TWM is robbed by a highwayman. His meditations. Again is despoiled by a
gipsy and a ballad-singer at Aberayon. He adopts the musical profession
at Cardigan Fair.
Twm took a circuitous route over the mountains towards Lampeter, and,
when he felt himself secure from pursuit, his first thought was to change
his feminine attire for his own, as more convenient for riding, which was
soon accomplished, and the suits changed places in the bundle. In his
ignorance of the world, he scarce knew whither to direct his course after
reaching Lampeter, where he arrived between one and two o’clock in the
morning. He recollected that this was a central place, from which
different roads led to Aberystwith, Llandovery, Carmarthen, Aberayon, and
Cardigan; but found a difficulty in deciding which way to take.
It suddenly occurred to him that there was a fair at Cardigan the next
day, and he determined to go there and sell the parson’s horse. The
whole town being wrapped in slumbers, he was now at a stand, not knowing
the road which led through Aberayon to Cardigan; but, rousing a cottager,
he soon gained the necessary information, and proceeded on.
As he approached Aberayon, for the first time in his life, the distant
roaring of the sea struck upon his ear, still increasing as he neared the
ocean side. Wonder, awe, and even terror, were the successive sensations
that agitated our hero. The saddening sobs of the mighty waters as they
retreated from the shore, and the fearful fury of their rallying and
re-assaulting the repulsing beach, with their successive wailing
retreats, to gather the powers of the advancing tide, came on his soul
like an accusing spirit that seemed to reproach him for his late
misdeeds.
Severe self-accusing reflection on the atrocity of his last act,
succeeded the triumphs of enmity that had first given a gust to its
perpetration. Consciousness of guilt and terror of punishment at once
assailed him, for he was yet young in crime. On the impulse of the
moment, he determined to leave the parson’s nag behind him, and then
return his cash and coat as early as possible.
While these bitter agitations were racking his breast, the clatter of a
galloping horse increased his terrors, and he discerned both horse and
rider making briskly towards him. Strange as it may appear,
notwithstanding the opposite quarter from where the danger proceeded, in
the wildness of his apprehensions he conceived it could be no other than
Squire Graspacre, Parson Evans, and their party. He was actually glad
when made to understand that the horseman was a highwayman. His
unwelcome assailant quickly approached him and presenting his pistol,
with a loud oath, to oblige “Dio the Devil” with all his cash and
valuables, or prepare for immediate death.
The name of this terrific freebooter, who had, among many other
descriptions of persons, robbed half the farmers in the country, and was
supposed to have committed more than one murder, had its full effect upon
Twm. He instantly resigned the parson’s purse, assuring him it was all
he possessed and begged that he would allow him to retain a single angel;
these terms, the robber, in a manner, acceded to, doubling his quest by
giving two; but in return insisted on having his horse and great coat,
which Twm gave up. Dio (whose name, by the way, is a familiar diminutive
of David,) then with sarcastic politeness wished him good morning, and a
pleasant journey! and galloped off in the direction of Lampeter, having
the rein of the parson’s horse over his left arm.
No sooner had the highwaymen disappeared, than Twm was struck with a full
conviction of the folly of the fears he had entertained, which by
depressing his mind, he thought, led to confusedly yielding his property
too easily: vowing to himself, after some reflection, that if possessed
of a pair of pistols, no highwayman in the world should make him stand.
His thoughts taking their course through this channel, wandered and
diverged, till his mind rested on new, but perilous prospects.
“What a life,” thought he, “this Dio the Devil leads—a gentleman of the
road—the terror of wealthy scoundrels, who are themselves the scourge of
the hapless poor, that are starved into crime—famed, feared, and mained
at the general cost, while many an honest fool toils like the gulled
drudge-horse, crawls through the world half-starved, and is despised for
meanness!” The weight and magnitude of his reflections were such as for
a few moments to reduce him to absolute silence, when recovering himself,
he continued, “What does it matter to me what others do? I shall please
myself, and I don’t like hard work, nor do I care for coarse fare, and
still less for great folk’s abuse and buffets; and if I had a pistol,
why, I shouldn’t mind if—”
At this moment a countryman was about to pass him on the road, in whose
hand he recognized his bundle, containing his feminine attire, which in
his terror he had dropped, and it rolled from the side of the road, it
seems, into the ditch, previous to the halt of the highwayman. Twm
immediately claimed his property, but the fellow seemed disinclined to
attend to him, until vehemently insisting on his right, he evinced an
inclination to battle with him; when satisfied with this very convincing
sort of logic, the clown made restitution.
His little affray with the would-be-dishonest countryman, had not
obliterated the thought of our hero with respect to highwaymen, and their
independent style of existence, and with his mind still occupied, with
the gentlemen of the road, he came to a small public-house near Aberayon,
but which was so inconveniently crowded that he could scarce find a seat.
With the exception of two or three fishermen and other seafarers, these
were people who made a temporary halt on their way to Cardigan fair; low
booth-keepers, fruit and gingerbread sellers, and suchlike. Twm called
for beer and refreshment, and while eating, observed the habits of these
strange people with much curiosity. He had contrived to squeeze himself
into a window-seat between two females who sat apart and civilly made
room for him, and pressed his acceptance of the place.
Twm was delighted with his new position, and he was not a little
surprised with the contrast which the kindness and affability of his fair
companions offered to the rude gestures and uncouth speech of the
remainder of the party. He did not think worse of them when he
discovered that one was a gipsy fortune-teller, and the other a
ballad-singer. He could not do less, he thought, than ask them to
partake of his cup, and they found themselves bound in honour, in their
great devotion to his health, to return it empty each time he handed it
to them full.
Such gallantry on the one hand, and confidence and affability on the
other, begot a sudden friendship between them; the gipsy insisting upon
telling his fortune gratis, and the ballad-singer on the acceptance of
two or three favourite songs; while Twm reciprocating in the warmest
style, their affectionate attentions, ordered indefinite supplies of
“nut-brown,” on which he and his fair ones regaled to their hearts’
content.
While Twm was busily employed in looking over the bundle of ballads,
among which he met many old friends, which he had frequently sung, one of
the friendly nymphs was beckoned to, by a man at the opposite end of the
kitchen, with whom they went out, and the gipsy soon followed them.
Our hero having selected the songs that pleased him, waited impatiently
the return of the damsels. No sign of their re-appearance being visible,
and all the fair people having left one by one, until Twm found himself
quite alone, he inquired of the landlord if he knew where the young women
had gone to. He said he did not, but that the whole party having paid
him were gone off, and he had no further business with them.
Twm thought the ballad-singer a singular good-natured young woman, as she
had left her bundles of melody with him, doubtless as a present, and
merely taken herself away thus modestly, instead of ostentatiously
proclaiming her gift, and receiving his thanks. His opinion was slightly
changed, when wishful to pay the landlord, he found he had not a
halfpenny in his pocket. His vexation and confusion were evident to mine
host, who declared that his face was turned as white as the wall. Having
searched every pocket over and over, at length the doleful tale came out
that he had lost his money, and could not tell how.
“Why, as to that,” said the landlord, with bitter coolness, “if it is any
satisfaction to know _how_ you lost your money, I can tell you; it was by
sitting between two thieves—a gipsy and a ballad-singer and what could
you expect else from mixing with such cattle?” Poor Twm remained silent,
in a miserable mood, with his elbows resting on the table, and with his
temples in the palms of his hands, for a full half hour; when the
landlord disturbed his meditations by asking payment for his fare;
good-naturedly adding, “If you have no money, I don’t wish to be hard
with you, you can merely leave your jacket with me instead.” “My
jacket!” quoth he indignantly; “why that is ten times the value of what I
owe you.” “That’s just as people think; but those are my terms, and you
should be glad that I’ll take it in place of good hard cash,” was the
reply of the uncompromising old fellow. The fishermen in the mean time
passed on him their rough and scurvy jokes, one observing, “You can sing
ballads without a jacket, so I advise you to go to the fair at Cardigan,
where you may perhaps meet your old friends.”
Twm was too despondent to be much effected by these feeble attempts at
wit, but he determined to accept the suggestion of the last speaker, and
make his first appearance as a public vocalist in Cardigan, so without
more ado he took off his jacket and gave it to the host, muttering a
curse on his cruelty, and commenced his journey. The dress of Cadwgan’s
wife was again put on, not only as a fit disguise for his minstrel
vocation, but a more perfect guard against the weather than his own,
since deprived of his upper-garment; and thus equipped he once more took
to the road, his late experience having completely sobered him, and left
him depressed in spirits, as he glanced at the scene in which he had been
thoroughly victimized.