Twm’s vagaries and disguises at Llandovery fair. The adventure of the
bale of flannel and the iron pot. Quotations from Catwg the wise. Twm
discovered. A strange catastrophe.
THE day of Llandovery fair arrived; and Twm, who calculated nearly as
much on the amusement he intended to create on this occasion for himself,
as with meeting his mistress, determined that the grey horse should
become the hero of another adventure. Much to their credit, the
neighbouring gentry had recently opened a subscription for rebuilding
between thirty and forty poor people’s houses, which had unfortunately
been burnt down; and our hero resolved that every farthing gained by the
grey horse, or otherwise, clandestinely, should be appropriated to this
laudable purpose. It was no small satisfaction to him to find that while
it mortified the purse-proud vanity of the haughty squires to see so
large a sum attached to his name, it had the good effect of increasing
their contributions, resolved not to be out-done, in money matters at
least, by so obscure a personage as Twm.
For the purpose here named he assumed the garb and manner of the most
absolute lout that ever trudged after a plough tail. His feet were
thrust into a very heavy pair of clogs, or wooden-soled shoes, which
being stiff and large, maintained such a haughty independence of the
inmates, as to need being tied on with a hay-band. His legs were
enveloped in a pair of wheat-stalk leggings, or bands of twisted straw,
winding round and round, and covering them from the knee to the ankle. A
raw hairy cow-hide formed the material of his _inexpressibles_, which
were loose, like trowsers cut off at the knee; and his jerkin was of a
brick-dust red, with black stripes, like the faded garb of the old
Carmarthenshire women. A load of red locks, straight as a bunch of
candles, hung dangling behind, but in front rather matted and entangled,
quite innocent of the slightest acquaintance with that useful article, a
comb: the whole surmounted with a soldier’s cast-off Monmouth cap, so
highly varnished with grease, as to appear water-proof. Without any
apology for a waistcoat, he wore a blue flannel shirt, striped with
white, open from the chin to the waistband, which answered the purpose of
a cupboard, to contain his enormous cargo of bread and cheese and leeks,
which, as he was continually drawing upon his store, stood a chance of
soon becoming wholly inside passengers. Added to this, his booby gait,
and stupid vacant stare was such, that his most intimate acquaintance
might have passed him by as a stranger.
Instead of entering the horse-fair, he stood with his dainty steed of
grey at the entrance of the town, and munched his bread and cheese,
apparently careless whether a purchaser appeared or not. Many persons,
in passing by, gazed with wonder at this piece of cloddish rusticity, and
asked if the horse was for sale; but receiving such drivelling and
dolt-like answers, it became a matter of wonder who could have intrusted
their property to such an oaf.
Just as the ground was once more cleared of gazing idlers and
unprofitable querists, a gentleman, well mounted on a chesnut-coloured
hunter, entered the town, and cast an eager eye at the grey horse. Twm
recognized him at a glance as a Breconshire magistrate, named Powell, one
of the many rejected admirers of the lady of Ystrad Fîn; riding up to our
hero, he asked if the horse was for sale. Twm answered in broken
English, imitating the dialect of the lower class, “I don’t no but it
iss, if I can get somebody that iss not wice, look you, somebody that was
fools to buy him.” “But why,” asked the gentleman, “don’t you take him
into the horse-fair?” “Why indeed to goodness,” answered Twm, “I was
shame to take him there; for look you, he hass a fault on him, and I do
not find in my heart and my conscience to take honest pipple in with a
horse that has a fault upon him, for all master did send me here to sell
him.” “Well, and what is this mighty fault!” asked the stranger,
smiling. “Why indeed to goodness and mercy,” replied Twm, “it was a
fault that do spoil him—it was a fault that—” “But what _is_ the fault?”
asked the Breconshire magistrate impatiently: “give it a name man.” “Why
indeed to goodness,” replied the scrupulous horse-dealer, “I will tell
you like an honest cristan man, without more worts about it; I will make
my sacraments and bible oaths”—“I don’t ask your oath,” cried Powell,
almost out of humour, “merely tell me in a word, what ails the horse?”
“Indeed and upon my sole and conscience to boot, I can’t say what do ail
him.” “You don’t?” cried Powell in an angry tone, and looking as
surprised and wroth as might be expected from a proud Breconshire
magistrate. “Confound me if I do,” replied Twm, “but I will tell you why
he wass no good to master; it wass this—Master iss a parson, a great
parson, a gentleman parson, not a poor curate, one mister Evans, Rector
of Tregaron, and the white hairs do come off the grey horse here, and
stick upon his best black coat and breeches; and that wass his fault.”
It is needless to add that the rising choler of the fiery Powell
immediately subsided, and laying no particular stress on this singular
blemish, purchased the grey horse, and paid for it at once, apparently
glad to escape from the tedious fooleries of the strange horse-dealer.
Anxious to discover his mistress, he chose another disguise, not daring
to commune with her in his own proper person. He now appeared in a sober
grey suit, shining brass buckles, stockings of the wool of a black sheep,
and a knitted Welsh wig of the same, that fitted him like a skull-cap,
and concealed every lock of his hair. Thus arrayed, he presented the
appearance of a grave puritanical mountain farmer, from the most remote
district of Cardiganshire. After gazing awhile at the motley train that
constitute a fair, in a Welsh country town, he noticed a well known old
crone, who had the reputation of being exceedingly covetous and
disagreeable. Lean, yellow, and decrepid, her ferret-eyes glanced
eagerly about for a customer, as she held beneath her arm a large roll of
stout striped flannel. Twm, unobserved, took his stand behind her, and
dexterously stitching her bale to his coat, he, with a sudden jerk,
transferred it from the old woman’s grasp to his own. Her wonder and
dismay was unutterable. Elbowed and toed by the bustling crowd who were
passing to and fro, she knew not who to vent her spleen upon; but, in
utter despair, set up a tremendous howl, as a requiem for her beloved
departed. Instead of seeking the assistance of a light pair of heels,
Twm scarcely moved a yard, but drew from his pocket a little black
lighted tobacco-pipe, and puffed a cloud with admirable coolness, while
his right arm lovingly embraced the bale of flannel. Roused by the old
beldame’s outrageous expressions of grief and fury, he moved up to her
with apparent concern, and asked in a very pathetic tone, the cause of
her sorrow, which she related with many curses, sobs, and furious
exclamations. Shocked at her impiety and want of resignation, Twm took
upon him to rebuke her, and edified her much, by an extempore discourse
on the virtue of patience; assuring her she ought to thank heaven that
she was robbed, as it was a most striking proof she was not a neglected
being. In conclusion, he remarked, that fairs and markets in these
degenerate days were so sadly infested with rogues and vagabonds, that an
honest person was completely encompassed by dangers. “Now for my part,”
continued he, “I never enter such places without previously sewing my
goods to my clothes, which you ought also to have done, in this
manner”—shewing, at the same time, the roll beneath his arm, which he
thought the old crone’s eye had glanced on, with something like a light
shadow of suspicion, that however instantly vanished, on this notable
display and explanation.
Hawking a roll of flannel through a fair was too tame a pastime for our
hero, when unaccompanied with more animated trickery, and he began to
think of giving it up, that he might more leisurely pursue his principal
vocation of searching out the lady of Ystrad Fîn, when the genius of whim
provided more mirth for him, and arrested his attention.
A poor half-starved looking fellow, with a merry eye, that poverty had
sunk, but could not quench, now made up to him, and strove to bargain for
a few yards of his flannel; but on reckoning his money, found he could
not come up to his price, as he said he had to buy a three-legged iron
pot, in addition to a winter petticoat for his wife: “and,” observed the
man of tatters, with a grin of miserable mirth, “it will be better for
her to go without flannel than our whole family to want a porridge pot.”
Twm liked this man, but not his logic; conceiving he made too light an
affair of what was perhaps heavy about his dame, who might be no sylph in
figure; which implied a want of courtesy and due deference to that fair
train, whose indisputable right to warm petticoats claimed precedence of
all pots, pans, and every earthly consideration. “Here, take this bale,
take it all, for I have lost my yard and scissors, and pay me when you
grow rich;—confound your thanks! away with you, bestow it safe, then
return here; perhaps I may get thee an iron pot at as cheap a rate as the
flannel.”
This ragged man, by his alacrity and silent obedience, seemed to
understand the spirit he had to deal with. Off he ran with his enormous
present, and immediately returned; when our hero accompanied him to the
shop of an old curmudgeon of an ironmonger, whose face, hardly
distinguishable behind his habitual screen of snuff and spectacles,
seemed of the same material as his own hard ware. The man of rags was
quite in luck, and, as instructed, followed his benefactor into the shop
in silence. Twm examined the culinary ware, with all the caution of an
old farm wife, asking the prices of various articles, and turned up the
whites of his eyes in the most approved puritanic fashion, expressive of
astonishment at such excessive charges. Old Hammerhead indignantly
repelled the insinuation, and swore that cheaper or better pots were
never seen in the kitchen of a king. “Then you must mean the king of the
beggars,” quoth Twm, “for you have nothing here but damaged ware.”
“Damaged devil! what do you mean?” roared the enraged ironmonger. “I
mean,” replied Twm Shôn Catti, with provoking equanimity, “that there is
scarcely a pot here without a hole in it; now this which I hold in my
hand, for instance, has one.” “Where! where!” asks the fiery old
shopkeeper, holding it up between his eyes and the light; “if there is a
hole in this pot I’ll eat it: where is the hole that you speak of?”
“Here!” bawls the inexorable hoaxer, pulling it over his ears, and
holding it there, while the necessitous man, who did not seem much unlike
a thief, took the wink from his patron, and was walking off with a choice
article, which he had selected from the whole lot, when Twm whispered in
his ear, “Take better care of it than you did of the two sheep and white
ox.” “Thou art either the devil or Twm Shôn Catti,” replied the other,
in an under tone. “Mum! and be off,” said Twm, and off went shrewd
Roger, for he it was, who now deemed himself more than paid for his coat
lost at Cardigan some years ago, by a freak of Twm’s.
Loudly roared the hardwareman, but his voice was drowned in the fatal
cavity. Having tied his hands behind his back, Twm left him howling and
sweating beneath the huge extinguisher, and made, as he took his
departure, this consolatory and effective exit speech—“Had there not been
a hole in it, how could that large stupid nob of yours have entered such
a helmet?”
As he reached the street, and mixed with the crowd, he noticed a general
and very rapid movement towards the town-hall. As the assemblage
increased, its course, like a choked mill-dam, became more and more
impeded, until the whole restless mass became consolidated, and stood
still perforce. Our hero had forced his way till near the entrance of
the hall, when he ventured to ask what cause had drawn together such a
crowd; but he got no immediate answer, as many came there, like himself,
drawn by the powerful influence of curiosity. At length he heard his own
name buzzed about, by many voices; one said that Twm Shôn Catti, whose
humorous tricks were the themes of every tongue, was discovered to be a
great thief: and that he who had fought against highwaymen, was at last
become one himself, and committed all the robberies which had taken place
in that country for years past. One said that he could never be taken;
and a third contradicted that assertion, declaring that he was then
fettered in the hall, and waiting to be conveyed to Carmarthen gaol. One
assigned him the gallows as his due, while another tenderly replied that
hanging was too good for him. Opposing the sentiments and opinions of
all these, more than one declared that the hemp was neither spun nor
grown, that would hang Twm; and pity it should, as he was the friend of
the poor, and an enemy to none but the stupid, the cruel, and the
oppressive.
The town crier now came out of the court, and, obtaining silence, he
informed the assembled multitude that the magistrates who were now
sitting, required that any “_person or persons_” who might have been
defrauded in the fair, should now come forward, so as to form a clue
towards the identity of the robber, which it was generally believed was
no other than the notorious Twm Shôn Catti. The crier retired, and in a
few minutes made his appearance again, and read the court’s proclamation,
offering a reward of twenty pounds to any person who would apprehend the
said Twm Shôn Catti; which was answered with loud hisses by the majority
of the crowd, that effectually drowned the applause of the rest.
Pleased with this evidence of his popularity, the pride of desperate
daring seemed to have blinded his better judgment, as he immediately
formed the singular and hazardous resolution of entering the hall, to
learn the cause of the present discussion, for he was utterly ignorant of
the precise act of his that now engaged the polite attention of their
worships.
That any person in the perilous predicament of our hero should venture on
such an expedient, will doubtless astonish the common-place man of weak
nerves and prudent views; but when enthusiasm, and the pride of
achievement, even in a worthless cause, actuates the passion-fraught
breast, supplanting the place of reasoning calculation, the wonder
vanishes. The desperate outlaw, whose temerity is applauded, feels the
gust of heroism in as warm a degree as the generous patriot whose claim
to renown is better founded, and graced with national approbation. Twm
soon found himself in the hall; for his own native energies stood him in
better stead than the fabled cap of Fortunatus: he wished, and obtained;
hated, and was revenged; desired to tread a difficulty under foot, and
obtained his purpose, while the generality of men would be analysing
every shadow of obstruction that impeded their aim. He took his stand in
a conspicuous place near the bench, the “awful judgment seat,” which was
at this time filled by his laughter-loving friend Prothero, whose ruddy
happy round face had deprived law itself of all its terrors. Before him,
among others, he found his old _friend_, Evans of Tregaron, who had been
sputtering a confused account of our hero’s gracelessness, from his
childhood, to the last trick which he had played him, by stealing his
grey horse at Machynlleth.—How he had cheated a purchaser of the stolen
horse at Welshpool; and how the said horse was traced into the possession
of a simple fellow in straw boots and cow-hide breeches, who that very
day had sold it to his friend Mr. Powell; which sale, he contended, could
not stand good, as the stolen horse was his property to all intents and
purposes, which he could prove by creditable witnesses. This
recapitulation of Twm’s tricks tickled the gravity of Prothero amazingly;
and at every close which Evans made in his narration, he was answered by
the loud “ho, ho, ho!” of the sitting magistrate. Mr. Powell then told
his story, and, in conclusion, said he was in the commission of the peace
in the town of Brecon. “Ho, ho, ho!” roared Prothero, “here we are,
three magistrates, ho, ho, ho! three magistrates, and all fooled by Twm
Shôn Catti.—Clever fellow, ho, ho, ho! wild dog, ho, ho, ho! means no
great harm—never keeps what he steals—gives all to the poor fellows that
want—did me out of two sheep and a white ox, ho, ho, ho!—I wish him joy
of them, ho, ho, ho! Never mind, gentlemen, the fun of the thing repays
the loss, which can be shared between you. Let Mr. Evans take the horse,
on paying Mr. Powell what he gave young cow-breeches, ho, ho, ho! better
that than lose all.” Mr. Powell immediately acceded to this arrangement,
but the unaccommodating Evans insisted on having the horse without any
payment, and made some tart remarks on conniving at a rascal’s tricks and
villanies. “For my part I’d shoot him dead like a dog!” cried the
reverend preacher of peace and concord; drawing, at the same time, a pair
of pistols from his coat pocket, and replacing them, in a fiery fit of
passion. “Ho, ho, ho!” roared Prothero, “but you’d catch him first,
brother, ho, ho, ho!—too cunning for you, for me, and all of us—might be
here this moment, laughing in his sleeve at us, for what we know, ho, ho,
ho!”
Our hero, in his primitive attire, now attracted the attention of the
justices, by the utterance of a deep groan, while he appeared wrapt in
the perusal of a small book. Prothero, alive to every thing allied to
comicality, burst out into a loud ho, ho, ho! Evans arrayed his
naturally gloomy brows in a magisterial frown, and Powell smiled, with an
expression of wonder. “What are you reading, friend?” asked Prothero,
chuckling as he surveyed the black Welsh wig. “The wisdom of Solomon,”
quoth the man of solemnity, drawing the muscles of his face most
ludicrously long; “but mark you, worshipful gentlemen, I mean not the
Solomon of scriptures, but our own Cambrian Solomon—that is to say, Catwg
the Wise, the excellent and erudite abbot of Llancarvan, and teacher of
the bard Taliesin.”
“A fine fellow, no doubt, but can’t you read him at home? why do you
bring him here?” asked Prothero, good-humoredly. “Wherever I go, I have
resolved to make his wisdom known, and to reprove all deviators from it,
in the sage’s own words,” quoth Twm. “Poor man, poor man, he’s crazy,
his brain turned, perhaps, by too much study,” observed Prothero. “An
impudent fellow!” cried Evans; “but you are strangely lenient here in
Carmarthenshire; were I the king, I would have all such fellows put in
Bedlam.” Twm looked at the clerical magistrate, then read from the book,
“If a crown were worn by every fool, we should all of us be kings.”
“Gentlemen, he calls us all fools!” cried Evans. Twm, without raising
his eyes from the book, read on, “Were there horns on the head of every
fool, a good sum might be gained by shewing a bald man.” “Gentlemen, he
makes us all cuckolds!” cried Evans, in his usual passionate sputter;
“however it may fit you, gentlemen, I can safely say, that no such
disgrace as a horn belongs to my brow.” Twm read on;—“If the shame of
every one were written on his forehead, the materials for masks would be
surprisingly dear.” “Ho, ho, ho!” roared Prothero, till the hall echoed
with his loud laughter, which the Cardiganshire magistrate seemed to take
as a personal affront, and sulkily observed, that this was no place for
foolery, but for gravity, wisdom, and truth. Twm read on, “If no tongue
were to speak other than truth and wisdom, the number of mutes would be
astonishingly great.” The consequential Evans, mumbled something about
his own mode of doing business at Cardigan, and declared that he would
commit such a fellow to gaol for three months, at least, for disturbing a
court of justice. Twm cut him short with another passage from Catwg;
“Were the talkative to perceive the folly of his chattering, he would
save his breath to cool his broth.” Here Powell of Brecon entered a
little into the spirit of the scene, by quoting also from the well-known
aphorisms of Catwg, applying the passage to Twm himself;—“If the buffoon
were to see the vanity of his feat, he would leave it off for shame.”
This feeble hit excited the applause of the good-humoured Prothero, who
clapped the speaker heartily on the back, and, amid his eternal ho, ho,
ho! exclaimed, “Well said, brother, well said; better silence him with
wit than by authority; well done, well done!”
Our hero now very pointedly directed his quotation against the
Breconshire magistrate; “If the lover were to see his weakness, terror
would drive him to a premature end.” A general laugh at the expense of
Powell, instantly followed. To him that passage was considered
peculiarly applicable, as the known unsuccessful woer of the gay widow of
Ystrad Fîn. It was a tender string to touch so roughly; losing his ease
and temper at the same instant, he cast a most ungracious frown at the
utterer of proverbs, and said in an under tone of threatening energy,
“Whoever you may be, it were not wise of you to repeat such conduct
towards me again.” “Again?” said Twm, pretending to misunderstand him,
“Oh, certainly, I’ll give you the passage again, or any other, to please
you, ‘If the lover—’” (here Powell’s face blazed with anger, as he
clenched his fist, and cried, “You had better not.”) Twm began
again,—“If the lover—of war, were to see his cruelty, he would fear that
every atom in the sunbeam might stab him as a sword.” This dexterous
evasion, with the point given to the words “of war,” had its full effect
in restoring the good humour so suddenly disturbed; but that beautiful
passage from the aphorisms of the old Welsh abbot failed to elicit the
applause which its moral merits deserved: nor could we expect to find
decriers of war among farmers and country squires.
Here the general attention was called to the entrance of the
ex-proprietor of the roll of flannel, who almost deafened them by the
vehemence of her complaints, which, however, were too incoherently
expressed to be immediately understood. “Oh! my roll of flannel, my
fine, excellent flannel! all of my own spinning too,—eight and twenty
good yards, and a yard and a half wide—my wooden shoe too that I lost in
the crowd—and my poor corns trod off by the villains—my dear sweet
flannel, all of my own carding and spinning—nobody but the devil himself,
or his first cousin Twm Shôn Catti, could have taken it in such a
manner—it was whisked from me as if a whirlwind had swept it away.” At
length she paused for want of breath, and Twm approached her with the air
of a comforter, and read from his book, “Were a woman as quick with her
feet as with her tongue, she would catch the lightning to kindle her fire
in the morning.” It is probable that she did not perfectly hear this
passage, as, on perceiving Twm, she gave a shout of joy, and then, as
incoherently as before, appealed to the magistrate; “This honest man,
your worship, knows it all. I told him, the moment I lost my
flannel—this worthy man, your worship,—a good man, a wise man, a man who
reads books, your worship, he can witness.”
A fresh hubbub at the entrance of the hall, now diverted all the
attention from the old woman’s complaint, and loud were the shouts of
laughter on beholding the object that now presented itself. Supported by
two constables, who rather dragged forward, than led him, came Twm’s
friend the hardwareman, crowned with the identical iron pot before-named,
which the officers, as a matter of official formality, or to indulge
their own facetiousness, refused to remove, till in the presence of a
magistrate. When his laughter had a little subsided, Prothero ordered
the pot to be removed, and his hands untied. The hardwareman then told
his lamentable tale in a few words; in conclusion, he declared, that
having overheard certain words between the robber and his accomplice, he
had learned that the thief was no other than Twm Shôn Catti. His eye now
caught the figure of our hero, and with a yell as astounding as if the
eternal enemy of man stood before him, he cried, “There he is! there he
is! As heaven shall save me, there stands the man, or devil, who crowned
me with the iron pot, while his accomplice ran off with another.” “And
who robbed me of my flannel!” roared the old woman, who now changed her
opinion, as her earliest suspicions became thus suddenly confirmed. “And
who stole my grey horse!” bawled Evans of Tregaron. “And who sold it to
me, when disguised in straw-boots and cow-hide breeches,” cried Powell of
Brecon, who had now closely examined his features.
A violent rush upon our hero, by the whole party, now ensued; but Twm
eluded their eager attempts to grasp him, sprung upon the table before
the bench, and, drawing a couple of pistols from his coat pockets, held
one in each hand, and kept them all at bay, protesting that he would
shoot the first who would advance an inch towards him. Loud was his
laughter, as they all started back: but the great laugher, Prothero, now
sat silently on the bench, alarmed for his safety, which he had thought
to secure by giving him warning of his danger, in the feint of the
proclaimed reward for his apprehension. As he stood in this manner, with
extended arms, watchful eyes, and grasping the pointed pistols with a
finger to each trigger, Powell of Brecon exclaimed, “Thou art a clever
fellow, by Jove, Twm! very clever for a Cardy; but wert thou with us, the
quick-witted sons of Brecon, thou wouldest soon find thyself overmatched
and outwitted too. I dare thee to enter Brecon, to trust thy wit—come
there, and welcome, and thou shalt stand harmless for me, in the affair
of the grey horse.” Twm smiled, and nodded, in token of having accepted
his challenge.
By this time Evans of Tregaron, with some of his followers, got behind
him, and clung to his right arm, but with one violent effort Twm shook
them away, as the mighty bull throws off the yelping curs that dare
attack him. Then, with a single leap, he sprung from the table into the
crowded court, where a lane was formed for him, and rushed out at the
door unimpeded, and pursued by his accusers. They soon lost sight of him
among the moving multitude, some of whom dispersed from fear of
accidents, while others followed him as spectators. To the great
astonishment of his pursuers, they next caught a view of him mounted on
that grand subject of contention, the grey horse. He took the route to
Ystrad Fîn, followed by them all, including several constables in the
employ of Evans of Tregaron, and many disinterested people from the fair.
Loud were the shouts of the numerous riders; loud the tramp of galloping
horses; and wild the disorder and terror created, as Twm at different
intervals turned on his pursuers, and fired his pistols. This caused a
powerful retrograde movement among them, by which the foremost horses
fell back on those behind them, unhorsing some, who lay groaning and
crying on the ground, and frightening others altogether from further
pursuit. It was on this occasion that a bard of that day wrote the
stanza which appears in the title page, thus translated by the late Iolo
Morganwg:
“In Ystrad Fîn a doleful sound
Pervades the hollow hills around;
The very stones with terror melt,
Such fear of Twm Shôn Catti’s felt.”
Twm at length, although closely followed, reached the foot of Dinas,
where he dismounted, sprung from stone to stone, that formed the ford of
the Towey, and climbed the steep side of that majestic mount, with the
utmost agility and ease. Like a prudent sea-captain chaced in his small
boat by a fleet of rovers, till he reaches his own war-ship, and springs
up her fort-like side, in the extacy of surmounted peril, conscious
strength, and superiority, Twm now attained the summit of a prominent
gnoll, and waved his hand triumphantly, in defiance of his foes below.
Evans of Tregaron, with his crew of catch poles, made an attempt to climb
also; Twm permitted them to advance about twenty yards above the river,
when he commenced, and at the same time ended his warfare, by rolling
down several huge stones, that swept them in a mass into the very bed of
the Towey, sadly bruised, and some with their bones broken, from whence
they were extricated by the amazed and terrified spectators.
The Tregaron magistrate met a woful disaster on this occasion; starting
aside, to avoid the dreadful leaping crags that threatened to crush him,
his pistols went off in his pockets, and carried away, besides his
coat-skirts and no small portion of his black breeches, a large portion
of postern flesh, that deprived him forever after of an easy seat, on the
agreeable cushion which nature had provided. Amusing to the population
of Tregaron was the singular sight of their crest-fallen magistrate and
his hated gang, brought home in a woful plight, as inside passengers of a
dung-cart, which had been hired for the purpose; and more than all, that
their discomfiture should have been caused by their long-lost countryman,
Twm Shôn Catti.
Our hero, in the mean time, like a princely chieftain of the days of old,
enthroned upon his native tower of strength, marking in his soul’s high
pride the awkward predicament of his baffled foes, perceived them all
depart; leaving him the undisputed lord of his alpine territory, the
glorious height of Dinas. After witnessing, with his limbs stretched
upon his mountain couch, the glorious beauty of the setting sun, he
entered the cave, tore from its top a sufficiency of fern and heather to
form his bed, threw on it his fatigued, over-exerted frame, and soundly
slept till morning.