Twm’s great improvement under his new master. His attachment to Welsh
literature. Wat’s freak. Twm is taken from school, and sent as a parish
apprentice to a farmer in the Cardiganshire mountains.
DETERMINED to witness the humble festivities of the “lowly train,” thus
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 of further 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 was manifested by the payment of _Pwython_.
The day was drank out, but not as before, 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. It was not till late on Monday
evening that the drink was exhausted, when Jack and Catti cast up the sum
of their wedding donations, which they found amounted to 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 has been
known to reach more than treble the sum here stated; especially when the
friends of the parties 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 corner 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 place; especially Jack and Catti; 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 Catti’s
wedding, and a general report prevailing that he was well inclined
towards the Welsh, a protector of their customs, and no scorner of their
languages or peculiarities, a general good will towards him was
manifested by the country people. When he gave his opinion in favor of
the female national costume, they considered him, for an Englishman, a
very reasonable man. When he eulogized the Welsh harp, and gave, in
addition to various pieces of silver at different times, a guinea to
Ianto Gwyn for his performances at Jack and Catti’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
favor in every breast, especially among the females. During this new
impulse given to the reign of happiness, the great lady of the hall and
her favorite curate hid their diminished heads; the former declaring that
it was utterly impossible that the world could last many months, while
such immorality and ungodliness was practised 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 honor 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 judgement 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 very
extremities of the principality; 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 favorite study of Welshmen, British antiquities,
and systemizing his native language, deserved encouragement and applause.
He was then 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. This change in the
mastership of the school was a fortunate event for young Twm Shôn Catti,
who had caught the mania for rhyming, among the wandering harpers and
_bards_, as they called every rhymester who could manufacture verses in
either of the four-and-twenty legitimate 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 him 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 learned to despise the jargon and misstatements of Ianto Gwyn, with
whom he argued strongly, and proved to him that Geoffrey of Monmouth was
a fabulist, and no historian; that it was not Joseph of Arimathea who
christianized Britain; and that the Britons were no descendants of Brute,
nor of Trojan origin; 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 favorite. This amiable young clergyman found much
satisfaction on discovering a youngster with taste sufficient to
appreciate his favorite pursuits; and took pleasure in explaining to him
every subject of his enquires. 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.
Well would it have been for Twm had he continued his diligence in this
honorable course, but in his breast the love of learning was shared by
his love of mischief, and his admiration of his master divided with his
predilection for the comical vagaries of Wat the mole-catcher: and in the
end, his acquaintance with that worthy proved anything to him but
fortunate. About eighteen months after Rhys’s appointment to the school,
one evening in the Christmas holidays, Wat asked him if he would take a
share in a freak that would keep them up the greater part of the night.
Twm immediately assented, without enquiring its nature; enough for him
that it was a scheme of merry mischief, in the prospect of which his
heart ever bounded. This idle whim of Wat’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
alehouse-keepers and others, to find their signs vanished, and gracing
the fronts of their neighbours’ houses; and the anger of the reverend
Evan Evans was boundless, on perceiving the “Fox and Goose” over his
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 and 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. 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 become daily more conspicuous; and therefore this
slur upon his consequence became intolerable. The actors 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 Wat, who merely reprimanded, cautioned for the future, and
dismissed them.
The circumstances under which young Twm Shôn Catti was educated, now
suddenly occurred to him. “What the devil is to become of that
mischievous young rascal?” said he, one day, to Rhys the curate, whom he
then informed of the particulars of his birth, and of his deceased wife’s
whim of having him well educated, in consequence of his being a slip of
Sir John Wynne’s. That connexion 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 surprized to
hear the squire exclaim “I am sorry for it, for he has no prospect in the
world but labour or beggary. As he has already had too good an education
for his circumstances, he must be instantly dismissed from school. Since
Sir John does not think proper to protect his son, I don’t see why I
should.” 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
favorable auspices, would have enabled 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, Catti went one day to the
squire’s, 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.