Twm becomes a pedestrian. Adventures of Wat the mole-catcher. The
Cardiganshire lasses. Tragic relation. Stalking Simon murdered. Twm is
stopped by a footpad, whom he out-generals and shoots. Arrives in
London.
TWM was not so fortunate with this steed as the former, which, being
white, and otherwise very remarkable, he had the precaution to have cried
next morning, when a wealthy attorney of Reading came forward and claimed
it. On hearing Twm’s story, he very handsomely made him a present of ten
pounds, partly in consideration of the loss of his own beast, which he
had sustained by the adventure.
Being now within eight-and-thirty miles of London, he resolved to throw
off his rustic disguise, and walk the rest of his journey. Accordingly,
he bought a neat suit of clothes at Reading, in which he concealed his
money and a pair of small pocket pistols; and thus provided, he resumed
his journey to the metropolis. Having gone twelve miles further, which
brought him to Maidenhead, the first person that he met in the street was
Wat the mole-catcher, who had sold his pigs to great advantage to a
London dealer; and was now sauntering about from tavern to tavern,
spending money that was not his own. Twm at first thought of
commissioning him to be the bearer of some cash to his mother, but soon
found sufficient reason for banishing such an idea. On asking him when
he intended to return to Tregaron, the mole-catcher with strong emphasis
exclaimed “never!” adding that he had made the place too hot ever to hold
him again. On being pressed to relate his adventures since our hero left
him at Tregaron, he ran them over in the following off hand strain.
“When you were a child, Twm, I was a merry happy lad; and you know, had
the reputation as the _funny fellow_ of Tregaron, a distinction that it
was my highest ambition to attain. The comical tricks and humorous
sayings of Wat the mole-catcher, made mirth at every farmer’s hearth, and
their tables were spread with food for me whenever I called. As I grew
older, my pleasures and antipathies acquired a stronger cast; and there
were but few in our adjoining parishes who were subject either to
execration or ridicule, but dreaded my satire and exposure. I formed
attachments more than once among the daughters of the farmers whom I had
frequently entertained at the social evening hearth; but although my
jests were relished, my overtures were rejected. In short, I found that
while mirth, innocence, and harmless wit were my companions, parents
generally disposed of their daughters to young men of characters directly
opposed to mine—the stupidly grave, and knavish. My eyes were at length
opened; and I found that the _funny man_ however amusing as an
acquaintance, was by none as coveted as a relative, but considered as a
merry unthrift, a mere diverting vagabond at best. Well, thought I, as I
saw the world in the nakedness of its opinion, this will never do, but
since gravity is the order of the day, I will be grave and roguish as the
most successful of my fellow men. Having once come to this conclusion, I
studied knavery, that is to say, thrifty rascality, like a science. You
had a specimen of my skill when you played me that pretty trick that lost
me the parish clerkship, and the fair hand of Bessy Gwevel-hîr. As a
first step I went immediately to my grandmother, who had often exhorted
me to quit my sinful mirth and become serious, when I assured her of my
conversion, in token of which, I threw myself on my knees, and entreated
her blessing. She afterwards took me to a puritanic chapel, and in that
assembly, where I had often pinned the skirts and gown-tails of the elect
together, the poor old doting soul in the pride of her heart exhibited
her young convert to the gaze of the saints; but neglected to inform them
that I had robbed her that same evening, of half the contents of her
pocket, as she lay asleep. I was not long in discovering that a sedate
aspect was a goodly mask for the most profitable villainy, and therefore
determined to wear it for life. Laughter, jest, and mirthful humour, and
all those thriftless indications of the light and harmless heart, I
abjured forever. I now gave a respite to the rats and moles, and set up
as a butcher at Tregaron; and for one sheep that I bought of the farmers,
I stole three, and slaughtered them either by moonlight on the hills, or
by candle in my own cottage. Although I daily bettered my condition, I
considered this but a slow and creeping course to thrift; and therefore,
as conscience no longer stood in my way, I meditated some bolder way of
leaping into property at once. You know that wrinkled old she-usurer of
Tregaron, Rachel Ketch; in the bitterness of my heart, after losing all
hope of a fair girl, whom I had long doated on, I went to the old Jezebel
and sought her hand in marriage; aye, and would have taken her were she
ten times as loathsome, in the anxious hope of her speedy death and of
succeeding to her golden hoards. I strove to recommend myself by
assuring her I was the most finished scoundrel in existence; and that
when gain was my object, theft, perjury, and even murder, however hideous
to silly innocents, had no power to scare me from my pursuit. This
avowal of my noble qualifications I thought would have won her heart
forever, but I was mistaken. The keen-eyed hag, who never was seen to
smile before, laughed outright at my proposal. ‘What, you want the old
woman’s gold, master cut-throat of the muttons, do you? to cut her throat
also, and make away with her in a month after marriage, like a
troublesome old ewe!’ screamed she, as her spiteful broken snags grinned
defiance, and her shrill tones broke out in laughs of mockery. I never
saw mirth so damnable before! I felt myself the butt of her ridicule,
humbled and degraded; and as my anger rose against the beldame, I
resolved that since I could not wed her, to rob her would answer my
purpose full as well. An opportunity was not long wanting; the little
boys who had formerly been my favorites, and who in their innocence
failed to recognize my altered character, I found it difficult to drive
from me. A neighbour’s child one day asked me to lift him up to Rachel
Ketch’s thatch, to take from it a wren’s nest which he had long watched,
and said he was sure that the young ones were on the eve of flying. It
was a winning little urchin that made the request, and I could not refuse
him. The moment that I had raised him to a standing posture on my
shoulders, he eagerly thrust his little hand into the thatch, and cried,
‘Dear dear, how cold!’ when a snake which he had felt, that had destroyed
the young birds, and coiled itself round in the nest, darted out in his
face, and the youngster shrieked and fainted in my arms. I carried him
home, where he soon died of the fright, for it appeared he was not stung.
I suspected there was a nest of those detestable reptiles in the old
rotten straw thatch, and therefore poked it in all directions with a long
hooked stick, and at last felt something attached to it; as I drew it
forward and examined it, to my great astonishment I found it to be an old
woollen stocking, closely stuffed with various golden coins. Here was a
discovery! I felt myself a made man forever! The old woman was at this
time in Carmarthenshire, where she had gone to enforce her claims to
certain debts among her former neighbours; and therefore having no fear
of detection, I pushed back the golden prize and went away, intending to
return for it at night. As I anxiously watched the hours and minutes
pass away, reflecting the while on my newly-acquired wealth, a raging
savage spirit of avarice so possessed me, that I determined to plunder
old Rachel’s cottage of all the money I could find. Night came, and with
breathless haste I made an entrance through the thatch on the side
furthest from the street, and at midnight went away with a heavy booty,
the greater part of which, I buried beneath the floor of my own cottage,
determined to seek the first opportunity of quitting Tregaron forever.
Fortune seemed to favor me beyond my hopes; Squire Graspacre having a
numerous herd of unusually fine hogs, engaged me to drive them to England
and sell them at a good price; I have done so, and pocketted the cash,
not one farthing of which will the squire ever handle. To relate all my
rogueries since I became a grave man would take too much of your time, so
here ends my story.”
Twm’s observations on this remarkable narrative were very brief. “I know
my own numerous faults too well to blame you highly for anything you have
done, except robbing the poor helpless old woman: that was a villainous
affair Wat, and will not stand the test of my friend Rhys’s noble
precept—_War not with the weak_. I have a mother, Wat, who is also an
old woman, and who but a dastardly villain could ever think of robbing
her.” “Very true,” replied Wat, “but she whom I plundered was a _rich_
old woman; and to steal from her who had robbed hundreds by her
over-reaching usury will never lie much on my conscience. Perhaps in
time I may form a plan to recover the cash buried under my cottage floor;
if not, I can make myself very happy with what I already have, in
addition to the squire’s pig-money; so that I shall be quite safe and
unmolested in England, and while I have money, nobody will dare to
question my respectability.”
At this moment, a party of Cardiganshire lasses, who were making their
annual journey to weed the gardens in the neighbourhood of London, passed
opposite the tavern door, where our worthies were sitting; Twm recognized
two Tregaron girls, and called to them by name, when they all went up
together. The two rural damsels were right glad to see their long lost
countryman; Twm Shôn Catti, but their reception of Wat was very
different, as it amounted to terror and abhorrence. They said he was
charged not only with the robbery of Rachel Ketch’s cottage, but with
murder; that the constables were out to search for him in all quarters,
and that Squire Graspacre had sent out a man to supersede Wat in the care
of his pigs.
Here Wat’s spirit of bravado entirely deserted him, and evident terror
was depicted in his countenance, while his emotion was too great to make
any remark on the information given by the girls.
After Twm had treated all the maidens with bread and cheese and ale, and
dismissed them on their journey, Wat, in great agony of mind, exclaimed,
“Oh God, where shall I fly! all my supposed security I find but a dream,
and misery alone awaits me. When I told you the tale of my enormities, I
kept back the relation of one crime, a dreadful one! which, lost as I am,
I felt averse to acknowledge, and too heart-smote with the consciousness
of its atrocity, to turn to it my most secret thought—’twas a deed of
blood, the crime of murder. You remember a tall, thin, skeleton-like
man, generally dressed in an entire suit of grey, who lived in a cottage
on the mountain, in the neighbourhood of Tregaron, known by the nick-name
of Stalking Simon the Moon-calf. This man was known to be a spy employed
and paid by all the neighbouring farmers. His habits were, to sleep all
day, and to spend the night on the hills, watching to identify the
hedge-pluckers and sheep-stealers. Many poor persons who depended on
their nightly excursions, for fuel, while they deemed themselves
unobserved of any human being, cutting down a tree, or drawing dry wood
from an old hedge, would suddenly find themselves in the presence of
Stalking Simon. So instantaneous was his appearance, as to startle his
victims with the idea of an apparition suddenly sprung up through the
ground, as his approach was never seen till close upon them. ‘’Tis only
me, neighbour,’ would be the hypocrite’s reply, ‘searching for my stray
pony:’ but when two persons had been executed, and three transported, on
his evidence, the nature of his employment became known, and he was
execrated by the whole country. One moonlight night, as I was skinning a
fine stolen wether, which I had suspended and spread out on an old
storm-beaten thorn, in a field adjoining the mountain, easy in mind, and
so fearless of danger that I whistled in a half-hushed manner, as I
followed my illicit occupation, a circumstance took place that wrought a
violent change in the tone of my mind. My thoughts ran on the
whimsicality of the idea of selling a portion of this very mutton to the
rightful owner, on the morrow, which was market day, and laughing
inwardly at the thought; all at once, Stalking Simon, with a single
stride, moved from behind a mossy elm, grey as his own suit, and stood
before me. My blood curdled with the sudden transition from mirth to
terror; but when the stone-hearted wretch made the old Judas-like reply,
‘It is only me neighbour, searching for my stray pony,’ I knew the amount
of my danger, and my terror changed to savage ferocity against the vile
informer who had ruined so many of my friends and neighbours. In the
fever of my hatred I darted on him, grasped his collar with one hand, and
with the other stabbed him to the heart.”
Thus ended Wat’s relation, when he again exclaimed “Oh God where shall I
fly? I cannot return, for that road leads straight to the gallows, and
in London I should be in hourly danger of being seen by somebody from the
country. Since the perpetration of this deed of blood I have not known
an hour’s peace, save in the madness of the intoxicating cup. Heaven is
my witness, I could be content with slavery, and smile beneath the
man-driver’s whip—could strip myself and wander the world in nakedness,
or herd with beasts, to regain my former peace and innocence! Oh, I
could labour till my bones ached, and my exhausted body dropped to the
earth with fatigue, to be once more free from the keen stings of a guilty
conscience.”
Wat was now a figure of the most heart-torn remorse; his reddened eyes
were tearless, and seemed burning in their sockets; while large drops of
sweat rolled down his sun-burnt cheeks, and his whole countenance
exhibited the most intense agony. In such an hour as this, Twm was no
comforter, although he was much affected, but merely listened in silence.
A grey-coated man now approaching the tavern, brought dreadful
associations to Wat’s terrified conscience, and in the utmost trepidation
he darted out at the back door of the inn, and ran across the fields with
the speed of a pursued murderer.
Our hero, now a pedestrian, hurried off on his journey, determined to
make up for the time lost at Maidenhead, by walking at a spirited pace;
and without stopping a moment, he passed through Langley, Broom, and
Colnbrook, hoping to reach Hounslow at least that night. He had
travelled unimpeded till within two miles of the last named town, when he
met a long-bearded man, who might have passed for the high priest of a
Jewish synagogue. Twm stared at him with surprize, but passed on a few
steps, when he heard the other at his heels; and turning round, he found
him with a pistol aimed at his head, as he called out in the true slang
of the road, “Your money or your life.”
Our hero, having now met a few rencontres of this kind, had lost his
terror of them; he answered in a submissive style, declaring that he had
no money of his own to resign, but it was true he had a considerable sum
of his master’s: “I don’t see,” quoth he, “why I should lose or risk my
life for any master’s service, though I should like it may appear that I
made some resistance before I resigned his property; and therefore if you
first fire your pistol through the lapel of my coat, you shall have all;”
when the footpad immediately did as requested. “Now,” quoth Twm again,
“another shot through the skirt on the other side.” “Very true,” replied
the thief, and fired his other pistol as directed. “And now, for a
finish,” said Twm, “before I give up to you this large sum, just fire a
shot through my hat,” laying it down on the ground as he spoke. “I have
no more shot,” cried the robber. “But I have!” exclaimed our hero,
triumphantly, producing a pistol, “the contents of this you must take
instead of the money I spoke of—a just reward for a shallow knave, whose
length of beard is greater than of brains:” at which words, perceiving
that the bearded thief aimed to escape, he fired his pistol and shot him
dead. Tearing his false beard off, he bore it away as a trophy, and
hastened onward.
Being now, as he was previously informed, in the very republic of
highwaymen and foodpads, our hero, though greatly fatigued, resolved not
to spend the night at Hounslow, but persevere in his route and go the
additional nine miles, which would bring him to the great metropolis, and
his journey’s end, before he rested. It was near one o’clock, when at
length after many inquiries among the Watchmen, he found out the Bull and
Gate inn, Holborn; where with blistered feet and sadly fatigued body, he
joyfully took his supper and ordered his bed. Who but a pedestrian could
enter into his feelings!