The Creature Had Not
Been Turned Out, As It Ought To Have Been, Before My Wife And
Daughter Retired, And
Feeling cold had got upon the table and
thence had sprung upon my back for the sake of the warmth
Which it
knew was to be found there; and no doubt the springing on my
shoulders by the ecclesiastical cat was what I took in my dream to
be the slap on my shoulders by the Wolverhampton gent.
The day of the fair was dull and gloomy, an exact counterpart of
the previous Saturday. Owing to some cause I did not go into the
fair till past one o'clock, and then seeing neither immense hogs
nor immense men I concluded that the gents of Wolverhampton had
been there, and after purchasing the larger porkers had departed
with their bargains to their native district. After sauntering
about a little time I returned home. After dinner I went again
into the fair along with my wife; the stock business had long been
over, but I observed more stalls than in the morning, and a far
greater throng, for the country people for miles round had poured
into the little town. By a stall on which were some poor legs and
shoulders of mutton I perceived the English butcher, whom the Welsh
one had attempted to slaughter. I recognised him by a patch which
he wore on his cheek. My wife and I went up and inquired how he
was. He said that he still felt poorly, but that he hoped he
should get round. I asked him if he remembered me; and received
for answer that he remembered having seen me when the examination
took place into "his matter." I then inquired what had become of
his antagonist and was told that he was in prison awaiting his
trial. I gathered from him that he was a native of the Southdown
country and a shepherd by profession; that he had been engaged by
the squire of Porkington in Shropshire to look after his sheep, and
that he had lived there a year or two, but becoming tired of his
situation he had come to Llangollen, where he had married a
Welshwoman and set up as a butcher. We told him that as he was our
countryman we should be happy to deal with him sometimes; he,
however, received the information with perfect apathy, never so
much as saying "thank you." He was a tall lanikin figure with a
pair of large, lack-lustre staring eyes, and upon the whole
appeared to be good for very little. Leaving him we went some way
up the principal street; presently my wife turned into a shop, and
I observing a little bookstall went up to it and began to inspect
the books. They were chiefly in Welsh. Seeing a kind of chap
book, which bore on its title-page the name of Twm O'r Nant, I took
it up. It was called Y Llwyn Celyn or the Holy Grove, and
contained the life and one of the interludes of Tom O' the Dingle
or Thomas Edwards. It purported to be the first of four numbers,
each of which amongst other things was to contain one of his
interludes. The price, of the number was one shilling. I
questioned the man of the stall about the other numbers, but found
that this was the only one which he possessed. Eager, however, to
read an interlude of the celebrated Tom, I purchased it and turned
away from the stall. Scarcely had I done so when I saw a wild-
looking woman with two wild children looking at me. The woman
curtseyed to me, and I thought I recognised the elder of the two
Irish females whom I had seen in the tent on the green meadow near
Chester. I was going to address her, but just then my wife called
to me from the shop and I went to her, and when I returned to look
for the woman she and her children had disappeared, and though I
searched about for her I could not see her, for which I was sorry,
as I wished very much to have some conversation with her about the
ways of the Irish wanderers. I was thinking of going to look for
her up "Paddy's dingle," but my wife meeting me, begged me to go
home with her, as it was getting late. So I went home with my
better half, bearing my late literary acquisition in my hand.
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 extract 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 Parchell, on land which once belonged
to the celebrated Iolo Goch.
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