Part 59 (2/2)

That night I sat up very late reading the life of Twm O'r Nant, written by himself in choice Welsh, and his interlude, which was styled ”Cyfoeth a Thylody; or, Riches and Poverty.” The life I had read in my boyhood in an old Welsh magazine, and I now read it again with great zest, and no wonder, as it is probably the most remarkable autobiography ever penned.

The interlude I had never seen before, nor indeed any of the dramatic pieces of Twm O'r Nant, though I had frequently wished to procure some of them-so I read the present one with great eagerness. Of the life I shall give some account, and also some extracts from it, which will enable the reader to judge of Tom's personal character, and also an abstract of the interlude, from which the reader may form a tolerably correct idea of the poetical powers of him whom his countrymen delight to call ”the Welsh Shakespear.”

CHAPTER LIX

History of Twm O'r Nant-Eagerness for Learning-The First Interlude-The Cruel Fighter-Raising Wood-The Luckless Hour-Turnpike-Keeping-Death in the Snow-Tom's Great Feat-The Muse a Friend-Strength in Old Age-Resurrection of the Dead.

”I am the first-born of my parents,”-says Thomas Edwards. ”They were poor people, and very ignorant. I was brought into the world in a place called Lower Pen Parch.e.l.l, on land which once belonged to the celebrated Iolo Goch. My parents afterwards removed to the Nant (or dingle) near Nantglyn, situated in a place called Coom Pernant. The Nant was the middlemost of three homesteads, which are in the Coom, and are called the Upper, Middle, and Lower Nant; and it so happened that in the Upper Nant there were people who had a boy of about the same age as myself, and forasmuch as they were better to do in the world than my parents, they having only two children, whilst mine had ten, I was called Tom of the Dingle, whilst he was denominated Thomas Williams.”

After giving some anecdotes of his childhood, he goes on thus:-”Time pa.s.sed on till I was about eight years old, and then in the summer I was lucky enough to be sent to school for three weeks; and as soon as I had learnt to spell and read a few words, I conceived a mighty desire to learn to write; so I went in quest of elderberries to make me ink, and my first essay in writing was trying to copy on the sides of the leaves of books the letters of the words I read. It happened, however, that a shop in the village caught fire, and the greater part of it was burnt, only a few trifles being saved, and amongst the scorched articles my mother got for a penny a number of sheets of paper burnt at the edges, and sewed them together to serve as copybooks for me. Without loss of time I went to the smith of Waendwysog, who wrote for me the letters on the upper part of the leaves; and careful enough was I to fill the whole paper with scrawlings, which looked for all the world like crows' feet. I went on getting paper and ink, and something to copy, now from this person, and now from that, until I learned to read Welsh and to write it at the same time.”

He copied out a great many carols and songs, and the neighbours, observing his fondness for learning, persuaded his father to allow him to go to the village school to learn English. At the end of three weeks, however, his father, considering that he was losing his time, would allow him to go no longer, but took him into the fields, in order that the boy might a.s.sist him in his labour. Nevertheless, Tom would not give up his literary pursuits, but continued scribbling, and copying out songs and carols. When he was about ten he formed an acquaintance with an old man, chapel-reader in Pentre y Foelas, who had a great many old books in his possession, which he allowed Tom to read; he then had the honour of becoming amanuensis to a poet.

”I became very intimate,” says he, ”with a man who was a poet; he could neither read nor write, but he was a poet by nature, having a muse wonderfully glib at making triplets and quartets. He was nicknamed Tum Tai of the Moor. He made an englyn for me to put in a book, in which I was inserting all the verses I could collect:

”'Tom Evan's the lad for hunting up songs, Tom Evan to whom the best learning belongs; Betwixt his two pasteboards he verses has got, Sufficient to fill the whole country, I wot.'

”I was in the habit of writing my name Tom, or Thomas Evans, before I went to school for a fortnight in order to learn English; but then I altered it into Thomas Edwards, for Evan Edwards was the name of my father, and I should have been making myself a b.a.s.t.a.r.d had I continued calling myself by my first name. However, I had the honour of being secretary to the old poet. When he had made a song, he would keep it in his memory till I came to him. Sometimes after the old man had repeated his composition to me, I would begin to dispute with him, asking whether the thing would not be better another way, and he could hardly keep from flying into a pa.s.sion with me for putting his work to the torture.”

It was then the custom for young lads to go about playing what were called interludes, namely, dramatic pieces on religious or moral subjects, written by rustic poets. Shortly after Tom had attained the age of twelve he went about with certain lads of Nantglyn playing these pieces, generally acting the part of a girl, because, as he says, he had the best voice. About this time he wrote an interlude himself, founded on ”John Bunyan's Spiritual Courts.h.i.+p,” which was, however, stolen from him by a young fellow from Anglesey, along with the greater part of the poems and pieces which he had copied. This affair at first very much disheartened Tom; plucking up his spirits, however, he went on composing, and soon acquired amongst his neighbours the t.i.tle of ”the poet,” to the great mortification of his parents, who were anxious to see him become an industrious husbandman.

”Before I was quite fourteen,” says he, ”I had made another interlude; but when my father and mother heard about it, they did all they could to induce me to destroy it. However, I would not burn it, but gave it to Hugh of Llangwin, a celebrated poet of the time, who took it to Llandyrnog, where he sold it for ten s.h.i.+llings to the lads of the place, who performed it the following summer; but I never got anything for my labour, save a sup of ale from the players when I met them. This at the heel of other things would have induced me to give up poetry, had it been in the power of anything to do so. I made two interludes,” he continues, ”one for the people of Llanbedr, in the Vale of Clwyd, and the other for the lads of Llanarmon in Yale, one on the subject of Naaman's leprosy, and the other about hypocrisy, which was a refas.h.i.+onment of the work of Richard Parry of Ddiserth. When I was young I had such a rage, or madness, for poetising, that I would make a song on almost anything I saw-and it was a mercy that many did not kill me, or break my bones, on account of my evil tongue. My parents often told me I should have some mischief done me if I went on in the way in which I was going. Once on a time, being with some companions as bad as myself, I happened to use some very free language in a place where three lovers were with a young la.s.s of my neighbourhood, who lived at a place called Ty Celyn, with whom they kept company. I said in discourse that they were the c.o.c.ks of Ty Celyn.

The girl heard me, and conceived a spite against me on account of my scurrilous language. She had a brother, who was a cruel fighter; he took the part of his sister, and determined to chastise me. One Sunday evening he shouted to me as I was coming from Nantgyln-our ways were the same till we got nearly home-he had determined to give me a thras.h.i.+ng, and he had with him a piece of oak stick just suited for the purpose.

After we had taunted each other for some time, as we went along, he flung his stick on the ground, and stripped himself stark naked. I took off my hat and my neckcloth, and took his stick in my hand; whereupon, running to the hedge, he took a stake, and straight we set to like two furies.

After fighting for some time, our sticks were s.h.i.+vered to pieces and quite short; sometimes we were upon the ground, but did not give up fighting on that account. Many people came up and would fain have parted us, but we would by no means let them. At last we agreed to go and pull fresh stakes, and then we went at it again, until he could no longer stand. The marks of this battle are upon him and me to this day. At last, covered with a gore of blood, he was dragged home by his neighbours. He was in a dreadful condition, and many thought he would die. On the morrow there came an alarm that he was dead, whereupon I escaped across the mountain to Pentre y Foelas, to the old man Sion Dafydd, to read his old books.”

After staying there a little time, and getting his wounds tended by an old woman, he departed, and skulked about in various places, doing now and then a little work, until, hearing his adversary was recovering, he returned to his home. He went on writing and performing interludes till he fell in love with a young woman rather religiously inclined, whom he married in the year 1763, when he was in his twenty-fourth year. The young couple settled down on a little place near the town of Denbigh, called Ale Fowlio. They kept three cows and four horses. The wife superintended the cows, and Tom with his horses carried wood from Gwenynos to Ruddlan, and soon excelled all other carters ”in loading, and in everything connected with the management of wood.” Tom, in the pride of his heart, must needs be helping his fellow-carriers, whilst labouring with them in the forests, till his wife told him he was a fool for his pains, and advised him to go and load in the afternoon, when n.o.body would be about, offering to go and help him. He listened to her advice, and took her with him.

”The dear creature,” says he, ”a.s.sisted me for some time, but as she was with child, and on that account not exactly fit to turn the roll of the crane with levers of iron, I formed the plan of hooking the horses to the rope, in order to raise up the wood which was to be loaded, and by long teaching the horses to pull and to stop, I contrived to make loading a much easier task, both to my wife and myself. Now this was the first hooking of horses to the rope of the crane which was ever done either in Wales or England. Subsequently I had plenty of leisure and rest, instead of toiling amidst other carriers.”

Leaving Ale Fowlio, he took up his abode nearer to Denbigh, and continued carrying wood. Several of his horses died, and he was soon in difficulties, and was glad to accept an invitation from certain miners of the county of Flint to go and play them an interlude. As he was playing them one called ”A Vision of the Course of the World,” which he had written for the occasion, and which was founded on, and named after, the first part of the work of Master Ellis Wyn, he was arrested at the suit of one Mostyn of Calcoed. He, however, got bail, and partly by carrying, and partly by playing interludes, soon raised enough money to pay his debt. He then made another interlude, called ”Riches and Poverty,” by which he gained a great deal of money. He then wrote two others, one called ”The Three a.s.sociates of Man, namely the World, Nature, and Conscience;” the other ent.i.tled ”The King, the Justice, the Bishop and the Husbandman,” both of which he and certain of his companions acted with great success. After he had made all that he could by acting these pieces, he printed them. When printed, they had a considerable sale, and Tom was soon able to set up again as a carter. He went on carting and carrying for upwards of twelve years, at the end of which time he was worth, with one thing and the other, upwards of three hundred pounds, which was considered a very considerable property about ninety years ago in Wales. He then, in a luckless hour, ”when,” to use his own words, ”he was at leisure at home, like King David on the top of his house,” mixed himself up with the concerns of an uncle of his, a brother of his father.

He first became bail for him, and subsequently made himself answerable for the amount of a bill, due by his uncle to a lawyer. His becoming answerable for the bill nearly proved the utter ruin of our hero. His uncle failed, and left him to pay it. The lawyer took out a writ against him. It would have been well for Tom if he had paid the money at once, but he went on dallying and compromising with the lawyer, till he became terribly involved in his web. To increase his difficulties, work became slack; so at last he packed his things upon his carts, and with his family, consisting of his wife and three daughters, fled into Montgomerys.h.i.+re. The lawyer, however, soon got information of his whereabout, and threatened to arrest him. Tom, after trying in vain to arrange matters with him, fled into South Wales, to Carmarthens.h.i.+re, where he carried wood for a timber-merchant, and kept a turnpike gate, which belonged to the same individual. But the ”old cancer” still followed him, and his horses were seized for the debt. His neighbours, however, a.s.sisted him, and bought the horses in at a low price when they were put up for sale, and restored them to him, for what they had given.

Even then the matter was not satisfactorily settled, for, years afterwards, on the decease of Tom's father, the lawyer seized upon the property, which by law descended to Tom O'r Nant, and turned his poor old mother out upon the cold mountain side.

Many strange adventures occurred to Tom in South Wales, but those which befell him whilst officiating as a turnpike-keeper were certainly the most extraordinary. If what he says be true, as of course it is-for who shall presume to doubt Tom O' the Dingle's veracity?-whosoever fills the office of turnpike-keeper in Wild Wales should be a person of very considerable nerve.

”We were in the habit of seeing,” says Tom, ”plenty of pa.s.sengers going through the gate without paying toll; I mean such things as are called phantoms, or illusions-sometimes there were hea.r.s.es and mourning coaches, sometimes funeral processions on foot, the whole to be seen as distinctly as anything could be seen, especially at night-time. I saw myself on a certain night a hea.r.s.e go through the gate whilst it was shut; I saw the horses and the harness, the postilion, and the coachman, and the tufts of hair such as are seen on the tops of hea.r.s.es, and I saw the wheels scattering the stones in the road, just as other wheels would have done.

Then I saw a funeral of the same character, for all the world like a real funeral; there was the bier and the black drapery. I have seen more than one. If a young man was to be buried there would be a white sheet, or something that looked like one-and sometimes I have seen a flaring candle going past.

”Once a traveller pa.s.sing through the gate called out to me: 'Look!

yonder is a corpse candle coming through the fields beside the highway.'

So we paid attention to it as it moved, making apparently towards the church from the other side. Sometimes it would be quite near the road, another time some way into the fields. And sure enough after the lapse of a little time a body was brought by exactly the same route by which the candle had come, owing to the proper road being blocked up with snow.

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