Part 2 (1/2)
She next purchased half a dozen common birch-wood spoons, and, as many ornamental ones made of box, to adorn her shelf, and, as before paid him his own price. Jack thought her very lovely indeed: and when she made another purchase of a pair of clog soles, quite irresistible!-her ready money opened his heart as the best key in the world would have done a patent lock; and he was almost ready to offer them as a present, but for fear of wounding her delicacy. As she found he had no further variety, she ordered half a dozen more common spoons, and Jack, with all the amiability that he could possibly throw into his hard features, presented her with one of his most finished articles in box. She received it with that peculiar smile with which a lady accepts a welcome love-token, and replied in the softest tone imaginable, ”Indeed I will keep it for your sake, John bach!”
Jack had nothing to do but wonder-he never had been called John in his life before; at any other time he would have thought she mocked him-and the endearing term of ”bach” too, was equally new to his ears, which seemed to grow longer as they tingled with the grateful sound. This interesting scene was closed by Catty asking him to her house to partake of a dinner of flummery and milk, which he accepted with the best grace imaginable, and trudged off with his wares on his back and dangling from his arms and b.u.t.ton-holes; and thus gallanting her in the most amatory style; he walked by her side to Llidiard-y-Fynon.
Unaccustomed to kindness in either word or deed, poor Jack of Sheer Gar, met her condescensions and advances with a sheepish sort of grat.i.tude. A cordial invitation on the part of Catty to repeat his visit as soon, and as often, as possible, affected him almost to tears; and as a proof of his unbounded confidence, he left in her care his whole stock of ready-made spoons and ladles, and almost blubbered when he shook her hand at parting.
As a proof of the beneficial effect of kindness on a churlish nature, and the contrary, of ridicule and persecution, we need but contrast this rugged man's previous character and conduct with what followed, after the tenderness of Catty had melted the frost of misanthropy which formed a crusty coat round his heart. The adventure of the day produced a most extraordinary revolution in his habits. None of the servants of the hall, male or female, could conceive what it portended, when Jack asked one of them, his fellow husbandman, to trim his hair; and while the fellow clipped his rough red locks with his sheep-shears, once mischievously pinching his ear with them till he roared, he was surprised at his questions about the price of a new pair of leather breeches, and a red neck-cloth. Greater still was the astonishment of the whole house, when, in a few days after, he appeared changed into a complete rustic buck in those very articles of dress, and while he thought n.o.body saw him, endeavoured to cut a dancing caper on the green, which they mistook for a frisky bullock. Changes like these are seldom without a reason, thought his fellow servants; and when they saw Jack's elated steps lead him towards Catty's house, they jeered, and laughed, and winked; and nothing knew of course, although their knowledge made him all the worse.
Tregaron and its neighbourhood had now food for gossip, and gossip to some people is indeed the very acme of human felicity.
Flummery and milk, named here as the food on which those lovers regaled, has been considered in Wales a very popular mess, common, but still a favourite among high and low, and might be seen on the board of the lord lieutenant of county, as well as on that of the humblest cottager. The lofty of the land whose pampered stomachs have turned with loathing from more dainty dishes in sultry seasons, have welcomed the simplicity of milk and flummery, as the advocate of native charms would greet the smilings of a rustic beauty, while the meretricious fair of fas.h.i.+on would be pa.s.sed by, neglected.
The English reader will not be offended if I dilate a little praise of my favourite bowl or platter, (too much to call it a dish perhaps,) while I explain its nature; and if he be a bloated son of affluence, overflowing with bile and spleen, he will thank us, after adopting our recommendation of feeding on it often during his rustication among our mountains. Our candid sages of the pill and potion, also recommend it as very effective in promoting an increase of good clear healthy blood.
Flummery is made of the inner hulls of ground oats, when sifted from the meal, some of which still adheres to it, by soaking it in water till it acquires a slight taste of acidity, when it is strained through a hair sieve and boiled till it becomes a perfect jelly. When poured from that prince of culinary vessels, the large three-legged iron pot, into a vast earthen dish, it presents a smooth smiling aspect of the most winning equanimity, till destroyed by the numerous invading spoons of the company, who plunge a portion of it, scalding hot, into their bowls of cool milk. Thus much of the descriptive history is given, to ill.u.s.trate the following ode to its immortal praise, with which we shall now close this long chapter.
MILK AND FLUMMERY.
Let luxury's imbecile train, Of appet.i.tes fastidious, Each sauced provocative obtain, The draught or viand perfidious; But oh! give me that simple food, Lov'd by the sons of Cymru.
With health, with nourishment imbued, The sweet cool milk and flummery.
Let pudding-headed English folk With boast of roast-beef f.a.g us; Let Scottish Burns crack rural jokes, And vaunt kail-brose and haggis; But Cymrian sons, of mount and plain, From Brecknock to Montgomery, Let us the honest praise maintain, Of sweet cold milk and flummery.
On sultry days when appet.i.tes Wane dull, and low, and queasy, When loathing stomachs nought delights, To gulph our flummery's easy.
Dear oaten jelly, pride of Wales!
Thou smooth-faced child of Cymry.
On the ruddy swain regales, And blesses milk and flummery.
'Tis sweet to stroll on Cambrian heights O'er-looking vales and rivers.
Where thin and purest air invites, The soul from spleen delivers; That foe of bile the light repast To bloated gout may come wry.
But Nature's child, thy mid-day fast Break thou with milk and flummery.
CHAPTER V.
ANOTHER lecture in Welsh. ”Courting in bed.” Our hero's education progresses. The Curate's school.
Whilst our lovers were regaling themselves upon milk and flummery, Twm Shon Catty was concocting and putting into execution his first practical joke, for while they sat side by side at the goodly oak table, he fastened them together by the coat and gown with a peeled thorn spike, which before the introduction of pins, was used by the fair s.e.x to unite about them their various articles of attire.
This freak being performed, Twm stole off unperceived, and getting on the outside of the door, he was joined by Watt the mole catcher, and a party of children instructed for the purpose, in a loud and astounding cry of mad bull! a mad bull! at the same time forcing before them into the house a little trotting calf, whose b.u.t.tocks were tortured by Twm's ox-goad till he reared and capered up to the very table where the lover's sat.
Catty screamed, and both jumped up mutually terrified, as sudden fear had magnified the little animal to the proportions of an enormous brute of an enraged bull, whose uninvited visit and uncalled for appearance at their dinner table, portending nothing less than death. When Twm and Watt's laughter at length undeceived them, the spoon merchant, who had been so liberally a.s.sisted with spoon and meat, found to his dismay, that with his heart Catty had carried away the skirt of his coat, by the sudden jerk of rising from their seats; and had the G.o.ds made Jack poetical, he might have exclaimed with the renowned Mr. Tag,-{31}
The lovely maid on whom I dote Hath made a spencer of my coat.
The wicked urchin who caused this unsanctioned union continued with his mischievous party, their laughter long and loud, and Catty's grumpy sister Juggy, for the first time in her life, astonished them with a grin on the occasion. Twm received a severe rebuke from his parent, and poor hapless Jack, with the view of propitiating an evil spirit that might prove troublesome to him hereafter, made him a present of a new spoon, which, because it was merely a common one he ungratefully threw into the blazing turf fire, that on this festal occasion glowed on the hearth in a higher pile and wider dimensions than usual, and demanded one of his best box-wood ware.
Jack would have given it to him immediately but for the intervention of his mother, who forbade the indulgence. No sooner, however, was he gone than Twm watched his opportunity and purloined as many of the better sort as he could conveniently take away unperceived, and sold them at the cheap rate of stolen goods, to an old woman named, or rather nick-named, Rachel Ketch, from some supposed resemblance in her character to that finisher of the law, although some persons roundly a.s.serted that she was in fact a relict of one John Ketch, Esquire, of Stretch-neck-Place, Session Court, Carmarthen.