This unexpected news, and the evident horror evinced by the fair maidens for him, quite overcame Watt, and he showed unmistakable signs of the fear which had taken possession of him. From Martha Gwyn, Twm learned that poor Gwenny's affection for him was unchanged, but it was thought, for all that, said the candid girl, that she will be married to a Breconshire farmer's son, who met her in Herefordshire, when she went a hop-picking there.

"But if Gwenny has him," said Martha, "it will be for the sake of making a home for her poor father."

Twm's generous heart prompted him to give each maiden a piece of silver; and, having made them eat heartily of a good homely, substantial meal of cheese and bread and ale, he dismissed them on their journey. Watt, in great agony of mind, exclaimed-

"Oh G.o.d, where shall I fly! all my supposed security I find but a dream, and misery alone awaits me! When I told you the tale of my enormities, I kept back the relation of one crime-a dreadful one-which, lost as I am, I felt averse to acknowledge, and too heart-smote with the consciousness of its atrocity, to turn to it my most secret thought-'twas a deed of blood, the crime of murder!

"You remember a tall, thin, skeleton-like man, generally dressed in a suit of grey, who lived in a cottage on the mountain, in the neighbourhood of Tregaron, known by the nickname of Stalking Simon the Mooncalf, from his wandering by moon-light over the hills. This man was known to be a spy, employed and paid by all the neighbouring farmers.

His habits were, to sleep all day and to spend the night on the hill, watching to identify the hedge-pluckers and sheep-stealers. Many poor persons who depended on their nightly excursions for fuel, while they deemed themselves un.o.bserved of any human being, cutting down a tree, or drawing dry wood from an old hedge, would suddenly find themselves in the presence of Stalking Simon. So instantaneous was his appearance, as to startle his victims with the idea of an apparition suddenly sprung up through the ground, as his approach was never seen till close upon them.

"''Tis only me, neighbour,' would be the hypocrite's reply, 'searching for my stray pony:' but when two persons had been executed and three transported, on his evidence, the nature of his employment became known, and he was execrated by the whole country.

"One moon-light night, as I was skinning a fine weather, which I had suspended and spread out on an old storm-beaten thorn, in a field adjoining the mountain, easy in mind, and so fearless of danger, that I whistled in a half hushed manner, as I followed my illicit occupation, a circ.u.mstance took place that wrought a violent change in the tone of my mind. My thoughts ran on the whimsicality of the idea of selling this very mutton to the rightful owner, on the morrow, which was market-day, and laughing inwardly at the thought: all at once, Stalking Simon, with a single stride, moved from behind a mossy dwarf thorn, gray as his own suit, and stood before me. My blood curdled with terror; but when the old stone-hearted wretch made the old Judas-like reply-

"'It is only me, searching for my pony,' I knew my danger, and my terror changed to savage ferocity against the vile informer, who had ruined so many of my friends and neighbours. I darted on him, grasped his collar with one hand, and with the other stabbed him to the heart."

Watt's tale was now ended, and he seemed to be terribly agitated at the recollection of old Simon's murder, and of the dreadful position into which his crime had brought him.

"O G.o.d! what shall I do; where shall I fly?" he exclaimed, "I cannot return, for that road leads straight to the gallows, and in London I should be in hourly danger of being seen by somebody from the country.

Since the perpetration of this deed of blood, I have not known an hour's peace. Heaven is my witness, I could be content with slavery, and smile beneath the man-driver's whip-could strip myself and wander the world in nakedness, or herd with beasts, to regain my former peace and innocence!

Oh, I could labour till my bones ached, and my exhausted body dropped to the earth with fatigue, to be once more free from the keen stings of a guilty conscience!"

Twm was but a poor comforter; for his strict ideas of justice and retribution made him look upon Watt's terrible agony as part of the punishment which he was called upon to pay for the awful crime of murder.

After all, Watt's distress was due quite as much to the fear of the gallows, which he now saw to be in close proximity to him, as to regret and repentance for his unwarrantable deed.

Twm hardly recognized Watt as he sat there, his face blanched with fear, large drops of sweat rolling down his pale checks, with quivering lips and staring eyes, all showing the effect which his knowledge of the dreadful penalty which, from every prospect, speedily awaited him.

A grey-coated man now approaching the tavern, brought dreadful a.s.sociations to Watt's terrified conscience, and, in the utmost trepidation, he darted out at the back door of the inn, and ran across the fields with the speed of a pursued murderer.

CHAPTER XXIX.

TWM encounters Tom Dorbell. The quick encounter of their wits, in which our hero has the advantage. Twm rescues a high dignitary of the church.

Twm's triumphal entry into London in a bishop's carriage.

It was yet only four o'clock the following morning, when our hero was once more upon the road. The stars were bright as at midnight, and the fine bracing frost, the glory of our northern clime, seemed to have purified his blood, and at the same time excited his fancy, so that both mind and body were sweetly attuned, and in the full glow of enjoyment.

It might be thought the knowledge he had gained of Gwenny's coquettings would have disheartened him; but his residence at Ystrad Feen, with his communion with the "lady of his vision," had a little tinged his mind with something of romantic forebodings, that overshone the rusticity of earlier impressions.

Elastic and l.u.s.ty were his healthy limbs, as they bounded to the music of his heart, while he strode forward on the highway, exulting in the thought that the day had at length arrived on which his eyes were to be regaled with a sight of the far-famed city of London.

In this happy spirit, he successively pa.s.sed through Langley Broom and Colnbrook, anxiously hoping to reach Hounslow by mid-day. Thus, light of heart, and full of brilliant antic.i.p.ations, he continued to bound along the road.

In this overweening fit of enthusiasm, he considered danger of every sort entirely out of the question; and this, too, if he knew the truth, while he wandered over the very hot-bed of robbers, both foot-pads and equestrians! Deluded by such a course of cogitation, he began to jeer himself on his simplicity in keeping his pistols loaded, and considered whether he had best fire them off for amus.e.m.e.nt or not.

Before he had formed his resolution, he was startled to hear a rude and heavy tread close at his heels. Sudden as the thought, he turned round, and reeled some steps backward at the sight that presented itself! In the advanced light of the morning, he beheld a villainous-looking powerful man, with a long black-beard, who might have pa.s.sed for the high-priest of a Jewish synagogue. He grasped a pistol that was levelled at his head, while his forefinger seemed actually pressing on the trigger. By his ominous silence, and the fierce glare of his eye, Twm conceived that murder and not robbery was his object, till the ruffian roared, "Garnish or die!"

"Wha-what is garnish?" stuttered Twm.

"Money, and be d-d to you, or here goes!" replied the bearded man, without the slightest touch of the dialect of the people whose chin-tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs he had a.s.sumed. Our hero saw at once that this prepared ruffian was not to be trifled with, and that an instant's delay might cost him his existence; therefore, he immediately produced from his bosom the packet entrusted to him by Sir George Devereaux.

As the robber reached to s.n.a.t.c.h it, Twm's wits were at work; a.s.suming the dialect and foolery which he knew pa.s.sed among the English for Welsh, "Here wa.s.s the money, look you now, but G.o.d tam! it wa.s.s not mine, but you shall haf it in the tifel's name, only let master see I wa.s.s praave, and show fight for it, look you, and not gif it up like a craaven." With that he gave it into the fellow's hand, saying, "Now, her begs, and solicits, and entreats you to be so kind a.s.s to shoot some holes in hur cott lappets, just a pounce or two, look you, to prove hur hard fight and praavery."

"Aye, with the greatest pleasure in life!" cried the ruffian, laughing.

Here Twm put off his coat in an instant, and threw it over a bush on the roadside. When the robber fired at it, Twm leapt up, laughing with idiotic glee, crying, "Got pless hur for a praave marksman! that was a n.o.ble pounce, look you! But now another pounce for tother lappet, and I wa.s.s have great praise for praavery!"

So the foot-pad, apparently amused, fired again, and Twm leapt and laughed as before, exclaiming, "That was another nople pounce, look!" He now ran to the bush, and s.n.a.t.c.hing up his coat, put it on, seemingly as delighted with its perforations as a warrior of his vaunted scars. "Now, one pounce more through my hat, look you, and all will be right!" added he, appealingly.

"Why, as to that!" replied the robber, commencing to break open the parcel with great eagerness, "I have no more pounces, as you call them, to give you."

"But I have!" thundered our hero, holding a pistol in each hand to the robber's breast, "return the packet and garnish!" continued he, "or I will pounce your rascal prains apout the road, look you-and that wa.s.s not goot for your health, look you, this fine morning."

The robber was no bad judge of circ.u.mstances, so immediately returned the packet. "Garnish!" roared Twm, laughing, and holding the pistols nearer to his head; "I must have a new suit for the one you pounced for me, look you now!" The robber handed him a heavy purse, with a couple of splendid watches, exclaiming "the devil's luck to you with them!" on which Twm s.n.a.t.c.hed off his false beard, as he laughingly said, "So much for a shallow knave whose length of beard is greater than his brains!" No sooner was the beard removed, than Twm saw a deep scar on his left jaw, which cleared all doubt as to the ident.i.ty of his antagonist.

"Never was Tom Dorbell so humbugged before!" cried the baffled ruffian, as he tore his hair up by the roots in resentment against Fortune, that allowed such an inauspicious day to dawn on him.

"What! Tom Dorbell, the Gallant Glover?" queried Twm, with amazement.

"The same," growled the knight of the road, "till my luck turned; but now I am n.o.body."

"By that blushing witness on your jaw-bone, I perceive we once met before," quoth Twm, jeeringly; "I think, on the other side of Reading. I think, too, that, in token of friendship, we exchanged horses on that occasion, a Welsh pony for a gallant grey; and, I think, also, but perhaps I am mistaken, that I threw thee a long purse full of something _that uncle Timothy gave I to market for him at Reading_."

By the well mimicked simplicity of the latter words, the freebooter knew him at once, and laughing in his turn, vowing that he was now satisfied that he was outdone by no common 'un, "but a d-ned clever fellow, whoever thee bee'st" Quick as the fox who hears the hounds and hunters long before the sound can reach indifferent ears, Tom Dorbell started-gave a hasty farewell, dashed through the hedge, over a field, and was soon out of sight.

The Gallant Glover's well-trained ears had heard the sound of horses'

feet, and, taking all things into consideration, he had thought it best to decline any fresh interview with travelling humanity until he had recovered his serenity of mind, and was in a position to enforce any demands it might please him to make.

As the approaching horse and rider neared him, Twm perceived the latter to be a wounded man, evidently so much disabled as to be scarcely capable of sitting on his horse. With courteous but hurried accents, the stranger addressed our hero, lifting his hat as he spoke.

"Your pardon, sir; if you are armed and inclined to act a brave and generous part, you have now an opportunity of doing so." Twm declared his readiness. The stranger dismounted, with pain; "Take this horse,"

cried he, "ride forward as fast as you can, and a quarter of a mile on you will find a couple of robbers rifling a coach. Other a.s.sistance may arrive-on! on, sir! in heaven's name! the party a.s.saulted are of no common rank or estimation-profit and reputation will attend their liberator, and"-Twm was out of hearing before he could finish his sentence.

Never did a young medical pract.i.tioner, called on an emergency to the bedside of a wealthy patient, whom he never thought to have the honour to approach, ride forth with a more excited imagination. Fire flashed from the stones, ground to powder by his horse's hoofs, and brief was the gallop that brought him in sight of the scene of villainy.

The first object that struck his view were three or four horses, with their harness cut, one dead, and the others struggling on the road-side, while the centre was occupied by an un-horsed coach. As he came nearer, he distinctly made out a man at each door of the vehicle, their feet resting on the steps, while their heads, and the greater portion of their bodies, were invisible, implying their activity in the work of depredation. So intently devoted were they to this grand undertaking, that Twm's approach seemed either unnoticed or mistaken, perhaps, for the wounded and unharmed gentleman's, who had apprised him of this nefarious business. With that happy forethought given by indulgent Providence to the self-dependent, and which forms one of the grand ingredients in the chalice of success, our hero turned his horse from the thundering road to the soundless green beside it, and silently gained upon his object.

He arrived within twenty paces of the coach, when the green altogether ceased. Dismounting with the alacrity of the occasion, silent as the mole, and swift as the greyhound, he made a rush forward, and, contrary to his expectation, he found himself, unchallenged or unnoticed, close to the coach. He heard one of the amiable threatening instant death to his "Lordship's reverence" unless his watch accompanied his purse into the hands of his "solicitors."

The opposite worthy was equally polite to a lady, after his own fashion, declaring that he had shot one of her s.e.x lately for less provocation than she had shown, in withholding his fair demands, which was merely all her cash and jewels.

Twm's instantaneous action was to catch the nearest gentleman by the ankles. With a powerful drag backwards, his feet were jerked off the coach-steps, and his full face literally _sc.r.a.ped_ an ungentle acquaintance with their iron edges, in its rapid descent to the frosty road, which was flooded with his blood.

"Hollo! where are you, Bill?" enquired his active partner, thinking that he had merely lost his footing and falling accidentally.

"Here!" cried Twm, firing at the word, when the robber fell backward from his perch, a lifeless corpse. Before he could recover himself, our hero was grappled at the throat by the powerful hands of the first robber. In the struggle, Twm managed to strike him twice with his discharged pistol on his blood-covered face; but the strong ruffian's tenacious grip tightened notwithstanding; and our tale must have terminated here, with the death of its hero, but for an unexpected relief.