Twm made a shew lion among the great. Benefits flow to him. Commences
his journey. The adventure of the pack-saddle. Outwits a highwayman and
rides off with his horse.
RHYS slept the first night after his arrival, at Ystrad Fîn; but his
avocations calling him to Llandovery, he took his leave next morning,
after an affectionate parting with his former pupil, wishing him all
possible success in his journey to London. Twm, at the particular and
pressing invitation of his host and fair hostess, continued there,
enjoying their hospitalities, many days. Indeed he became a kind of shew
lion, and was daily exhibited by Lady Devereux to her friends, male and
female, whom she invited by scores to see her hero, as she called him.
The importance thus attributed to him by others, our hero soon took to
himself; and as many of the simpering lady visitors declared him to be no
less handsome than brave, he felt no difficulty in persuading himself
that there was more truth than flattery in the eulogies.
Previous to the day of his departure, the baronet evinced his liberality
by presenting him with the sum of forty pounds; and gave him as much more
in payment for the hunter taken from the freebooter; while his lady took
from her neck a golden chain, and placed it on his, as a token, she said,
of her gratitude for the preservation of her life, and of her sense of
her preserver’s merit. Twm accepted these favors with a grace little to
have been expected from his previous habits of life; but he possessed an
innate pride and self consideration that soon burst through his native
bashfulness, and his mind ever rose with his good fortunes, nay,
sometimes even took the lead, so that he would boldly look Success in the
face, and wonder that the sum of his congratulations was not greater.
The day of his departure at length arrived; and it was concerted that his
best mode of travelling would be, on a mean horse, with a pack-saddle,
and disguised as a labouring country lad. Thus mounted and accoutred,
behold him at length disappear through the yard gate of Ystrad Fîn;
having concealed in various parts of his dress the sum of money entrusted
to his care, and made Lady Devereaux his banker till his return, leaving
with her the whole of his lately gained property. Although ill contented
with the slow pace of the worn-out beast beneath him, he rode on with a
heart full of glee, proud of the honors which he had gained, and glowing
with bright anticipations of the future.
We shall pass over the uninteresting portion of his journey; nor need we
dwell on the sensations natural to a young high-spirited mountaineer on
his continual change of scene, and view of novel objects, till he had
left behind him all the towns and villages of his native principality,
and at length the ancient city of Bristol itself. He had even passed
through Bath and Chippenham before a single adventure occurred worthy of
record. Riding late one evening, between the last named town and
Malborough, he found it necessary to put up at a small public house on
the road side, distinguished by the sign of “the Hop-pole,” the obscurity
of which he considered favorable to his safety. Having fed his beast and
eaten his supper, he went immediately to bed; and with a view of
preserving his treasure in the best manner, slept without divesting
himself of his clothes.
Just as day was about to break, he was roused from his slumbers by the
trampling of a horse, and the gruff voice of a traveller whom he heard
alight and enter the house. A strong impulse of curiosity determined him
to rise from his bed, and, as the large treble-bedded room which he
occupied was over the parlour to which the guest was introduced, to
listen, and learn whether anything portended danger to himself. On the
first application of his ear to the aperture between the boards, he
found, to his surprise and dismay, that he was the subject of
conversation between the landlady and her guest, whom he also discovered
to be no other than the very character of which he stood most
particularly in peril—a highwayman. He heard himself described to him by
the landlady, as an “uncouth looby of a countryman from the Welsh
mountains, miserably mounted on a piece of animated carrion, for which
the crows cawed as it limped along; and that no booty was to be expected
from such a beggar.” “You are wrong, mistress, you are quite wrong,”
cried the stranger, “from your account I expect much from him. I have no
doubt but that he is a Welsh squire in disguise, as I have robbed more
than one such, dressed like a scarecrow, while making for London, and
bearing with him the twelvemonth’s rent of half a dozen of his
neighbours, to pay to the landlord in town. I shall be at this fellow as
soon he quits your roof; I have no doubt but he’s a prize, and if he _is_
you of course come in for shares.” Having learnt thus much, Twm in some
trepidation retired to his bed, and began to consider how he should
contrive, in order to preserve the properly in his possession. He rose
again, thinking to escape through the window, but found it too small to
admit his egress, and therefore gave up the idea. As he looked out
through the miserable casement, busily plotting to hatch a scheme of
deliverance, he could perceive no favorable object to aid his purpose,
except a large pool on the road side, in which he thought of dropping his
cash, if he could reach it and do the act unobserved, so that he might
recover it at his leisure. As nothing better offered, he determined to
adopt this plan immediately; and therefore, after making a studied
clattering in putting on his shoes, he went down stairs, and called for a
jug of beer and toast for his breakfast. The freebooter did not shew
himself, but the landlady and her daughter, who seemed to be in the habit
of sitting up all night to receive and entertain such guests, scrutinized
our hero very closely. The worthy hostess asked him some apparently
careless questions respecting his business in travelling the country, to
which he replied he was trying to overtake a brother pigman, who was
driving their joint charge towards London.
A new idea of arrangement struck him while at breakfast, which quite
altered his fore-constructed plan, and he began to act upon it as soon as
conceived. To give a more clownish character to his manners, the night
before, he carried the old pack-saddle up stairs, brought it down in the
morning, and while at breakfast sat on it before the fire, instead of a
stool.
Reflecting on the whimsicality of the circumstance, and the probable
construction that would be put on the care thus evinced of so homely an
article, he deemed they would guess that his money was concealed in it, a
fancy that it now suited him to humour. Accordingly, bursting a hole in
the fore end of it, he called the landlady to receive her reckoning, and
in her presence, pushing his fist into the straw cushion of the
pack-saddle, he drew out several pieces of gold, and asked her if she
could give him change: but she answered in the negative, on which, he
again thrust his hand into the pack-saddle, and brought out more gold
with silver intermixed; and with the latter settled his bill, and went to
the stable for his horse. Securing all his money about his person, he
mounted his rozinante; having cut away the girths from the pack-saddle,
he bade the landlady farewell, and rode with all his might towards the
pool, which was about a quarter of a mile forward on the road. He soon
heard the highwayman brushing forward in his rear, and heard him with
many oaths call loudly to stop, a summons that increased our hero’s
speed, till, being opposite to the pond, his pursuer overtook him. Twm
rode to the edge of the water, and threw the pack-saddle with all his
strength towards the centre of the pool; but in bustling to regain a
steady seat as he made towards the road, he fell headlong from his horse.
The freebooter cursed him for a Welsh fool, and with a thundering voice
ordering him to hold his horse, or he would blow his brains out,
(brandishing his pistol the while) that he might go into the water and
recover the booty. Twm feigned great terror, and with ludicrous
whimpering took the bridle in his hand; but the moment the highwayman
reached the water, he with one spring mounted his fine tall horse, and
rode away with all his might.
Our hero soon found that he had reckoned without his host, in fancying
his achievement now complete; for the knight of the road finding himself
thus tricked, placed his fingers in his mouth and gave a loud whistle, on
which, his horse in the full career of speed, immediately stopped quite
still. Twm, in real terror, as he was within pistol shot, roared
“murder!” with all his might; when the horse, to his great amazement,
took his exclamation of terror for a counter order, and again started
into a gallop. The freebooter repeated his whistle, and again his horse
stood still as a milestone: Twm reiterated “murder!” with all the power
of his lungs; and the well-taught horse was instantly again on his
greatest effort of speed. Thus the highwayman’s whistle and Twm’s
roaring of “murder” had their respective efforts on the noble animal,
till at length our hero got completely out of hearing of the baffled
robber. As he rode on triumphantly, he sang the old Welsh Triban {172}.—
“No cheat it is to cheat the cheater;
No treason to betray the traitor;
Nor is it theft, but just deceiving,
To thieve from him who lives by thieving.”
With the good prize of a valuable horse, he entered the town of
Marlborough; the merry peals of its bells were quite in unison with his
feelings, and as the tune changed to “See the conquering hero comes,” it
almost seemed to him a personal greeting, which, with his natural good
animal spirits, elated him to the highest pitch.
Telling his tale at the inn where he put up, it was soon known throughout
the town; many of the inhabitants of which, were loud in their
congratulations and applause to the young Welshman, who so cleverly
outwitted the English highwayman.