A glance at Twm’s grandfather. Squire Graspacre. Sir John Wynne. The
adventure that foreran our hero’s birth.
CATTI, the mother of Twm, lived in the most unsophisticated manner at
Llidiard-y-Fynnon, with an ill-favored, hump-backed sister, who was the
general drudge and domestic manager, and who at other times assisted at
her usual daily avocations. 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
freehold property, but provokingly situate 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 every body; for after ruining the
owners and appropriating to himself half the country, the other half also
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. Twm’s
maternal grandfather was the last of those who daringly withstood the
desires of the squire, but at last, after having triumphantly gained his
cause, being unable to pay the costs, he was arrested by his own
attorney, and died a prisoner in Cardigan county gaol, as the neighbours
said, of a broken heart. The philanthropic improving squire, then, of
course, gained his end. The old farm-house, alienated from the land,
became the residence of the old farmer’s two daughters; not exactly a
gift, indeed, as they paid the annual rent of two guineas, which was
generally considered about one too much.
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 Wynne, of Gwydir, in North Wales, whose
sister our deep-scheming squire had lately married, with the politic view
of identifying himself with the Cambrian principality, and becoming one
of the great landed proprietors in the country. One day, after a long
ride with his noble guest, over his far-spreading hills and vales, it was
poor Catti’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 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.
“Very!” observed the baronet; “I wonder if she is come-at-able?”
“How can you wonder at any such thing, my dear Sir John?” quoth the
improvement-loving squire: “the girl’s as poor as a rat, and has lately
lost her father. It would really be a charity, my dear Sir John, if you
were to call and comfort her. Improvement, Sir John, is my motto, and I
fancy this poor girl’s state is very capable of _improvement_.”
The latter part of this _amiable_ suggestion, given with a significant
leer, was perfectly well understood. The amorous baronet amply availed
himself of the _honorable_ squire’s hint, and called several successive
evenings at Llidiard-y-Fynnon; but some doubts may be entertained of the
_improvements_ he introduced there. The sequel of the adventure soon
grew notorious, and the maiden Catti became the mother of our redoubted
hero, thence, with an allusion to his father, named Twm Shon Catti.