By this time night was coming on, and
the multitude went away, some drunk, some hungry for want of food,
but the greater part laughing as if they would split their sides.
The merchant cried like a child, bitterly lamenting his folly, and
told me that he should have to take the ship to pieces before he
could ever get it out of the ditch.
"I told him that I could take it to the river, provided I could but
get three or four men to help me; whereupon he said that if I could
but get the vessel to the water he would give me anything I asked,
and earnestly begged me to come the next morning, if possible. I
did come with the lad and four horses. I went before the team, and
set the men to work to break a hole through a great old wall, which
stood as it were before the ship. We then laid a piece of timber
across the hole from which was a chain, to which the tackle, that
is the rope and pulleys, was hooked. We then hooked one end of the
rope to the ship, and set the horses to pull at the other. The
ship came out of the hole prosperously enough, and then we had to
hook the tackle to a tree, which was growing near, and by this
means we got the ship forward; but when we came to soft ground we
were obliged to put planks under the wheels to prevent their
sinking under the immense weight; when we came to the end of the
foremost planks we put the hinder ones before, and so on; when
there was no tree at hand to which we could hook the tackle, we
were obliged to drive a post down to hook it to. So from tree to
post it got down to the river in a few days. I was promised noble
wages by the merchant, but I never got anything from him but
promises and praises. Some people came to look at us, and gave us
money to get ale, and that was all."
The merchant subsequently turned out a very great knave, cheating
Tom on various occasions, and finally broke very much in his debt.
Tom was obliged to sell off everything, and left South Wales
without horses or waggon; his old friend the Muse, however, stood
him in good stead.
"Before I left," says he, "I went to Brecon, and printed the
'Interlude of the King, the Justice, the Bishop, and the
Husbandman,' and got an old acquaintance of mine to play it with
me, and help me to sell the books. I likewise busied myself in
getting subscribers to a book of songs called the 'Garden of
Minstrelsy.' It was printed at Trefecca. The expense attending
the printing amounted to fifty-two pounds, but I was fortunate
enough to dispose of two thousand copies. I subsequently composed
an interlude called 'Pleasure and Care,' and printed it; and after
that I made an interlude called the 'Three Powerful Ones of the
World: Poverty, Love, and Death.'"
The poet's daughters were not successful in the tavern speculation
at Llandeilo, and followed their father into North Wales. The
second he apprenticed to a milliner, the other two lived with him
till the day of his death. He settled at Denbigh in a small house
which he was enabled to furnish by means of two or three small sums
which he recovered for work done a long time before. Shortly after
his return, his father died, and the lawyer seized the little
property "for the old curse," and turned Tom's mother out.
After his return from the South Tom went about for some time
playing interludes, and then turned his hand to many things. He
learnt the trade of stonemason, took jobs, and kept workmen. He
then went amongst certain bricklayers, and induced them to teach
him their craft; "and shortly," as he says, "became a very lion at
bricklaying. For the last four or five years," says he, towards
the conclusion of his history, "my work has been to put up iron
ovens and likewise furnaces of all kinds, also grates, stoves and
boilers, and not unfrequently I have practised as a smoke doctor."
The following feats of strength he performed after his return from
South Wales, when he was probably about sixty years of age:-
"About a year after my return from the South," says he, "I met with
an old carrier of wood, who had many a time worked along with me.
He and I were at the Hand at Ruthyn along with various others, and
in the course of discourse my friend said to me: 'Tom, thou art
much weaker than thou wast when we carted wood together.' I
answered that in my opinion I was not a bit weaker than I was then.
Now it happened that at the moment we were talking there were some
sacks of wheat in the hall which were going to Chester by the
carrier's waggon. They might hold about three bushels each, and I
said that if I could get three of the sacks upon the table, and had
them tied together, I would carry them into the street and back
again; and so I did; many who were present tried to do the same
thing, but all failed.
"Another time when I was at Chester I lifted a barrel of porter
from the street to the hinder part of the waggon solely by strength
of back and arms."
He was once run over by a loaded waggon, but strange to say escaped
without the slightest injury.
