxons. This was to him a knowledge the most estimable, and he longed to
be enabled also to talk about battles and to write patriotic songs.
Having now his information from a better source, he soon learnt to
despise the jargon and misstatements of Ianto Gwyn, with whom he argued
boldly, and proved to him that Geoffry of Monmouth was a fabulist, and no
historian; that it was not Joseph of Arimathea who christianized Britain,
but Brân ab Llyr, the father of renowned Caractacus, with various other
such knotty points.
The great deference which he paid his master, his attention to every word
which fell from his lips, with his close and successful application to
his lessons, gained him the esteem and admiration of Rhys, with whom he
became a great favourite. The amiable young clergyman found much
satisfaction on discovering a youngster with taste, sufficient to
appreciate his favourite pursuits, and took pleasure in explaining to him
every subject of his enquiries. A thirst for information possessed the
boy; and he rummaged the most dry and tedious works connected with Welsh
antiquities, with an avidity that was astonishing even to his master.
It would perhaps have been fortunate for Twm had this thirst for study
remained unchecked by any less noble desire. But joking and learning,
“larks” and Latin, practical jests and Welsh history, are scarcely likely
to agree well. Watt the mole-catcher occupied his attention, and, in the
end, his acquaintance with that personage was an ill wind which blew
nobody good.
About eighteen months after Rhys’s appointment to the school, one evening
in the Christmas holidays, Watt asked him if he would take a share in a
freak that would keep him up the greater part of the night. Twm
immediately assented, without enquiring its nature; enough for him it was
that it was a scheme of merry mischief, in the prospect of which his
heart ever bounded.
This idle whim of Watt’s was nothing more than to pull down the signs of
all the public-houses and shops; which being few, was easily done, but
the greater difficulty was to suspend them from, or attach them to, the
tenements of others, in which they however succeeded. This trick
elicited some humour; and a satirical application was discernible in the
new disposal of the boards. When the light of day discovered their
handy-work, great was the astonishment of the ale-house-keepers and
others, to find their signs vanished, and gracing the fronts of their
neighbours’ private houses; and the anger of the reverend Inco Evans was
boundless, on perceiving the “Fox and Goose” over the rectory house door,
with the words proceeding from the mouth of reynard, “I have thee now;”
and under the pictorial figures “Good entertainment for man or horse.”
A crowd was in consequence collected about his door, and the provoking
laughter of the people stung him to the bitterest degree of resentment.
A most unlucky old carl of a Scotch pedlar at this moment very innocently
entered the house, taking it, as the sign imported, for a tavern, and
unstrapping his huge pack, laid it on the clerical magistrate’s table,
calling about, “hollow! Fox and Goose;” on which the reverend host and
his spouse appeared, she laughing at the jest, and he frowning with the
aspect of a demon.
“Ah ye ’re come,” said the facetious Scot, “by my saul aw never kenn’d
twa that looked the characters sa weal afore—a merry guse an a sour fox!
come gi us a pot of your best half and half.” The lady ran out laughing,
but Inco sourly answered, “O yes! friend, thou shalt have half and half
to thy heart’s content;” and turning his back, shut and locked the door,
leaving the poor pedlar in gaping wonderment.
“They’re an aufu’ time coming! I’se warrant they’re brewing the beer.
Hech, sirs, this is a strange place o’ ca’, and they wouldna’ find sic a
vile ’yun, frae John o’Groat’s to John o’ Aberdeen’s!” But his
rumination on the subject was cut short by the return of Inco, who
unlocking the door, was followed in by two serving damsels, each bearing
a pewter vase containing something less fragrant than the sweets of
Araby, which they duly discharged in the face of the unconscious pedlar,
accompanied with Inco’s exclamation “there’s half and half for you!” and
the girls retreated in roars of laughter, while their poor victim cursed
them for vile nanny goats of the mountains.
At this moment young Twm, humanely feeling for the stranger’s ill
treatment, informed him of his error in mistaking that house, the
residence of the clergyman and magistrate of the town, for a tavern.
Adding that be feared the constables were sent for, to put him in the
stocks. It need scarcely be added, that Sawney was soon many miles away
from Tregaron. Hop-o-my-Thumb never used his legs and his seven-leagued
boots to such express purpose as did Sawney, for he pushed on as though
he knew terrors were behind, and the safety of the body depended upon the
speed of his legs. Squire Graspacre from indolence or dislike to all
business except farming, declined being in the commission of the peace
himself, and put the parson in his stead. Having now attained the summit
of his ambition, as rector and justice of the peace, his overweening
presumption and conceit became daily more conspicuous; and therefore this
slur upon his consequence was intolerable. The actor in this simple
freak became at length known in consequence of the secret being
intrusted, a very common case, to a _confidential friend_.
Although the twenty shillings reward which the parson offered could not
induce the poorest to be base enough to become an informer, yet an idle
spirit of tattling among the women brought it at length to the ears of
Mistress Evans, and her husband soon became possessed of the whole
particulars. He instantly made his complaint to the squire against both
Twm and Watt, who were merely reprimanded, cautioned for the future, and
dismissed.
The circumstances under which Twm Shon Catty was educated, now suddenly
occurred to him. “What the goodness is to become of that young imp of
mischief?” said he, one day, to Rhys the curate, whom he had informed of
the particulars of the birth, and his deceased wife’s whim of having him
well educated, in consequence of him being a slip of Sir John Wynn’s.
That connection being entirely closed by the death of his wife, he no
longer felt himself bound or inclined to notice him. When Rhys gave so
good an account of his proficiency, he was surprised to hear the squire
exclaim—“I am sorry for it, for he has no prospect in the world but
labour and beggary. As he had already had too good an education for his
circumstances, he must be instantly dismissed from the school. Since Sir
John does not think proper to protect his son, I don’t see why I should.
As the poet very properly says:—
“Too much learning makes a man a fool;
I’d have no lad attend too long at school:
Give him a taste, then turn him out adrift;
In knowledge, at the least, he’s had a lift.”
Twm and his master parted with mutual regret, for latterly they were more
like companions than master and scholar; and the generous Rhys could not
restrain a tear on beholding a youth of so much promise destined to the
uncertain wilderness of a hard and cold world, especially after having
evinced a superiority of taste and intellect, that under favourable
auspices would have entitled him to shine and flourish in his day. Twm
remained awhile at his mother’s, a big boy of fifteen, idling away his
days without any view to the future. Greatly concerned on his account
and her own inability to support him, Catty went one day to the squire,
and implored him to do something for her son; and he at last _generously_
decided to send him as a parish apprentice to a farmer, whose grounds
were situate in the neighbouring mountains.