No Sooner Was He
Inside Than The Beggar, Or Rather Tom Shone Catti, For It Was He,
Jumped On The
Horse's back, and rode away to the farmer's house
which was some ten miles distant, altering his dress and appearance
As he rode along, having various articles of disguise in his
wallet. Arriving at the house he told the farmer's wife that her
husband was in the greatest trouble, and wanted fifty pounds, which
she was to send by him, and that he came mounted on her husband's
horse, and brought his whip, that she might know he was authorised
to receive the money. The wife, seeing the horse and the whip,
delivered the money to Tom without hesitation, who forthwith made
the best of his way to London, where he sold the horse, and made
himself merry with the price, and with what he got from the
farmer's wife, not returning to Wales for several months. Though
Tom was known by everybody to be a thief, he appears to have lived
on very good terms with the generality of his neighbours, both rich
and poor. The poor he conciliated by being very free of the money
which he acquired by theft and robbery, and with the rich he
ingratiated himself by humorous jesting, at which he was a
proficient, and by being able to sing a good song. At length,
being an extremely good-looking young fellow, he induced a wealthy
lady to promise to marry him. This lady is represented by some as
a widow, and by others as a virgin heiress. After some time,
however, she refused to perform her promise and barred her doors
against him. Tom retired to a cave on the side of a steep wild
hill near the lady's house, to which he frequently repaired, and at
last, having induced her to stretch her hand to him through the
window bars, under the pretence that he wished to imprint a parting
kiss upon it, he won her by seizing her hand and threatening to cut
it off unless she performed her promise. Then, as everything at
the time at which he lived could be done by means of money, he soon
obtained for himself a general pardon, and likewise a commission as
justice of the peace, which he held to the time of his death, to
the satisfaction of everybody except thieves and ill-doers, against
whom he waged incessant war, and with whom he was admirably
qualified to cope, from the knowledge he possessed of their ways
and habits, from having passed so many years of his life in the
exercise of the thieving trade. In his youth he was much addicted
to poetry, and a great many pennillion of his composition, chiefly
on his own thievish exploits, are yet recited by the inhabitants of
certain districts of the shires of Brecon, Carmarthen, and
Cardigan.
Such is the history or rather the outline of the history of Twm
Shone Catti. Concerning the actions attributed to him, it is
necessary to say that the greater part consist of myths, which are
told of particular individuals of every country, from the Indian
Ocean to the Atlantic: for example, the story of cutting off the
bull's tail is not only told of him but of the Irish thief Delany,
and is to be found in the "Lives of Irish Rogues and Rapparees;"
certain tricks related of him in the printed tale bearing his name
are almost identical with various rogueries related in the story-
book of Klim the Russian robber, (15) and the most poetical part of
Tom Shone's history, namely, that in which he threatens to cut off
the hand of the reluctant bride unless she performs her promise,
is, in all probability, an offshoot of the grand myth of "the
severed hand," which in various ways figures in the stories of most
nations, and which is turned to considerable account in the tale of
the above-mentioned Russian worthy Klim.
CHAPTER XCIV
Llan Ddewi Brefi - Pelagian Heresy - Hu Gadarn - God of Agriculture
- The Silver Cup - Rude Tablet.
IT was about eleven o'clock in the morning when I started from
Tregaron; the sky was still cloudy and heavy. I took the road to
Lampeter, distant about eight miles, intending, however, to go much
farther ere I stopped for the night. The road lay nearly south-
west. I passed by Aber Coed, a homestead near the bottom of a
dingle down which runs a brook into the Teivi, which flows here
close by the road; then by Aber Carvan, where another brook
disembogues. Aber, as perhaps the reader already knows, is a
disemboguement, and wherever a place commences with Aber there to a
certainty does a river flow into the sea, or a brook or rivulet
into a river. I next passed through Nant Derven, and in about
three-quarters of an hour after leaving Tregaron reached a place of
old renown called Llan Ddewi Brefi.
Llan Ddewi Brefi is a small village situated at the entrance of a
gorge leading up to some lofty hills which rise to the east and
belong to the same mountain range as those near Tregaron. A brook
flowing from the hills murmurs through it and at length finds its
way into the Teivi. An ancient church stands on a little rising
ground just below the hills; multitudes of rooks inhabit its
steeple and fill throughout the day the air with their cawing. The
place wears a remarkable air of solitude, but presents nothing of
gloom and horror, and seems just the kind of spot in which some
quiet pensive man, fatigued but not soured by the turmoil of the
world, might settle down, enjoy a few innocent pleasures, make his
peace with God, and then compose himself to his long sleep.
It is not without reason that Llan Ddewi Brefi has been called a
place of old renown. In the fifth century, one of the most
remarkable ecclesiastical convocations which the world has ever
seen was held in this secluded spot.
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