A glance at Twm’s grandfather. Squire Graspacre. Sir John Wynne. The adventure that foreran our hero’s birth.

Catti, the mother of Twm, lived in the most unsophisticated manner at Llidiard-y-Fynnon, with an ill-favored, hump-backed sister, who was the general drudge and domestic manager, and who at other times assisted at her usual daily avocations. Their mother had long been dead, and their father, the horned cattle, a small farm and all its appurtenances, had been lost to them about two years. This little farm was their father’s freehold property, but provokingly situate in the middle of the vast possessions of Squire Graspacre, an English gentleman-farmer, who condescendingly fixed himself in the principality with the laudable idea of civilizing the Welsh. The most feasible mode of accomplishing so grand an undertaking, that appeared to him, was, to dispossess them of their property, and to take as much as possible of their country into his own paternal care. The rude Welsh, to be sure, he found so blind to their own interests, as to prefer living on their farms to either selling or giving them away, to profit by his superior management. His master-genius now became apparent to every body; for after ruining the owners and appropriating to himself half the country, the other half also became his own with ease, as the poor little freeholders found it better to accept a small sum for their property, than to have all wasted in litigation, and perhaps ultimately to end their days in prison. Twm’s maternal grandfather was the last of those who daringly withstood the desires of the squire, but at last, after having triumphantly gained his cause, being unable to pay the costs, he was arrested by his own attorney, and died a prisoner in Cardigan county gaol, as the neighbours said, of a broken heart. The philanthropic improving squire, then, of course, gained his end. The old farm-house, alienated from the land, became the residence of the old farmer’s two daughters; not exactly a gift, indeed, as they paid the annual rent of two guineas, which was generally considered about one too much.

It was soon after this admirable settlement of his affairs, that the squire had a grand visitor to entertain at Graspacre Hall, who was no less a personage than Sir John Wynne, of Gwydir, in North Wales, whose sister our deep-scheming squire had lately married, with the politic view of identifying himself with the Cambrian principality, and becoming one of the great landed proprietors in the country. One day, after a long ride with his noble guest, over his far-spreading hills and vales, it was poor Catti’s lot to be observed by these lordly sons of affluence. She was spinning wool at the cottage door, a work which she seldom performed without the accompaniment of a song; and at that time was giving utterance to a mournful ditty, as the recent death of her father had naturally attuned her mind to melancholy, and cast a cloud over her usual cheerfulness.

The great men stopped their horses: “a fine girl, Sir John,” cried the squire.

“Very!” observed the baronet; “I wonder if she is come-at-able?”

“How can you wonder at any such thing, my dear Sir John?” quoth the improvement-loving squire: “the girl’s as poor as a rat, and has lately lost her father. It would really be a charity, my dear Sir John, if you were to call and comfort her. Improvement, Sir John, is my motto, and I fancy this poor girl’s state is very capable of improvement.”

The latter part of this amiable suggestion, given with a significant leer, was perfectly well understood. The amorous baronet amply availed himself of the honorable squire’s hint, and called several successive evenings at Llidiard-y-Fynnon; but some doubts may be entertained of the improvements he introduced there. The sequel of the adventure soon grew notorious, and the maiden Catti became the mother of our redoubted hero, thence, with an allusion to his father, named Twm Shon Catti.