An essay on courting in bed. Our hero removed to the curate’s school.
THE scene so lightly touched upon in the last chapter, between our
schoolmistress and her beau, called forth the mischievous talents of
little Twm Shôn Catti, who, while they sat side by side at the goodly oak
table, 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 join together their various articles of attire. When his mother rose
suddenly to help her spoon-merchant with more spoon meat, she rather
surprized him by carrying away, with his heart, the greater part of the
tattered skirt of his old coat, so that Jack might have said, with Tag
the author,
“The lovely maid on whom I doat,
Has made a spencer of my coat.”
The wicked urchin who caused this unsanctioned union, set up a loud
laugh, and Catti’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 the 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,
which 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 of the finisher
of the law, so surnamed, although some persons roundly asserted that she
was in fact a relict one of those celebrated law officers, one John Ketch
esquire, of Stretch-neck Place, Sessions 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 mother did not
punish him for it,—an omission much censured by rigid people, who
construed this petty act into the slight root from which sprung the huge
tree of his after enormities;
“But maudlin mothers, all, have tender hearts,
Too kind to root an early shoot of vice
By wholesome chastisement. The little darlings!
Who could punish them, whate’er their faults?”
We come now to an era in this history when our hero entered another scene
of life, in that of a new-school, which event was ushered in by unlooked
for circumstances that must be first narrated.
It may not be unknown to our readers that there has existed a custom, in
some parts of Wales, time out of mind, of courting in bed; 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 was 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 most
distantly 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 she closely examined on this head; and woe to the
wretch who had the temerity to assert that there was no harm in the
custom; or that 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 in the chimney corner. Mrs. Graspacre was
certainly, most outrageously 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 any woman burnt alive who would submit to be
courted in bed. To such a fiery argument no reply could possibly be
made; and in time she found her account in this silencing sort of logic
which gave her her own entire unimpeded way in every thing, which
wonderfully restored her equanimity, and saved both time and temper to
the parties concerned, who otherwise might have spent their precious
hours, and more precious patience, in idle and irritable discussions on
the subject.
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 those occasions the poor girls never escaped personal
violence from the indignant and persevering Mrs. Graspacre. 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, and in the next, the offenders
preferred running away without payment of 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 dependants 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 own fertile inventions; or at other times hinted their suspicions
of certain offending parties, always taking especial care to echo her
language and blazon their abhorrence of all those imps of the devil who
made love beneath a rug and blanket.
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. Evan Evans, the curate of Tregaron. Great was
her mortification to find her attempts on the rector fail of success, as
he declared it dangerous to interfere with the peculiarities and long
established customs of the people; especially as he conceived it was
rarely that any bad consequence ensued from the mode in question: but
when the evil really occurred, if a faithless swain delayed making due
reparation, a gaol, exile from his native place, or a compelled marriage,
held the young men in terrorum. “Besides,” quoth the worthy old 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.” Had the foe of man
appeared at that moment, as popularly identified,—in sooty nakedness,
with bloodshot eyes, and arrayed with hoofs and horns,—the stare of
horror which distinguished the amiable countenance of Mrs. Graspacre,
could not be more strongly marked. “_You_, Mr. Graspacre! _you_! I’m
astonished, but”—(with a severe glance at the rector) “when the shepherd
goes astray, no wonder that 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 own liege lord.
The rector’s honest dissent from her scheme of reformation, Mrs.
Graspacre considered as 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 favorite curate, who was
now, she said, on a poor stipend, which he increased by keeping a school
in the church.
The reverend Evan Evans, the curate, played with his cards well; he was a
harsh-featured man, lowering brows and a complete ploughman’s gait;
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 favor 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 judgement, 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. Evan Evans
were very sanguine; and as he was no less ambitious than sycophantic and
imperious, he looked forward with confidence to the period when he should
give up school-keeping, and 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 into
the squire’s favor. With the most ludicrous efforts to humanize those
harsh features of his, and to twist them into frequent grins, he would
laugh loudly to the injury of his lungs, at his most vapid jokes; praise
the beauty of his snub-nosed children, and his pointers; tell him where
the prettiest lasses in the parish were to be found; with many such
_honorable_ civilities, that Squire Graspacre at length discovered him to
be a very useful sort of person. When Sir John Wynne 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 Mister Evans persevered in his sycophancy,
and if the labour and dirty work be properly estimated, he certainly
earned a good living—in his majesty’s plantations! to which he ought to
have been inducted at the expence of government.
He soon saw the weak side of his lady patroness, and ever anxious to
strengthen his influence by promoting her views, he gave great
encouragement to those boys in his school, who brought him the most
piquant tales of their grown up brothers and sisters. Much scandal was
at this time afloat respecting the loves of Carmarthen Jack and Catti of
Llidiard-y-Fynnon; and right anxious was he to learn in what manner it
was carried on; but as this interesting pair met only at those hours when
bats and owls were on the wing, and no human witnesses abroad, his wishes
were difficult of attainment. At length his wily brain hit upon a
notable expedient, that offered fairly to increase his good footing with
the squire’s lady.
Little Twm Shôn Catti, being the natural child of Sir John Wynne, 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 Wynnes, however perverted and polluted, should
be suffered to run to waste and be neglected. Proceeding in his drift,
he insinuated that if the boy Twm Shôn Catti 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 her brother’s name, little Twm Shôn
Catti was ordered for the future to be sent to the curate’s school, which
of course, was complied with accordingly.