The Comical Adventures of Twm Shon Catty Part 6

"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 Gras.p.a.cre 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 s.h.i.+llings 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 circ.u.mstances 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 ent.i.tled him to s.h.i.+ne 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.

CHAPTER X.

THE family of the Welsh farmer. Not a bright look-out for our hero.

Morris Greeg, the farmer to whom the parish had consigned our hero, as an apprentice, possessed a small freehold farm, fourteen miles up the mountain; and thither, in the company or custody of Watt the mole-catcher, Twm was now marched. Dull and joyless was their journey, unenlivened either by incident or the charms of scenery. On their arrival at the destined spot, Twm could scarcely forbear shuddering at the prospect before him. The farm-house was a low long building, under the same roof as the cow-house and stable, and as the whole was covered with a black ma.s.s of rotten thatch, composed of varied patches of half-perished straw and fern, the only signs of its being inhabited by humanity were a chimney, with two or three farm implements lying at the hovel door.

The farm, called Cwm y Gwarm Ddu, (Black marsh dingle,) was abbreviated usually to Gwern Ddu; the latter word, be it known to our English readers, is p.r.o.nounced _Thee_. The land of which it was composed, had been anciently cribbed from the mountain, according to the Havod un-nos {72} system. Being too remote from any other settlements to be noticed by any of the paris.h.i.+oners but the shepherds, who were bribed to silence by occasional refreshment as they pa.s.sed that way, the appropriation remained long unquestioned. And when of later years some of the nearest farmers became troublesome busy-bodies on the occasion, a few days'

labour given gratis in harvest time by Morris Greeg's grandfather and father, made all quiet again, till latterly, the farm of Gwern Ddu became incontestably a freehold property.

Twm felt no great wonder that its existence, as narrated by Watt, remained so long unknown, and wished an earthquake had been so good as to swallow it before he had been destined to enter its precincts.

"It was in sooth a landscape harsh.

On one side rock, and three sides marsh: With naught to please the restless eye, A scene to cause a weary sigh."

The farm occupied one side of a dreary dingle, being one field's breadth only from the rocky mountain above, and divided from a swampy turbary marsh by a roaring torrent-like brook. The house and the farm appertainments, with a view to shelter at the expense of a healthier foundation, were situated on the marsh-side of the brook, the waters of which were crossed by a rustic bridge formed of a fallen tree, that led towards the fields, and by a short lane and a path through the wood, to the mountain above them. Instead of the hawthorn, willow, birch, and the nut-bearing pleasant hazel, that usually form the hedges in more favoured lands, these poor little fields had their boundary ditches surmounted by that rude bantling of barrenness, the p.r.i.c.kly gorse, more poetically called the yellow-blossomed furze; intermingled here and there, as in the adjoining mountain, with its brunette sister, the purple-flowering heath, immortalized in Scottish literature as the mountain heather.

Above the rustic bridge, the bright pure water, yet unpolluted by the touch of man, rolled in a small cascade over the smooth black rock, contrasting by its foaming whiteness, with the sable bed from which it sprung. This little water-fall was called-Y Pistyll, or the spout; from which was obtained the water destined for household uses. From its side the farm la.s.ses scooped the gravel wherewith they scoured their milk-pails, hoops and staves, rivalling by their whiteness, the nectarious stream within. Below the bridge, the brook had been widened by human art, so as to form a considerable pool, wherein the aquatic members of the farm-yard, the stately silent geese and the noisy ducks, at times floated gravely, with their young yellow brood, at others, ploughing and gambolling merrily and undisturbed; save when the horses, cows, or oxen were driven across; for the upper part of the pool formed part of the regular road.

Through this wood, ran an oblique path, that after turning the corner of an angular rising whose upper end was bounded by a terrific precipice of no less than ninety feet perpendicular height, and known by the name of Allt y Craig Llwyd, or Acclivious Forest of the Grey Rock, which indicated that trees at some period clothed the scene now defaced by hideous nakedness. On winding round and gaining the summit of the peak above this quarry, an extensive tract of level mountain appeared in one direction; in another, the dreary monotony was broken by the appearance of petty lakes or mountain pools, on which floated at times certain families of migratory aquatic birds, that here made their temporary resting place, in their hasty journeys to more favoured regions.

Ravines, and caves, the reputed bed-chambers of evil spirits, long-maned unbroken horses, and numerous flocks of wild-looking small sheep, were the other objects that diversified the scene; and the horizon was closed by the distant mountain peaks, one above another, wildly strange, but most grandly cl.u.s.tered.

On Watt's presenting Twm to a tall, gaunt, swarthy-faced man, who proved to be Morris Greeg himself, as the apprentice which the parish had sent him, his brows contracted, and his sunken eyes threw out their fires in a flash of indignation.

"Ha!" cried the old man, after eyeing our hero with the contempt which a sordid clown might evince towards a puny insect, as he wondered, in the dulness of his conception, why heaven should trouble itself in creating a thing incapable of hewing wood or carrying burdens-"a pretty help they have sent me truly! Of what service will a weak creature like this be to me?"

"None!" screamed a thin hag of a yellow-faced woman, "but to eat up all the victuals; I warrant, by his thin carca.s.s and long crane neck, that he has the stomach of a hound. This neck looks as if it had been stretched already. But if it hasn't, it soon will be by the looks of him."

Four damsels, the daughters of the house, now made their appearance, and scrutinized our hero over each other's shoulder, as if he had been a reptile of some unquestionable species, whom it was not safe to approach too near. A st.u.r.dy ploughman in a white frock sat at the table, silently, but sullenly, descanting on the merits of the food before him, by alternately sneering and masticating what appeared to be more necessary to his stomach than agreeable to his palate. On the left of the ploughman sat a singular-looking thin parrot-nosed boy, the only one that appeared to greet him with a look of welcome; his small black eyes actually laughed with satisfaction.

"Well, Moses, thou hast now a companion to help thee to devour food, and do nothing," said farmer Greeg, as he motioned to Watt and Twm to sit and eat.

"Yes, thee hast now a companion to help thee to eat and do nothing,"

repeated the farmer's eldest daughter Shaan, whose habit it was to echo all the sayings of her father and mother, so as to publish herself as one of the authorities of the house. Moses said nothing audibly, but a rueful expression of countenance gave it the lie to the insinuation most pointedly, and Twm fancied that he brushed away a tear with his sleeve, as he rose hastily and walked out of the house.

Watt had been busy "taking stock" of the ploughman's countenance; a compliment apparently by no means appreciated by the object of his regard. The ploughman hastily finished his dinner, and was about to beat a retreat, when Watt enquired, "Is'nt thy name Abel Prosser?"

"No!" cried the man.

"Yes," cried Shaan, "what does thou deny thy name for?"

"Then, I have a warrant against thee, as the runaway father of Palley Bais Wen's bantling," cried Watt; "help to secure him in the king's name!"

The man made a dart from the house, and Watt after him. The event of the chase remained long unknown as neither were seen again by the present party for many a month.

"The devil take that Watt Gwathotwr!" screamed Sheeny Greeg the farmer's wife, "for he brings us nothing but trouble. Two years ago he brought us this Moses, the deserted bantling of a rascally Jew, who deceived the silly wench of a hedge-ale-house maid, where he lodged; and now he has brought another of no more strength than a grey-hound puppy; and worse than all, he has scared away Abel Prosser. What are we to do now?"

"Do!" cried Shaan scornfully, "we shall do very well; make these two fellows do Abel's work, and their own." With this very comfortable prospect before him, Twm went to rest with the Jew boy in the hay-loft, this first night after his arrival in the alpine region of Cwmny Gwern Ddu.

CHAPTER XI.

MOSES has many youthful yearnings. The exploits of the lads in fasting and feasting.

Some say it is a comfort to have a brother in affliction, visited by similar trials, and persecuted rigour. Now Moses and Twm could be sympathetic enough, for they had to endure labour enough and too much, but quite the opposite quant.i.ty of eatables; they, therefore, in their misery, became firm and attached companions. Twm at first found much to disgust him with his fellow sufferer, as he seemed disposed to talk of nothing but culinary matters; the roast and boiled, the stewed, the fried, were his darling topics. When Twm dilated on some of the festal doings at Gras.p.a.cre-hall, the prematurely sunken eyes of this wretched starveling would glisten with a lambent flame that threatened the immediate extinction of his senses, he exclaimed, "O Lord, how I should like to make one of them!-I heard a strange man once talk of an ox being roasted whole-can such a thing be? what a-what a sight! O Lord, how I should like to tear two, three, four, hot ribs out of a roasting ox-I would get into the carca.s.s, and roast with it, so that I might tug, tear, and eat my fill first. If I knew my way to any great town from this awful place, I'll tell thee Twm, how I should like to get my living-I would eat for wagers-I have heard of such doings, and I know I could die contented, if I had once my stomach full of flesh-ha! ha! ha! I would tear it, and ha! ha! ha! Oh! how I would tear and swallow it!"

Twm felt horror-struck to hear these frantic ravings of this poor famished being, his eyes starting from their sockets, and his thin talon-like hands clutching vacantly at imaginary food. He strove to comfort him with future hopes, but the wretch had now sunk into a fit of weeping despondency, and as the tears ran down his young emaciated face, he exclaimed, in a tone of utter hopelessness, "no, no, I shall sleep on these mountains, and never have my fill of any thing but work and sorrow, work and sorrow till I die!" Suddenly starting from his reclining posture to his feet, and as suddenly changing his querulous tones to those of maniac rapture that was alarming from the startling transition-"Canst thee eat raw eggs, Twm? I have a store of them hid away in the barn-we'll have a feast of them to-night, boy!"

Previous to this scene, they had been thras.h.i.+ng together till over fatigued they sat themselves down on the straw. The silence of their flails informed the quick ears of old Sheeny of this pause in their labour. Hastening with stealthy steps towards the barn, she unluckily arrived the moment when Moses vaunted of the intended feast of eggs.

With the soundless steps and savage purpose of the taloned cat, that marks the moment to dart upon the heedless bird, she reached over the latch; unlatching it, she burst into the middle of the barn, and seizing the first flail in her way, she vowed with a tremendous oath to break every bone in his body with it unless the eggs were immediately produced.

As she had once broke his leg, which Evans the blacksmith had imperfectly set for him, poor Moses made a virtue of necessity, and at once took her to his little h.o.a.rd. Poor lad; it was like drawing his blood, to take away this prospect of a feed, and his eyes filled with tears as Sheeny gathered them all in her ap.r.o.n and marched off triumphantly. The loss of the eggs, valuable as they were in their hungry circ.u.mstances, was trivial to the daily annoyances of the female tongues that trimmed and stung them both within and without doors for many a day after, on this subject.

Old Sheeny was certainly a notable manager, an economist to the back bone. Abstemious moralists, those excellent friends of the human race, have declared, that the new-fangled improvements in modern cookery have inclined mankind to devour twice the quant.i.ty of food requisite or beneficial for the health and happiness of our species. Sheeny Greeg, the careful mistress of this mountain mansion, had no idea of inflicting such an evil on those favoured beings confided to her protection.

Therefore, in a pure philosophic spirit, as an antidote to gluttony and intemperance, she took care, like an ancient Spartan dame, that the food and drink of her providing should be neither too rich nor too savory.

Consequently gout and plethora were never found among the maladies of her inmates. She had an admirable contrivance that did honour to her inventive powers, of subst.i.tuting durability for the dangerous quality of palatableness, in the food she administered.

For instance, in the article of bread, her custom was to bake an enormous batch at once; so that it soon got hard, musty and mouldy, it must be admitted that the temptation to gluttonize on it and its accompaniments, was diminished. In preparing that standing dish of the Welsh farm, the flummery, she would steep for a considerable time, a large portion of the oaten commodity for that purpose, till thoroughly soured to the acidity of crab-juice. The skim milk, in which this mess was soused, she considered as too gross for their unsophisticated stomachs, till diluted with the pure element from the brook.

The whey and b.u.t.ter-milk underwent the same process; and the cheese kept for home consumption was manufactured of that fang-defying, heart of oak, sort of toughness, which answers the patriotic purpose of cannon-b.a.l.l.s, to repel invaders, should their cupidity ever be inflamed by the reported felicities of Cwmny Gwern Ddu: in which alarming supposition it is some satisfaction to reflect, as a point to our moral, that the crime would carry the punishment along with it. Whenever those rare and almost denounced strangers to the table, the beef or bacon made their appearance, the greedy fangs that seized them would suddenly relax their tenacious grip, like the blind dog that mistook a red-hot poker for a bone, in evident alarm, lest a portion of Lot's wife had accidentally fallen in their way; a cannibal impression that seemed to haunt them long after, till washed away by many a copious draught of the fluid that cost nothing. Morris Greeg himself was a fine example to his household, as a scorner of unnecessary dainties. Doubtless it was very edifying to Twm and Moses, to hear him descant on the enormities of gross feeding, enlivened by anecdotes of people who had eaten themselves to death.

He would tell tales about the dreadful troubles brought upon a man by being over fat-obesity was, to hear him, a state of existence only equalled in horror by the pains and penalties of the lower regions. He narrated a veritable instance of a Daniel Lambert, who got so fat, and so immovable, that he rolled himself into a large trough of water, and voluntarily died the death of a suicide. Moses, the young infidel, would gape incredulously at such an intimation, and evidently doubted the probability of such a death; and if it were possible, impious cormorant as he was, he would have no objection to martyrdom on such a score.

"Plain food, and as little of it as possible," quoth Morris, "is a fine thing," grinding as he spoke a ma.s.s of black-eyed winter-dried beans with rusty bacon. "And leaven," cried the sage of the mountains, "is far better in the bread than barn; it warms the stomach with its generous acid, and makes me content with little."

Our hero, however, had a bold heart; and if a little better fed, would have endured all with that indifference and vein of whim which were natural to him. As it was, with the wild companions.h.i.+p of Moses, he turned misery herself into a scarecrow of mirth rather than of terror.

Together those mischievously merry boys dispatched their breakfasts of highly watered milk and porridge, thickened with mouldy bread, with hungry yet loathing stomachs, and indulged in under currents of laughter, as either of them aped some peculiarity of gait or visage in their amiable hostess.

And when the rusty bacon liquor was enlarged for repeated messes of broth, their wry faces gave indications of their inmost feelings, whilst the latter manifested themselves by a waterspout movement generally supposed to indicate disquietude of the stomach. Their patience was severely tried; often when they felt a conviction that this species of drenching was over, they had the unexpected mortification to find a quant.i.ty of water added, to spin it out for another meal. This was truly a sad change to Twm, compelled as he was daily to embrace his antipathies, and disconnect himself from all that he had learned to love.