Part 29 (1/2)

The landlady of the Cat and Fiddle was so greatly benefited by the a.s.sociation of our hero's name in her house, that her increased wealth and charms gained her another husband, in the person of little Tommy Thomas, the late under whipper-in of Ystrad Feen; and their sign underwent a change to ”The Twm Shon Catty Inn.”

One day, many years after all these things had been so happily and comfortably settled, to the satisfaction of the princ.i.p.al parties concerned, an old friend called upon Twm in the person of Doctor John David Rhys, who had acquired great fame and honour in far-off Continental cities. Their meeting was most joyous; and when he reminded his old pupil of his prophecy respecting his union with the lady of his dream, a friendly pressure of her hand accompanied by an inexpressibly sweet smile, acknowledged her pleasure in the truth of his foresight.

Poetical justice and fact, are unhappily at variance in our closing notice of this most excellent character. During his residence abroad, he changed his profession of a Protestant Divine, and became a Catholic, and a physician; practising among princes and n.o.bles, he soon realized an ample fortune. For the enjoyment of a further intercourse with these, his friends, in preference to his own native Anglesea, he fixed his residence at Llanllwch, in the neighbourhood of Brecon.

Here our hero's friends.h.i.+p stood him much in stead; for when the _enlightened_ Protestant mobs of the time persecuted him for his faith, forcibly entering his house to search for the Pope in the cavity of his porridge pot, and a legion of Friars in his night-chair and warming-pan, Squire Jones was the magistrate that stood forward to check their lawlessness. His great popularity and known Protestant principles were all sufficient warrants for his word, when he a.s.sured the many-headed monster of the groundlessness of such suspicions.

Our hero, who, the reader must be aware, has shown no little power in poesy, set to work to write the history of the Gwydir family, when he discovered that his father was devoting himself to the same purpose. The old man candidly declared that among his ten sons, not one of them possessed a literary taste, or evinced a congenial feeling with him in his pursuits. But his left-handed eleventh seemed to justify the adage respecting luck in odd numbers, which drew on him his affections accordingly.

Squire Jones never forgot the humble way in which he spent the earliest portion of his life; his was a nature as little likely to be unduly elevated by prosperity as unnecessarily cast down by adversity.

When he built a mansion at Tregaron, beside the cottages of his childhood, he would never suffer the homely fabric to be removed, but kept it as a private appendage to his house; the interior containing all its rude characteristics, as left at his mother's death, which took place a week before his union; although poor Catty survived both her sister Juggy and her husband. There, once a year he made a lonely visit of many hours; and felt his heart soften as he surveyed the rude shelves and wooden bowls and piggins; platters and trenchers; and even the spoons and ladles manufactured by the coa.r.s.e hand of his late step-father. The unflattering reminiscences awakened by the annual visits were better than sackcloth to the skin of kings, as an antidote to worldly pride, and a check to the overweening heartiness and want of sympathy with our humbler brethren in their struggles for a little firmer feeling on the earth; which is ever the result of the undisputed despotism of prosperity.

Thomas Jones, Esq., filled many most honourable offices in the good town of Brecon, and in such a manner as to prove that fortune for this once had not showed her favours upon one unworthy of them. His early friend, Dr. John David Rhys, mentions him with respect as an accomplished antiquary, and testifies to the general excellence and worth of his character. For many years he was Mayor and Sheriff of Brecon, and we will close our chronicle of his various achievements by one more anecdote.

”Bless me!” cried the lady mayoress one day to her husband, as they pa.s.sed arm in arm through the street from church, ”the people are always laughing to think of my marrying you.” ”I don't wonder,” replied the hero of these adventures, ”for whenever I think of it, I laugh myself.”

APPENDIX.

THE Triads referred to, as the collection made by Thomas Jones, of Tregaron, (Twm Shon Catty,) are translated from a series in the second volume of the Welsh Archaeology, p. 57. The series bear the following t.i.tle. ”These are Triads of the Island of Britain-that is to say, Triads of memorial and record, and the information of remarkable men or things which have been in the Island of Britain; and of the events which befell the Race of the Cymry, from the age of ages.”

To the copy, from which the transcript was made for the London edition, the following note is annexed.

(Translation.) ”These Triads were taken from the book of Caradoc of Nantcarvan, and from the book of Jevan Brechva, by me, Thomas Jones, of Tregaron-and those are all I could get of _the three hundred_-1601.”

I. The three pillars of the Race of the Island of Britain.

The first _Hu Gudarn_, who first brought the Race of the Cymry into the Island of Britain; and they came from the land of _Hav_ called _Defrobani_, [where Constantinople stands,] and they pa.s.sed over Mor Tawch (the German ocean) to the Island of Britain, and to Llydaw where they remained.

The second, _Prydain_, the son of _Aedd-Mawr_, who first established regal government in the Island of Britain. [Before this, there was no equity but what was done by gentleness, nor any law but that of force.]

The third, _Dyfnwal Moelmud_, who first discriminated the laws and ordinances, customs and privileges of the land and nation. [And for these reasons they were called the three pillars of the nation of Cymry.]

II. The three benevolent tribes of the Island of Britain.

The first was the stock of the _Cymry_, who came with Hu Gadarn, into the Island of Britain; for _He_ would not have lands by fighting and contention, but of equity, and in peace.

The second was the race of the Lloegrwys, who came from the land of Gwas-gwyn, and were sprung from the primitive stock of the Cymry.

The third were the Britons. They came from the land of Llydaw, and were also sprung from the primordial line of the Cymry.

[And they are called the three peaceful tribes because they came by mutual consent and permission, in peace and tranquillity. The three tribes descended from the primitive race of the Cymry, and the three were of one language and one speech.

III. Three tribes came, under protection, into the Island of Britain, and by the consent and permission of the nation of Cymry, without weapon, without a.s.sault.

The first was the tribe of the Caledonians, in the North.

The second was the Gwyddelian Race, which are now in Alban (Scotland.)