He
Certainly Seemed To Have Succeeded In Teaching Them Good Manners:
As I was leaving the church, I met a number of little boys
belonging to the church school:
No sooner did they see me than
they drew themselves up it, a rank on one side, and as I passed
took off their caps and simultaneously shouted, "Good-morning!"
And now something with respect to the celebrated hero of Tregaron,
Tom Shone Catti, concerning whom I picked up a good deal during my
short stay there, and of whom I subsequently read something in
printed books. (14)
According to the tradition of the country, he was the illegitimate
son of Sir John Wynn of Gwedir, by one Catherine Jones of Tregaron,
and was born at a place called Fynnon Lidiart, close by Tregaron,
towards the conclusion of the sixteenth century. He was baptised
by the name of Thomas Jones, but was generally called Tom Shone
Catti, that is Tom Jones, son of Catti or Catherine. His mother,
who was a person of some little education, brought him up, and
taught him to read and write. His life, till his eighteenth year,
was much like other peasant boys; he kept crows, drove bullocks,
and learned to plough and harrow, but always showed a disposition
to roguery and mischief. Between eighteen and nineteen, in order
to free himself and his mother from poverty which they had long
endured, he adopted the profession of a thief, and soon became
celebrated through the whole of Wales for the cleverness and
adroitness which he exercised in his calling; qualities in which he
appears to have trusted much more than in strength and daring,
though well endowed with both.
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