Twm encounters Tom Dorbell. The quick encounter of their wits, in which our hero has the advantage. Twm rescues a high dignitary of the church. Twm’s triumphal entry into London in a bishop’s carriage.

It was yet only four o’clock the following morning, when our hero was once more upon the road. The stars were bright as at midnight, and the fine bracing frost, the glory of our northern clime, seemed to have purified his blood, and at the same time excited his fancy, so that both mind and body were sweetly attuned, and in the full glow of enjoyment. It might be thought the knowledge he had gained of Gwenny’s coquettings would have disheartened him; but his residence at Ystrad Feen, with his communion with the “lady of his vision,” had a little tinged his mind with something of romantic forebodings, that overshone the rusticity of earlier impressions.

Elastic and lusty were his healthy limbs, as they bounded to the music of his heart, while he strode forward on the highway, exulting in the thought that the day had at length arrived on which his eyes were to be regaled with a sight of the far-famed city of London.

In this happy spirit, he successively passed through Langley Broom and Colnbrook, anxiously hoping to reach Hounslow by mid-day. Thus, light of heart, and full of brilliant anticipations, he continued to bound along the road.

In this overweening fit of enthusiasm, he considered danger of every sort entirely out of the question; and this, too, if he knew the truth, while he wandered over the very hot-bed of robbers, both foot-pads and equestrians! Deluded by such a course of cogitation, he began to jeer himself on his simplicity in keeping his pistols loaded, and considered whether he had best fire them off for amusement or not.

Before he had formed his resolution, he was startled to hear a rude and heavy tread close at his heels. Sudden as the thought, he turned round, and reeled some steps backward at the sight that presented itself! In the advanced light of the morning, he beheld a villainous-looking powerful man, with a long black-beard, who might have passed for the high-priest of a Jewish synagogue. He grasped a pistol that was levelled at his head, while his forefinger seemed actually pressing on the trigger. By his ominous silence, and the fierce glare of his eye, Twm conceived that murder and not robbery was his object, till the ruffian roared, “Garnish or die!”

“Wha—what is garnish?” stuttered Twm.

“Money, and be d—d to you, or here goes!” replied the bearded man, without the slightest touch of the dialect of the people whose chin-trimmings he had assumed. Our hero saw at once that this prepared ruffian was not to be trifled with, and that an instant’s delay might cost him his existence; therefore, he immediately produced from his bosom the packet entrusted to him by Sir George Devereaux.

As the robber reached to snatch it, Twm’s wits were at work; assuming the dialect and foolery which he knew passed among the English for Welsh, “Here wass the money, look you now, but God tam! it wass not mine, but you shall haf it in the tifel’s name, only let master see I wass praave, and show fight for it, look you, and not gif it up like a craaven.” With that he gave it into the fellow’s hand, saying, “Now, her begs, and solicits, and entreats you to be so kind ass to shoot some holes in hur cott lappets, just a pounce or two, look you, to prove hur hard fight and praavery.”

“Aye, with the greatest pleasure in life!” cried the ruffian, laughing. Here Twm put off his coat in an instant, and threw it over a bush on the roadside. When the robber fired at it, Twm leapt up, laughing with idiotic glee, crying, “Got pless hur for a praave marksman! that was a noble pounce, look you! But now another pounce for tother lappet, and I wass have great praise for praavery!”

So the foot-pad, apparently amused, fired again, and Twm leapt and laughed as before, exclaiming, “That was another nople pounce, look!” He now ran to the bush, and snatching up his coat, put it on, seemingly as delighted with its perforations as a warrior of his vaunted scars. “Now, one pounce more through my hat, look you, and all will be right!” added he, appealingly.

“Why, as to that!” replied the robber, commencing to break open the parcel with great eagerness, “I have no more pounces, as you call them, to give you.”

“But I have!” thundered our hero, holding a pistol in each hand to the robber’s breast, “return the packet and garnish!” continued he, “or I will pounce your rascal prains apout the road, look you—and that wass not goot for your health, look you, this fine morning.”

The robber was no bad judge of circumstances, so immediately returned the packet. “Garnish!” roared Twm, laughing, and holding the pistols nearer to his head; “I must have a new suit for the one you pounced for me, look you now!” The robber handed him a heavy purse, with a couple of splendid watches, exclaiming “the devil’s luck to you with them!” on which Twm snatched off his false beard, as he laughingly said, “So much for a shallow knave whose length of beard is greater than his brains!” No sooner was the beard removed, than Twm saw a deep scar on his left jaw, which cleared all doubt as to the identity of his antagonist.

“Never was Tom Dorbell so humbugged before!” cried the baffled ruffian, as he tore his hair up by the roots in resentment against Fortune, that allowed such an inauspicious day to dawn on him.

“What! Tom Dorbell, the Gallant Glover?” queried Twm, with amazement. “The same,” growled the knight of the road, “till my luck turned; but now I am nobody.”

“By that blushing witness on your jaw-bone, I perceive we once met before,” quoth Twm, jeeringly; “I think, on the other side of Reading. I think, too, that, in token of friendship, we exchanged horses on that occasion, a Welsh pony for a gallant grey; and, I think, also, but perhaps I am mistaken, that I threw thee a long purse full of something that uncle Timothy gave I to market for him at Reading.”

By the well mimicked simplicity of the latter words, the freebooter knew him at once, and laughing in his turn, vowing that he was now satisfied that he was outdone by no common ’un, “but a d—ned clever fellow, whoever thee bee’st” Quick as the fox who hears the hounds and hunters long before the sound can reach indifferent ears, Tom Dorbell started—gave a hasty farewell, dashed through the hedge, over a field, and was soon out of sight.

The Gallant Glover’s well-trained ears had heard the sound of horses’ feet, and, taking all things into consideration, he had thought it best to decline any fresh interview with travelling humanity until he had recovered his serenity of mind, and was in a position to enforce any demands it might please him to make.

As the approaching horse and rider neared him, Twm perceived the latter to be a wounded man, evidently so much disabled as to be scarcely capable of sitting on his horse. With courteous but hurried accents, the stranger addressed our hero, lifting his hat as he spoke.

“Your pardon, sir; if you are armed and inclined to act a brave and generous part, you have now an opportunity of doing so.” Twm declared his readiness. The stranger dismounted, with pain; “Take this horse,” cried he, “ride forward as fast as you can, and a quarter of a mile on you will find a couple of robbers rifling a coach. Other assistance may arrive—on! on, sir! in heaven’s name! the party assaulted are of no common rank or estimation—profit and reputation will attend their liberator, and”—Twm was out of hearing before he could finish his sentence.

Never did a young medical practitioner, called on an emergency to the bedside of a wealthy patient, whom he never thought to have the honour to approach, ride forth with a more excited imagination. Fire flashed from the stones, ground to powder by his horse’s hoofs, and brief was the gallop that brought him in sight of the scene of villainy.

The first object that struck his view were three or four horses, with their harness cut, one dead, and the others struggling on the road-side, while the centre was occupied by an un-horsed coach. As he came nearer, he distinctly made out a man at each door of the vehicle, their feet resting on the steps, while their heads, and the greater portion of their bodies, were invisible, implying their activity in the work of depredation. So intently devoted were they to this grand undertaking, that Twm’s approach seemed either unnoticed or mistaken, perhaps, for the wounded and unharmed gentleman’s, who had apprised him of this nefarious business. With that happy forethought given by indulgent Providence to the self-dependent, and which forms one of the grand ingredients in the chalice of success, our hero turned his horse from the thundering road to the soundless green beside it, and silently gained upon his object.

He arrived within twenty paces of the coach, when the green altogether ceased. Dismounting with the alacrity of the occasion, silent as the mole, and swift as the greyhound, he made a rush forward, and, contrary to his expectation, he found himself, unchallenged or unnoticed, close to the coach. He heard one of the amiable threatening instant death to his “Lordship’s reverence” unless his watch accompanied his purse into the hands of his “solicitors.”

The opposite worthy was equally polite to a lady, after his own fashion, declaring that he had shot one of her sex lately for less provocation than she had shown, in withholding his fair demands, which was merely all her cash and jewels.

Twm’s instantaneous action was to catch the nearest gentleman by the ankles. With a powerful drag backwards, his feet were jerked off the coach-steps, and his full face literally scraped an ungentle acquaintance with their iron edges, in its rapid descent to the frosty road, which was flooded with his blood.

“Hollo! where are you, Bill?” enquired his active partner, thinking that he had merely lost his footing and falling accidentally.

“Here!” cried Twm, firing at the word, when the robber fell backward from his perch, a lifeless corpse. Before he could recover himself, our hero was grappled at the throat by the powerful hands of the first robber. In the struggle, Twm managed to strike him twice with his discharged pistol on his blood-covered face; but the strong ruffian’s tenacious grip tightened notwithstanding; and our tale must have terminated here, with the death of its hero, but for an unexpected relief.

The venerable and aged gentleman in the coach with his daughter, looking out on this deadly struggle with intense anxiety, snatched up a pistol which had been dropped in the carriage, seized a critical moment, and discharged it at the ear of the freebooter, whose head was perforated by the bullet, so that his grasp relaxed, and he fell backward, with his eyes glaring on his intended victim, and, with a ferocious oath in his mouth, he expired.

The aged gentleman now called to the lady, who sprang from the coach, declaring he feared that the villain had succeeded in destroying their deliverer. Well, indeed, might he have thought so, as Twm had sunk senseless on the road, the stagnant blood blackening in his face, and his eyes projecting from their sockets.

On recovering a little, he found a young lady bathing his temples, and applying her scent-bottle, while the venerable old gentleman was busied in rubbing his neck to restore the circulation of the blood, which now happily took place.

On his recovery, our hero learnt that the party whom he had succoured were the venerable Doctor Morgan, Bishop of St. Asaph, translator of the Scriptures into Welsh, and his only daughter; and that the wounded gentleman who sent Twm to their rescue, and who had now rejoined the party, was his lordship’s chaplain.

This spirited clergyman had manfully opposed the depredators, when they first attacked the coach, but was sadly wounded by a bullet in the right arm. In the midst of the congratulations, compliments, and explanations that followed, the spirit of the scene became suddenly changed to one that is patronized by the comic muse.

Alarmed by the report of the bishop’s servants, who liberated themselves, having been tied to a tree by the thieves, the town of Hounslow evinced its heroism by sending forth its constabulary force, with the principal inn-keeper, who was also a farmer, and his farm-servants.

A motley assemblage, in truth, it proved! Some were on foot, and some on horse or ass-back, and one fellow was seen bestriding a large horned ox, that reluctantly yielded the speed required of him; while each and all were as whimsically armed as mounted. The valiant joskin on the ox, flourished a flail, threatening annihilation to the rogues of the road, but lucklessly struck his own sconce by exercising the weapon. The ostler and waiter, who was also the plough-boy, was mounted on a superannuated blind mare, and grasped a dung-fork with the consequence of a Neptune’s trident. Among the others were seen bill-hooks, a scythe, three spades, an awfully long spit, and a ponderous wooden beetle.

But the most amusing figure in the group was the old landlady and farm-wife, who had hastily mounted a donkey, and was riding it in a more masculine style than is usual to the fair sex, and thumping the restive brute with a vast wooden ladle, with which, for she led the van, she was prepared to battle with the highwaymen. Finding them already conquered, her heroic spirit vented itself in discontent, that she had had no hand in the great event.

“Dang un!” quoth the doughty dame, “I would ha baisted the chops o’un noicely!”

“Shame on thee, dame! cover thy garters—whoy dusten roide like a christen woman,” cried her lord and master, who rode a high horse, and bore a huge cavalry sword.

At this rebuke, the bishop’s daughter, his lordship, and the chaplain, laughed most heartily; while our hero, now pretty well recovered, joined in their glee.

The fallen being consigned to the care of the landlord, and the coach somewhat righted, our hero was seated by the chaplain, and facing his lordship, who, with his amiable daughter, cordially acknowledged his services; which the worthy prelate declared were not to be requited with mere words.

Twm, with truth, averred he was indebted for his life to the promptitude with which his lordship brought the ruffian down; and therefore the services he received, he said, far over-balanced any that he had rendered. The modest position in which he had thus placed himself, worked well in his favour, and was fully estimated. After having refreshed at Hounslow, and the chaplain’s arm dressed, depositions having been made, before the judicial authorities, of the attack and rescue, the party filled his lordship’s carnage again, and all were driven off towards London, well guarded by a rustic patrol sent from Hounslow.

On the way, Twm explained that he was an agent of Sir George Devereaux’s to a Mr. Martyn’s in Holborn, and the bearer of a sum of money to him. The bishop seemed surprised, and declared that Mr. Martyn was his very good friend, and chosen by him to be an umpire on the following day, in a matter of great importance.

“To-morrow, then,” added the bishop, “I shall see you at my friend’s house, and learn from you in what manner I can serve your interests.”

Our hero bowed.

“Your lordship will have your long deferred explanation with the fiery old baronet, Sir John Wynn, then, to-morrow?” asked the chaplain.

“Yes,” replied the old bishop, “and heaven send me scatheless from a contest with that self-willed man! In our interview I can only repeat what I have objected in my letters; and right well I know, he can only reiterate his former ill-grounded assertions.”

Our hero was thunderstruck with these observations and became silent and thoughtful.

Many were the villages and suburbs through which they passed, before the lady, breaking a silence which had endured some time, exclaimed, “The stones of London, at last, my Lord.”

The worthy prelate directed his coachman to drive to Mr. Martyn’s; and, in a brief space, the carriage stopped at a large, lofty, and many gabled house, opposite to St. Andrew’s Church, in Holborn, where Twm was put down, and kindly received by Mr. Martyn, who helped him from the bishop’s coach. His lordship observed that he was waited for by his brother, the Bishop of London, at Lambeth Palace; briefly referred to the business of the morrow, kindly shook hands with our hero, as did the young lady and the chaplain, each repeating their acknowledgments, and when the carriage drove off, Twm Shon Catty was ceremoniously ushered into the fine town-house of Mr. Martyn.