Twm Shon Catty improves under a more able tuition. Watt’s vagaries, and the troubles and trials of a poor pedlar. Twm begins his apprenticeship to a Cardiganshire farmer.

Determined to witness the humble festivities of the “lowly train,” 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 from 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 they manifested by the payment of Pwython. The day was drank out, but not 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.

On Monday morning the supply of ale was exhausted, tottering legs waggled homeward, and all was again quiet. Like prudent accountants, Jack and Catty reckoned up the amount of their wedding gifts, and found the amount to be 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, have been known to reach more than treble the sum here stated; especially when the friends of the party 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 foundation 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 due place; especially Jack and Catty; 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 Catty’s wedding, and a general report prevailing that he was inclined towards the Welsh, a protector of their customs, a general good-will towards him was manifested by the country people. But his popularity reached its culminating point when he gave forth the opinion that the Welsh female costume was a useful, elegant, and picturesque one, and for once, a scion of John Bull became popular with us.

When he eulogized the Welsh harp, and gave, in addition to various pieces of silver at different times, a golden angel to Ianto Gwyn for his performances at Jack and Catty’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 favour in every breast, especially among the females. During this new impulse given to the reign of happiness, the great lady at the hall and her favourite curate hid their diminished heads; the former declaring that it was utterly impossible that the world could last many months longer, while such immorality and ungodliness was practiced 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 honour 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 judgment 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 extremities of the neighbouring counties, 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 favourite study of Welshmen, British antiquities, and systemizing his native language, deserved encouragement and applause. He had been 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. The change was a fortunate one for Twm Shon Catty, who, as we have before seen, had already a name for composing doggerel, and had even tried his muse in the orthodox four-and-twenty 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 he was 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 learnt to despise the jargon and misstatements of Ianto Gwyn, with whom he argued boldly, and proved to him that Geoffry of Monmouth was a fabulist, and no historian; that it was not Joseph of Arimathea who christianized Britain, but BrÂn ab Llyr, the father of renowned Caractacus, 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 favourite. The amiable young clergyman found much satisfaction on discovering a youngster with taste, sufficient to appreciate his favourite pursuits, and took pleasure in explaining to him every subject of his enquiries. 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.

It would perhaps have been fortunate for Twm had this thirst for study remained unchecked by any less noble desire. But joking and learning, “larks” and Latin, practical jests and Welsh history, are scarcely likely to agree well. Watt the mole-catcher occupied his attention, and, in the end, his acquaintance with that personage was an ill wind which blew nobody good.

About eighteen months after Rhys’s appointment to the school, one evening in the Christmas holidays, Watt asked him if he would take a share in a freak that would keep him up the greater part of the night. Twm immediately assented, without enquiring its nature; enough for him it was that it was a scheme of merry mischief, in the prospect of which his heart ever bounded.

This idle whim of Watt’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 ale-house-keepers and others, to find their signs vanished, and gracing the fronts of their neighbours’ private houses; and the anger of the reverend Inco Evans was boundless, on perceiving the “Fox and Goose” over the 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 or 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. A most unlucky old carl of a Scotch pedlar at this moment very innocently entered the house, taking it, as the sign imported, for a tavern, and unstrapping his huge pack, laid it on the clerical magistrate’s table, calling about, “hollow! Fox and Goose;” on which the reverend host and his spouse appeared, she laughing at the jest, and he frowning with the aspect of a demon.

“Ah ye ’re come,” said the facetious Scot, “by my saul aw never kenn’d twa that looked the characters sa weal afore—a merry guse an a sour fox! come gi us a pot of your best half and half.” The lady ran out laughing, but Inco sourly answered, “O yes! friend, thou shalt have half and half to thy heart’s content;” and turning his back, shut and locked the door, leaving the poor pedlar in gaping wonderment.

“They’re an aufu’ time coming! I’se warrant they’re brewing the beer. Hech, sirs, this is a strange place o’ ca’, and they wouldna’ find sic a vile ’yun, frae John o’Groat’s to John o’ Aberdeen’s!” But his rumination on the subject was cut short by the return of Inco, who unlocking the door, was followed in by two serving damsels, each bearing a pewter vase containing something less fragrant than the sweets of Araby, which they duly discharged in the face of the unconscious pedlar, accompanied with Inco’s exclamation “there’s half and half for you!” and the girls retreated in roars of laughter, while their poor victim cursed them for vile nanny goats of the mountains.

At this moment young Twm, humanely feeling for the stranger’s ill treatment, informed him of his error in mistaking that house, the residence of the clergyman and magistrate of the town, for a tavern. Adding that be feared the constables were sent for, to put him in the stocks. It need scarcely be added, that Sawney was soon many miles away from Tregaron. Hop-o-my-Thumb never used his legs and his seven-leagued boots to such express purpose as did Sawney, for he pushed on as though he knew terrors were behind, and the safety of the body depended upon the speed of his legs. 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 became daily more conspicuous; and therefore this slur upon his consequence was intolerable. The actor 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 Watt, who were merely reprimanded, cautioned for the future, and dismissed.

The circumstances under which Twm Shon Catty was educated, now suddenly occurred to him. “What the goodness is to become of that young imp of mischief?” said he, one day, to Rhys the curate, whom he had informed of the particulars of the birth, and his deceased wife’s whim of having him well educated, in consequence of him being a slip of Sir John Wynn’s. That connection 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 surprised to hear the squire exclaim—“I am sorry for it, for he has no prospect in the world but labour and beggary. As he had already had too good an education for his circumstances, he must be instantly dismissed from the school. Since Sir John does not think proper to protect his son, I don’t see why I should. As the poet very properly says:—

“Too much learning makes a man a fool;
I’d have no lad attend too long at school:
Give him a taste, then turn him out adrift;
In knowledge, at the least, he’s had a lift.”

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 favourable auspices would have entitled 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, Catty went one day to the squire, 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.