Part 28 (1/2)

”Well then,” continued Twm, ”I order thee to give us a dance in the middle of the crockery.”

”With all my heart, if _you_ order it, for I should dread to disobey Twm Shon Catty more than twenty times my loss.” On which he jumped, capered and danced, in the midst of his brittle commodities, kicking and treading the dishes, pans, basins, and other articles, to powder beneath his feet.

”By the Lord, thou art a strange fellow!” said Powell, as he paid him the amount of his forfeit; ”and I foresee that there's much more luck for thee than thou dreamest of: and I confidently antic.i.p.ate what will come in thy favour, my Cardiganian hero.”

Twm was much surprised to hear Powell speak thus, as his manner implied much more than his words; but his astonishment was considerably augmented when, in a subsequent conversation, our hero discovered that Powell knew all his affairs and connections with the lady of Ystrad Feen.

”She once,” said he, ”played me a jade's trick; but no matter, we are now friends, and she has even a.s.sisted me in my suit with her amiable friend, Miss Meredith. In heart and soul, she is attached to you, Jones; but she is a weak yielding woman beneath the terrors of her father's frown, and in some evil hour might again sacrifice herself, if you are too long out of her sight. She is proud of you and of your wild achievements, and even finds excuses for your most blameable courses. Now, my advice is, that you will endeavour to distinguish yourself during the races, and start for the gold plate: the grey horse, I suspect, has blood in him, and will beat the best that is to run.”

”But why,” asked Twm, ”did she not keep her promise to meet me at Llandovery fair?”

Powell replied that she was prevented by her father's sudden illness; and great is her sorrow for the disappointment she must have caused.

On the following day the town speedily put on its gala dresses, and flags waved from every corner. Bells were rung and guns fired in honour of the festival, which consisted of a rather extensive programme, namely the Eisteddvod, Races, and Ball. Between eleven and twelve o'clock, our hero, with other musical and literary compet.i.tors, entered the Town-Hall, in bardic trim, with the harp of his friend Ianto Gwyn, slung by a blue ribbon, and attached to his shoulder.

The audience included all the intellect, taste, and fas.h.i.+on of the district, and the compet.i.tors were greeted on their appearance, with hearty and long-continued applause.

At length the business of the meeting was begun by a speech from the president, who occupied a central seat on the raised platform. He dwelt emphatically on the laudable object of the Eisteddvod; ”to preserve from annihilation one of the most ancient languages spoken by mankind, remarkable for its perspicuousness, energy, and expression; that, like a perpetual living miracle, kept its firm stand in this solitary nook of country;-to revive and preserve the beautiful melodies which had been the delight of our gallant and patriotic forefathers;-and lastly by emulation, to keep alive the brilliant blaze of the native Awen, the darling poesy of the land, which yielded their fragrant and refres.h.i.+ng blossoms, lovely sacrifice on the altar of Taste.”

Penillion singing succeeded; in which the minstrels of Merioneths.h.i.+re excelled. The rest went on in rotation, minutely according to the description given by the ever-faithful Drayton, to whose pages we refer the reader.

There was a surprise awaiting Twm. Among the given subjects for the Cowydd, or Poem, was ”Govid,” or Affliction, for which it turned out that there was but one who had written on it; and, to his unutterable astonishment, he heard his own poem on that t.i.tle recited, and more than all, a prize awarded to it by the umpires.

Lady Devereaux, who had attached her name to this effusion, was called upon to receive the meed of her talents. That lady, who sat by her father, as one of the audience, now rose, and said, with some emotion, that the poem so highly honoured was not of her composition, but had been sent to her by its author, a person of taste and ingenuity, whom she was bound ever to esteem; as to his valour and courtesy she had once been indebted for the preservation of her life. Then naming Mr. Thomas Jones as the author, she pointed him out; and, amid loud and long applause, a handsome silver medal was placed round his neck.

We will not occupy more s.p.a.ce in relating what the reader can so readily imagine. Our hero was the most successful compet.i.tor at the Eisteddvod, and at the Races. At the Ball too he won the admiration of the ladies, and withal, the wonder and esteem of the Breconians. But alas! the buoyancy of spirits, and the exultation of heart, which owed their evanescent existence to these distinction, were soon doomed to give way to feelings of contrasted severity.

Now, while in the zenith of his glory, confidently antic.i.p.ating, as the final crown of his happiness, the willing hand of his mistress, a note for him arrived at the inn, from the fair widow, that threw him into absolute despair. She told him in plain terms, that unless he could outwit her, all his hopes of her hand would be utterly in vain. This intimation he could understand only as a formal _permit_ to wear the willow as soon as he pleased; that she was otherwise engaged, and had altogether done with him.

His reasoning and conclusions in this argument received absolute and entire confirmation by the tantalising conduct of Miss Meredith, who accidentally meeting him one day, did nothing but laugh and jest at his anxious-looking face and restless behaviour. She would give no answers to his eager, importunate questioning, and ran away and left him, half wild and desperate. The next hour, at least, was spent by Twm in railing bitterly the ”vile caprice and inconsistency of woman.”

Hearing that her company had preceded her in the way home, next evening, and that she was about to follow them alone, he resolved to way-lay and put her under contribution, at any rate; which he conceived would be one way, at least, of out-witting her, and perhaps the right one.

He hastily a.s.sumed a dress which thoroughly disguised him, for his features were almost altogether concealed by a large hairy travelling cap, which he wore well down over his ears, and his figure was equally lost amongst the ample folds of a great coat, which had never been made for him.

His preparations made, he took his stand by the gate that in those days led from the town into the mountains, through which the road ran to Llanspyddyd, Trecastle, and Llandovery.

At length the gay widow arrived, and Twm immediately caught hold of her bridle, and, in an a.s.sumed snuffling tone of voice, demanded her money.

She begged hard for mercy on her pocket, but in vain; and gave at last a considerable sum, which, she said, was the whole contents of her pocket.

Our hero, having placed the booty in the crown of his cap, declared himself quite satisfied; ”And so am I!” cried the spirited widow; and, at the same moment, grasping his cap and its whole contents, laughing aloud as she galloped away from him, she cried, ”Thus the widow outwits and triumphs over Twm Shon Catty!”

Had Fortune determined to spite poor Twm Shon Catty as much as she had previously favoured him? It looked most unpleasantly like; for he had never been in such a deplorable condition as now, standing there in the road, glancing wistfully at the fast retreating figure of the widow. He was shorn of his laurels completely, and at once a bankrupt in love and fortune; as the cap contained the whole of the money he brought with him to Brecon, as well as what he had gained there.

This inauspicious adventure, although it damped his spirits for a time, had the ultimate effect of rousing his latent energies to the highest pitch. He was not long in hatching a scheme to forward his purposes, which, however, required the aid (which was soon offered to him) of Powell and his two friends.

Twelve o'clock the next morning saw him dismounting at the door of Ystrad Feen, accoutred in a military undress; originally used by him in London, as at present, for masquerading purposes. In this disguise, he expected immediate admittance as a stranger; but to his unutterable dismay, instead of finding the door fly open to his knock, it appeared to have been doubly barricaded against him.

After his repeated summons, the lady of the mansion, with pompous formality, appeared at the window, like the warder of a fortress holding a parley at the outpost. In a gay spirit of bantering, she declared that the military uniform became him exceedingly, and begged to know what rank he held in the army. Our hero parried these home-thrusts but with an ordinary degree of grace, and, in a bowed spirit, entreated admission to the inner walls. The lady Joan was quite peremptory in her refusal, declaring, that having lately heard so much to his disadvantage, she had decided on breaking off all future acquaintance with him as a lover; ”especially,” added she, ”as, instead of the witty person I thought you, I find you quite a dull animal, that any school-girl might outwit.”

Here she indulged in a provoking laugh, and bade him ”good bye,” as she turned to close the window.