Tregaron Church - The Minister - Good Morning - Tom Shone's Disguises - Tom and the Lady - Klim and Catti.
I EXPERIENCED very good entertainment at the Tregaron Inn, had an excellent supper and a very comfortable bed. I arose at about eight in the morning. The day was dull and misty. After breakfast, according to my usual fashion, I took a stroll to see about. The town, which is very small, stands in a valley, near some wild hills called the Berwyn, like the range to the south of Llangollen. The stream, which runs through it and which falls into the Teivi at a little distance from the town, is called the Brennig, probably because it descends from the Berwyn hills. These southern Berwyns form a very extensive mountain region, extending into Brecon and Carmarthenshire, and contain within them, as I long subsequently found, some of the wildest solitudes and most romantic scenery in Wales. High up amidst them, at about five miles from Tregaron, is a deep, broad lake which constitutes the source of the Towy, a very beautiful stream, which after many turnings and receiving the waters of numerous small streams discharges itself into Carmarthen Bay.
I did not fail to pay a visit to Tregaron church. It is an antique building with a stone tower. The door being open, as the door of a church always should be, I entered, and was kindly shown by the clerk, whom I met in the aisle, all about the sacred edifice.
There was not much to be seen. Amongst the monuments was a stone tablet to John Herbert, who died 1690. The clerk told me that the name of the clergyman of Tregaron was Hughes; he said that he was an excellent, charitable man, who preached the Gospel, and gave himself great trouble in educating the children of the poor. 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. His disguises were innumerable, and all impenetrable; sometimes he would appear as an ancient crone;sometimes as a begging cripple; sometimes as a broken soldier.