Part 24 (1/2)
CHAPTER x.x.xIII.
FINE Arts at a discount. Hungry Moses, whose appet.i.te was his ruin. New tricks and jokes on Ready Rosser. Parson Inco once more.
Twm left Ystrad Feen in no enviable state of mind. He was in a similar temper to that of a child when deprived of a favourite toy, and as he urged his horse with speed in the direction of Llandovery, he determined never to place faith in woman again,-a resolution which underwent some slight modification before he reached the ”Cat and Fiddle,” a diminutive-looking ale-house, where for the present he decided to take up his quarters.
Notwithstanding his chagrin, he could not help smiling at this whimsical sign, then newly painted,-a droll-faced creature of the feline race, drawn, as an enthusiast in melody, erect on her hind feet, her eyes turned up in ecstacy, while her open mouth seemed to be mewing music, or tow-rowing harmony at a fine rate, in concord with the fiddle that she handled with the most artist-like taste, and professional gravity. If the sign was to his taste, a sort of homely snuggery in the form of a small parlour, and a good-humoured-looking fat landlady, were no less so.
Dinah Dew, the widowed mistress of the Cat and Fiddle informed him that she owed her sign to the skill of a poor tramping painter, who had run into her debt, to the enormous amount of five s.h.i.+llings and sevenpence half-penny, for board, was.h.i.+ng, lodging, and drinking: and the poor fellow being penniless and without work, ”I let him free,” said she, ”for the sign, and gave him a s.h.i.+lling and a brown loaf over.”
This liberal patronage of the fine arts, (for the sign included music, poetry, and painting,) gave Twm a favourable opinion of his hostess. She apologized to him for the absence of her hostler, and said he was a poor ragged fellow with a pregnant wife, and two children; by trade a mat and basket maker; also a waiter at two other taverns; and an occasional husbandry servant with several farmers, who employed him in their busy times. ”The fellow is well enough,” said the little round woman, ”but for his cormorant appet.i.te; and eat what he may, he never looks better for it. Indeed your horse would scarcely be safe with him, but that this is not the most hungry time of year.”
”I knew such another once,” thought Twm, his mind reverting to the hungry house of Morris Greeg; as he went forward on his walk over the fields.
The said ”hostler” soon overtook him, to ask his commands about his horse. Twm looked with compa.s.sion on the ragged Guy Fawkes figure before him, and conceived that he might earn a fair livelihood by merely walking over the farmer's grounds, as all the kites and crows must inevitably flap their departing wings at his approach. Twm looked into a keen pair of ferret eyes, that glistened above a high-bridged parrot nose, and found no difficulty in identifying the miserable Moses of past days.
Twm's spirit of joking was rampant within him, notwithstanding the morning's vexations, and he determined upon having a little fun, in refres.h.i.+ng Moses's memory regarding a few incidents which were best forgotten. a.s.suming an att.i.tude of tremendous importance, and overwhelming authority, he commenced:
”You are the very fellow I have been long seeking. You ran away from the comfortable and very plentiful house of Morris Greeg, in Cardigans.h.i.+re; after having in concert with a young scamp, named Twm Shon Catty, eaten all his pork and mutton.” Moses started and looked blue as indigo.
”I'll have thee put in stocks, and taken back to the house of that generous and most injured man,” cried Twm, in the tone of a jack-in-office.
Compa.s.sionating the perplexity of the poor devil, he caught his hand and cried, ”Don't you know me?-Twm, your former fellow-starveling.” ”Well, well! who could have thought it!” cried the astonished Moses; ”dear, dear, what a many good dinners you must have had to make you look so well.”
Twm a.s.sured him, he should have dinners too, if he behaved himself, but charged him to be silent as to their former acquaintance. Moses so bounced and bounded up, in token of his rapture, that Twm feared the wind would bear away the poor creature like a paper kite from him.
Poor fellow! antic.i.p.ating warmth and comfort from such a proceeding, he married a very fat widow of a butcher, who was accomplished in her husband's calling. Moses had often sought the pleasant shelter of her slaughter-house, and amusingly admired the dexterous and delicate manner in which she cut the throats, and flayed the hides off the subjects that she operated on; inasmuch that he conceived the creatures themselves ought to be delighted at being so skilfully finished. After he had wooed and won the widow, oftentimes, when she was almost broken-hearted at her failing to sell certain joints towards the close of the market-day, Moses would be in raptures, as he feelingly observed, they would eat the unsold portion themselves. Somehow their trade gradually declined, till latterly it ceased altogether, and the widow was no longer a butcher, owing, as she protested, to her husband's being a ”huge feeder,” and the mysterious disappearance of various joints that she suspected him of devouring in secret.
Where were now the lover's despair and tears, his dedication to a life of solitude, nay, his refusal even of life? True, for some days, Twm stalked about in the neighbourhood of the ”Cat and Fiddle” as if his earthly mission had been brought to a sudden termination; as if, like Oth.e.l.lo, his occupation was gone, and there was no likelihood of any other suitable employment turning up. Alas for the consistency of the lover!-days we repeat, and not weeks nor months, much less years, of seclusion of this kind. He soon ill.u.s.trated the Shaksperian adage, ”Men have died, and worms have eaten them, but not for love.” But by him everything was to be done by strokes of impulse. To banish his cares, he plunged at once into intemperance; and from merely tolerating a little cheerful company, he entered the society of the greatest topers and madcaps to be found, till he emulated and outdid the highest, and became the very prince of wags and practical jokers.
He was of course recognized as the conqueror of the tremendous Dio the Devil, and the acknowledged preserver of the lady of Ystrad Feen, which, with his relation of many freaks and vagaries in England, together with the a.s.sured fact that he had been once to London, and spent a year there, gained him no inconsiderable share of celebrity.
The good-humoured Justice Prothero, he found as merry, and as much a friend as ever. ”Fear not for the fair widow, boy!” would he exclaim, slapping him heartily on the back; ”she'll have thee yet, in spite of the long-nosed Prices and their pedigrees.”
To divert him from his frequent fits of melancholy, and dangerous freaks of folly among his newly-made companions at Llandovery, Prothero would keep him a week at a time under his friendly roof, and make trifling bets, to amuse him, by which freaks he secured some enjoyment for himself also.
Ready Rosser again became his antagonist in these rustic feats and stratagems. The first wager that Prothero laid, was of twenty s.h.i.+llings, that Twm would not by his cunning decoy a sheep out of the safe keeping of this worthy, as he was to fetch one home for butchering on the morrow; but if he succeeded, the mutton and the money would both become his own; otherwise he would forfeit that sum and resign the woolly victim to its owner. To all this our hero agreed, and prepared accordingly.
Ready Rosser was as loud in bidding defiance to our hero, now as he had been on a former occasion, where the result had scarcely justified his extravagant bragging. He shouldered his sheep, vowing before his grinning fellow-servants, who grouped round to crack their jests on him, that the devil himself should not deprive him of his burden. As he proceeded along a part of the high road, up a slight ascent, he discovered with surprise, a good leathern shoe lying in the mud. A shoe of leather, be it known, in a country where wooden clogs are generally worn, is no despicable prize. Rosser looked at the object before him with a longing eye; but reflecting that one shoe, however good, was useless unmatched with a fellow, spared himself the trouble of stooping, for troublesome it would have been with such a weight on his shoulders, and pa.s.sed on without lifting it. On walking a little farther, and going round a bend in the road, great was his surprise on finding another shoe, a fellow to the former, lying in the sledge mark, which like the rut of a wheel, indented the mud with hollow stripes. In the height of his joy he laid down the sheep, with its legs tied, beside the shoe, and ran back for the other; when Twm Shon Catty, watching his opportunity, sprang over the hedge, and seized his prize, which he bore off securely; won his bet, and ate his mutton undisturbed.
The termination of this sheep wager did not add to Ready Rosser's reputation, and that worthy was nearly beside himself with rage, on finding himself again beaten. His master, Squire Prothero, although the most good-humoured of country gentlemen, was rather angry with Rosser, whose shrewdness always became questionable when opposed to Twm's. It was admitted, in excuse, that the most cunning at times may be accidentally over-reached by his inferior in wit. On this plea the merry magistrate was conciliated, and induced into another wager, precisely like the former, when a similar sum, against our hero, and in favour of his servant, was laid and accepted. The man of shrewdness, as before, determined to use the utmost vigilance and caution to preserve his charge and redeem his reputation. He grasped his load, which was a fine fat ewe, most manfully, and swore violent oaths in answer to his master's exhortation to chariness, that human ingenuity should never trick him again; but
”Great protestations do make that doubted, Which we would else right willingly believe.”
In his way to Llangattock, he had to pa.s.s through a wood, which he had scarcely entered, when the bleating of a sheep attracted his attention, and he came to a dead stand, as he intently listened to what he conceived a well-known voice. ”Baa-baa!” again saluted his ear. A sudden conviction rushed across his mind, that this was the very sheep he had before lost, which he imagined might have been concealed by Twm in the recess of the woody dingle.
What a glorious chance, thought he, of recovering his lost credit with his master, and depriving his antagonist of his laurels! He instantly deposited his burden beneath a tree; and eagerly forcing his way through the copse and bushes, he followed the bleating a considerable way down the wood, when to his great dismay it ceased altogether. A thought now struck him, though rather too late, that the bleating proceeded from no sheep, but a more subtle ram, in the presence of Twm Shon Catty; he hurried back in a grievous fright, and found his surmises but too true-the second sheep, and his high reputation for shrewdness, had both taken flight together.
Moses's face and figure began to improve, for he received the greater proportion of the winnings both of money and mutton, and he secretly thanked the good fortune which had brought him into Twm's service.
Squire Prothero, not yet being tired of our hero's witty genius and cunning cleverness, offered to oppose to his cunning, the collective vigilance of his husbandmen and maidens; laying a bet with him that he should not steal a white ox, with which a black one was to be yoked to the plough. The plough to be held by Rosser and driven by another servant; while two girls, driving each a harrow, should also be on their guard, to prevent his aim if possible.