Читать книгу The Adventures and Vagaries of Twm Shôn Catti - T. J. Llewelyn Prichard - Страница 7

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An essay on courting in bed. Our hero removed to the curate’s school.

The scene so lightly touched upon in the last chapter, between our schoolmistress and her beau, called forth the mischievous talents of little Twm Shôn Catti, who, while they sat side by side at the goodly oak table, fastened them together by the coat and gown with a peeled thorn spike, which, before the introduction of pins, was used by the fair sex to join together their various articles of attire. When his mother rose suddenly to help her spoon-merchant with more spoon meat, she rather surprized him by carrying away, with his heart, the greater part of the tattered skirt of his old coat, so that Jack might have said, with Tag the author,

“The lovely maid on whom I doat,

Has made a spencer of my coat.”

The wicked urchin who caused this unsanctioned union, set up a loud laugh, and Catti’s grumpy sister Juggy, for the first time in her life, astonished them with a grin on the occasion. Twm received a severe rebuke from his parent, and the hapless Jack, with the view of propitiating an evil spirit that might prove troublesome to him hereafter, made him a present of a new spoon, which, because it was merely a common one, he ungratefully threw into the blazing turf fire, which glowed on the hearth in a higher pile and wider dimensions than usual, and demanded one of his best box-wood ware. Jack would have given it to him immediately, but for the intervention of his mother, who forbade the indulgence. No sooner, however, was he gone than Twm watched his opportunity and purloined as many of the better sort as he could conveniently take away unperceived, and sold them at the cheap rate of stolen goods, to an old woman named, or rather nick-named, Rachel Ketch, from some supposed resemblance in her character to that of the finisher of the law, so surnamed, although some persons roundly asserted that she was in fact a relict one of those celebrated law officers, one John Ketch esquire, of Stretch-neck Place, Sessions Court, Carmarthen. As no further consequence followed this act of unprovoked delinquency, it was scarcely worth mentioning, except that it stands as the first of the kind on record; and when discovered, Twm’s over affectionate mother did not punish him for it—an omission much censured by rigid people, who construed this petty act into the slight root from which sprung the huge tree of his after enormities;

“But maudlin mothers, all, have tender hearts,

Too kind to root an early shoot of vice

By wholesome chastisement. The little darlings!

Who could punish them, whate’er their faults?”

We come now to an era in this history when our hero entered another scene of life, in that of a new-school, which event was ushered in by unlooked for circumstances that must be first narrated.

It may not be unknown to our readers that there has existed a custom, in some parts of Wales, time out of mind, of courting in bed; this comfortable mode of forwarding a marriage connexion prevailed very generally at Tregaron, to the great scandal and virtuous indignation of the lady of Squire Graspacre. It was amazing to witness with what energy this good gentlewoman set about reforming the people, by the forcible abolishment of what she was pleased to call, this odious, dangerous, blasphemous, and ungodly custom. Her patronage was for ever lost to any man or woman, youth or maid, of the town or country, who was most distantly related to, or connected with any person who connived at bed courtship. There was not a cottager who called at the great house for a pitcher of whey, skim milk, or buttermilk, as a return for labour in harvest time, but she closely examined on this head; and woe to the wretch who had the temerity to assert that there was no harm in the custom; or that that the wooers merely laid down in their clothes, and thus conversed at their ease on their future plans or prospects; or who denied that such a situation was more calculated for amorous caresses and endearments than sitting in the chimney corner. Mrs. Graspacre was certainly, most outrageously virtuous—a very termagant of decorous propriety! if any person dared, in her presence, to advocate this proscribed and utterly condemned mode, disdaining to argue the point, she would settle the matter in a summary manner, peculiarly her own, by protesting she would have any woman burnt alive who would submit to be courted in bed. To such a fiery argument no reply could possibly be made; and in time she found her account in this silencing sort of logic which gave her her own entire unimpeded way in every thing, which wonderfully restored her equanimity, and saved both time and temper to the parties concerned, who otherwise might have spent their precious hours, and more precious patience, in idle and irritable discussions on the subject.

In the course of two years there were no less than four young men, and twice as many damsels turned away from her service for courting in the hay-loft; and on those occasions the poor girls never escaped personal violence from the indignant and persevering Mrs. Graspacre. In her flaming zeal for decorum, the tongs, the poker, the pitchfork, or the hay-rake, became an instrument of chastisement; a double advantage was discovered in the terror thus created, the dignity of her sex being in the first place asserted and supported, and in the next, the offenders preferred running away without payment of wages, to standing the chance of having their heads or arms broken with a poker, or their bodies pierced by the terrible prongs of a pitchfork.

All the lowly dependants of Mrs. Graspacre found it their interest to become her spies, who soon vied with each other in giving the earliest intimation of any amorous pair who committed this most diabolical offence; and those who were least forward in bringing intelligence on this score, immediately sunk in her esteem, and were mulct of their allowance of skim milk and blue whey. But in time the old hen-wives of the neighbourhood discovered the virtue of sycophancy, and the efficacy of a little seasonable cant; and when they were not warranted by real occurrences, they contrived to conciliate their patroness by drawing upon their own fertile inventions; or at other times hinted their suspicions of certain offending parties, always taking especial care to echo her language and blazon their abhorrence of all those imps of the devil who made love beneath a rug and blanket.

Not satisfied with these auxiliaries in the cause of virtue, the zealous Mrs. Graspacre enlisted on her side a very powerful champion, in the person of the reverend Mr. Evan Evans, the curate of Tregaron. Great was her mortification to find her attempts on the rector fail of success, as he declared it dangerous to interfere with the peculiarities and long established customs of the people; especially as he conceived it was rarely that any bad consequence ensued from the mode in question: but when the evil really occurred, if a faithless swain delayed making due reparation, a gaol, exile from his native place, or a compelled marriage, held the young men in terrorum. “Besides,” quoth the worthy old rector, with a hearty laugh, “that was the very way in which I courted my own wife, and many persons who are no enemies of virtue, consider it the best mode in the world, and were I young again, ha, ha, ha! egad I think I should pursue the same fashion.” “And I too!” cries Mr. Graspacre, “as I have no objection in the world to the custom.” Had the foe of man appeared at that moment, as popularly identified—in sooty nakedness, with bloodshot eyes, and arrayed with hoofs and horns—the stare of horror which distinguished the amiable countenance of Mrs. Graspacre, could not be more strongly marked. “You, Mr. Graspacre! you! I’m astonished, but”—(with a severe glance at the rector) “when the shepherd goes astray, no wonder that the silly sheep follow his example;” with that she bounced out of the room, and slammed the door in a high fit of indignation, aggravated by the calm looks of the rector, and the provoking tittering of her own liege lord.

The rector’s honest dissent from her scheme of reformation, Mrs. Graspacre considered as a direct declaration of hostilities, and therefore, by her peculiar creed of morality, she felt herself bound to vilify his name, and most piously longed for his death, that the cause of virtue might be supported by the talents of her favorite curate, who was now, she said, on a poor stipend, which he increased by keeping a school in the church.

The reverend Evan Evans, the curate, played with his cards well; he was a harsh-featured man, lowering brows and a complete ploughman’s gait; insolent to his poor parishioners, and a very awkward cringer to the great. But flattery, direct or covert, does much, and in time completely won him the favor of the great lady. She encouraged his patience by assuring him that the vicar, in his declined state of health, could not possibly live long; and his death, happen when it might, must appear, to all unprejudiced christians, as a judgement, for advocating, or not prosecuting, that execrable custom, courting in bed. As the living had long been promised to him, the hopes and expectations of Mr. Evan Evans were very sanguine; and as he was no less ambitious than sycophantic and imperious, he looked forward with confidence to the period when he should give up school-keeping, and strut forth in a fire-shovel hat, as vicar of the parish, and a magistrate in the county. Notwithstanding that the living was promised him by the lady, he was aware that she was not always paramount, and therefore lost no opportunity of insinuating himself into the squire’s favor. With the most ludicrous efforts to humanize those harsh features of his, and to twist them into frequent grins, he would laugh loudly to the injury of his lungs, at his most vapid jokes; praise the beauty of his snub-nosed children, and his pointers; tell him where the prettiest lasses in the parish were to be found; with many such honorable civilities, that Squire Graspacre at length discovered him to be a very useful sort of person. When Sir John Wynne of Gwydir paid his before-mentioned visit, his sister introduced and recommended our curate, as a right worthy divine who deserved preferment; and the baronet promised to remember her recommendation, if anything turned out, within his power, to benefit him. Much time had elapsed, and nothing followed this agreeable promise; but Mister Evans persevered in his sycophancy, and if the labour and dirty work be properly estimated, he certainly earned a good living—in his majesty’s plantations! to which he ought to have been inducted at the expence of government.

He soon saw the weak side of his lady patroness, and ever anxious to strengthen his influence by promoting her views, he gave great encouragement to those boys in his school, who brought him the most piquant tales of their grown up brothers and sisters. Much scandal was at this time afloat respecting the loves of Carmarthen Jack and Catti of Llidiard-y-Fynnon; and right anxious was he to learn in what manner it was carried on; but as this interesting pair met only at those hours when bats and owls were on the wing, and no human witnesses abroad, his wishes were difficult of attainment. At length his wily brain hit upon a notable expedient, that offered fairly to increase his good footing with the squire’s lady.

Little Twm Shôn Catti, being the natural child of Sir John Wynne, was of course the illegitimate nephew of the great lady; a relationship which she, however, disdained to acknowledge: but the cunning curate took the liberty of observing one day, it was a great pity that the slightest drop of the noble blood of the Wynnes, however perverted and polluted, should be suffered to run to waste and be neglected. Proceeding in his drift, he insinuated that if the boy Twm Shôn Catti were removed to his school, he should not only be instructed and improved, but that he, the curate, might thereby learn from the youngster something of his mother’s proceedings; and especially, whether she entertained her lover in the legal, or the proscribed manner. This was striking on the very string that made music to her busy, meddling, troublesome soul;—she of course warmly approved of his idea, and put it into immediate execution. Thus, the very next day, in her own and her brother’s name, little Twm Shôn Catti was ordered for the future to be sent to the curate’s school, which of course, was complied with accordingly.