The Welshman

:if TREWERN.A TALE OF THE 'TH!RTIES. J How Carmarthenshire and South Wales People Spent Life in the Days of our Grandfathers. i It is regrettable that the circumstances which have delayed our notice of this book for a couple of weeks past will not even now permit us to offer our readers more than a hurried review of a rambling and rather perfunctory kind. A novel of unquestionable ability and intense local interest like Trewern deserves better treatment in the TVelshman, but seeing that the Athenaum, the Scotsman, and other papers of acknowledged literary eminence have recognised its merits, and awarded it a high place among modern works of fiction, there is happily all the less need for a laboured review such as we should probably have attempted under more favourable conditions. As a cautious, clear-headed lawyer and justices' clerk, and still more, perhaps, as town clerk of Carmarthen, Mr n. M. Thomas is known to everybody. To a more limited circle, in spite of retiring habits, he is known as a scholar in the wider sense of the term, with literary tastes and tendencies. Among educated people who are at all closely acquainted with him, not a soul would be surprised to find him unexpectedly publishing a very clever book on ancient tenures, on local history or archaeology, on prevalent blunders in classical and literary quotation, or on any out of Tialf-a-dozen other subjects that might be named. And yet we suspect that his intimate friends, if they are not very intimate indeed, must have all felt a little startled on hearing he had published a novel, if they did not add some such comment as, Well, I should have thought him a man who would add superfluous dryness to the dry quiddities of the law itself rather than a concoctor of fanciful tales." A s a fact, however, Mr Thomas has now put it beyond all manner of doubt that he possesses in large measure the gifts essential to a good story-teller. Trewern is not exactly fanciful. It is in the main a true story, or rather a true picture, wherein the more prominent actors in the life of Carmarthen, Carmarthenshire, and the adjoining counties sixty years ago are once more made to move across the old stage, and re-enact the parts, creditable or otherwise, which they originally played, the scenic arrangements and the whole entourage being as far as possible restored to what they were in that by-gone period, when the characters of this drama were no mere ghosts, hut men and women of flesh and blood-some of them very much so. Weakness of flesh and hot- ness of blood may be, locally speaking, as pre- valent now as then, but they no longer stand out in the same salient fashion as formerly. In every generation there are cases like that of Evan Rees, who had reason to regret marrying the erring lady's maid, and like that of the wronged Gwen Prytherch; but it would be a rare thing in these days to meet, among county people, with the counterpart of Mrs Trevor, 4t as careless of social opinion as a monkey," and "as shrewd in certain directions as a Jew broker,"—a widow to whom "the admiration and attentions of men of a certain sort were the most desirable things that the world could offer, who knew the value of her income as a means of attracting men, and would no more have thought of sacrificing that income by a second marriage than of entering a convent and taking the veil." Nor would it be any longer easy to find among our squires men having in their character any "traits so repulsive as those attributed to Graves, Fentoi, and others; while clerics like Llewellyn, the coarse, drunken vicar, have for a gene ration or more been growing very scarce, and have now, perhaps, quite disappeared. We venture to describe the story as being a picture," much more than a history not only because several of the minor characters intended to typify this or that class of the community are evidently quite imaginary, but also because the persons and places that chiefly engross the reader's interest do not answer in every detail to i any individual who ever lived, or to any place in existence. Still, in nearly all cases, the leading personages, and the scenes of their actions, will be recognisable at a glance to everyone who re- members, or has heard, much of what went on in these parts during the 'Thirties. The narrative, as will be seen, takes an auto- biographical form. The site of the old mansion of Trewern is left a little vague, but it is a very short way from Merlinston, stands close to the river, and has, lying away in the distance behind it, Gors Coch, and a lot of wild highland country. The teller of the tale whom we shall hereafter call the narrator, is David Evans, son of John Evans, of Trewern, a rude, bibulous old Tory squire, though perhaps a favourable specimen of the Merlinshire squire of that day. With several very obvious faults, John was courageous, gentle, incapable of malice, fairly well endowed with the qualities which then made a thorough gentleman, and without which a man would hardly take station as a gentleman in our own day. His learning must have been worthy of one who had passed creditably through Shrews- bury School and Jesus College. Even late in life he could always" justify with a Latin quotation the superfluous bottle which he pressed upon the not too reluctant parson." This is no extravagant stretch of fancy. Down to a comparatively late period, small country squires in this neighbour- hood were very familiar with the classics. Many people now living will remem ber how at the petty sessions bench, and on various public occasions, men like the late Mr Charles Morgan, of Alltygog, used to point the moral of little incidents with apt quotations from Horace and less well-known authors. We have had a still later instance in the late Mr David Pugh, who, however, carried the practice too far, seeing that he sometimes ventured to cite apophthegms in Greek for popular audiences long after Latin itself had gone out of date. But let us return to John Evans. His broken constitution did not hold out very well. He died just before the real story begins, and two or three years after David came of age. What one gathers from the narrator about himself makes it easy to perceive that there could be but little sympathy between him and his father, and that as time went on the old man began to dislike and even fear the strange, silent youth. In his cups the old squire was once overheard to say: His damned critical eyes go through me and out at the other side, and when his lantern jaws are about it takes me a full extra bottle to get drunk." Nor is the narrator easy to understand. Though very different in some respects from Lord Lytton's hero, he reminds one of Kenelm Chillingly. Speaking of his father's funeral, he says: cc I remember listening dispassionately to the burial service, which was new to me, and feeling annoyed that the triumphant outburst of Christian faith in the Epistle should be marred by certain dull passages of Hellenic disquisition." Still more eccentric seems his horror of the moist hands of Wills, the family lawyer, a feeling which drove him off, as soon as he became his own master, to employ John Gwyn, the Whig agitator, to transact his estate business. Then there remains his dislike to thinking of politics, which keeps him wobbling between Toryism and Whiggery, with the result that he made himself at length something of a pariah by voting Whig without any true political motive. Marvellous again is his conduct in proposing to a woman he did not love, while seemingly in love with another, the best-looking girl he ever saw." And the best part of this odd proceeding was the gravity with which he assured the former fair lady that he had the greatest respect for her, never suspecting meanwhile how she longed to throw some missile at his head. Last, but not least, imagine the ennui which drove him away II from the county ball, where she who was hi 1 ladylove for the time being was the cynosure of every eye. In spite of all attractions, he strays off early marvelling at the endurance of the frail girls, who would for seven hours, the length of a full winter day's shooting, cheerfully sustain a labour which seemed to me far more severe than a tramp through a snipe bog." He makes an equally bizarre figure in his duel, and his description of the upshot of the encounter is highly characteristic: All that had come of it was that a jackdaw on the cliff had been startled by a piece of lead hitting the rock a foot 'below his tail. A boy could have done as much with a stone." But before saying more of the dramatis personae, let us get some idea of the district where they lived and acted. About the identity of Merlinston no mistake is possible. The more ancient part of the town was built op about the ruins of the old castle on a mound overlooking the tidal river, which made Merlinston a port of some little importance as things were reckoned in those days." In his younger days it was not only the market and trading town of Merlinshire, but the centre of fashion, gaiety, gossip, and social intercourse for the gentry of the county," who had town houses there, and brought in their families every winter for the Merlinston season": a state of things which even then showed signs of rapidly passing away. When the narrator wanted money he went to Lewis' bank," and Lewis, being sound on the Reform question, was, as we afterwards learn, elected to Parliament, and sat twenty years for the Borough. In addition to the stir made by the gentry, the liveliness of the place was well kept up by a number of men of a lower grade in society- wags and tavern wits, whose disappearance leaves a reflection that the youths who to-day take their place are possibly no better. The wit is gone, and the drunkenness remains. A town with outrageously irregular and muddy streets, where chickens were hardly safe from foxes, and where snipe were sometimes shot ten minutes' walk from the Town-hall, the Merlinston of the narrator's early memories does not now exist, save geograpicaily." What terrible times there were at the Merlinston elections, not only at the borough contests, but on occasions like that when Jones, of Yatrad, and Tennant, of Pantglas, stoutly fought to retain the county for the Tories! Then what noisy revels at the public inns, the Red, or Tory Inn, and the Blue, or Reform Inn, and what pleasant causeries in the parlour of the Red Lion, where the genial hostess, Mrs Druce (a real personage, hardly disguised) managed to keep on good terms with both parties One little incident in the county election voting might be matched at a later date. A simple countryman who could not be accepted simply as voting" like his master" is a good deal badgered by both parties, and at last pro- claims: "I am for the Church and the land." The presiding officer, at the end of his patience, snarls, Neither the Church nor the land is a candidate. You cannot stay here all day. There are four candidates: Jones, Saunders, Tennant, and Verney, and you can vote for two of them." Jones, of Ystrad," said the old man, 11 ThaVs he I'll vote for him." All right anyone else ? Who is Saunders ? asked the voter, "Saunders of Cilhir?" "No," said the poll-clerk, amused; John Saunders, of Gray's Inn, London, Barrister-at- Law." [Saunders, it may be observed, was a Whig candidate, a stranger and little known]. Sure to be one of the Saunderses of Cilhir. J have heard that one of them is off in England somewhere. I will vote for him. The old blood for ever!" And the vote was recorded to the chagrin of the Tory agent. If Merlinston is not sufficiently identified already, it may be mentioned that the narrator, who was elected on the Common Council-the seat being almost hereditary-had some land in the Borough, filched, I believe, by my ancestors from the town lands," and The Common Council was a moribund body, for the Bill had passed, and a reformed Parliament could not longer tolerate the existence of a self-elective body, whose members had for generations fanned the revenues of the town for their own and their party's benefit to such good purpose that scarce a rood was now left to the town of the wide acres which had formerly made Merlinston the richest borough in the west. They filled by their own election vacancies occurring in their body. Their right to do so had been upheld by a monstrous ruling of the Court of Queen's Bench." The scene of a few of the more noteworthy events of the story is placed at Aberavon, a little village at the mouth of the river, where some of the better-class people of Merlinston had what may De called country houses. Here is a remark on the way they fish with Seine nets down at Aberavon. "As the circuit of the net lessens, it is exciting to watch for the glint of silver as a fish dashes against the meshes. Now and again one will leap the top line and escape, but, at length, the belly of the net is carried up on to the sand, and salmon and sewin, pearl silver from the sea, are gathered in, while the shad and other coarse fish (of which, however, our coast has not many) are thrown contemptuously back into the water. There is something akin to gambling in Seine netting which gives it an attraction, &c. I suppose all gambling is demoralising; at any rate, I never knew a Seine net-man do a day's work, summer or winter, drunk or sober. Three or four shoots of the Seine on the day's tide, possibly etc. For the rest of the year, a little poaching and a good deal of begging, sometimes even the poor-house, but never an honest day's work." We have already hinted that the author, who has evidently no wish to write a history, takes considerable liberties with persons, places, and things, often more or less disguising them. It is most probable that he was not thinking of the Seine net-men, but of some other section of the piscatorial profession, when he penned the last few lines just quoted. Trewern," considered merely as a novel founded on fact," would doubtless find a large body of eager readers; but the chief value, and, perhaps, the most attractive features of the book are not directly bound up in the excitement or interest of the story. There is no very ingenious or elaborate plot. Evidently, the author re- served his strength for other uses, and has thus succeeded in producing a work full of charms different from those which necessarily attach to fiction, however well devised. First-by no means too common a characteristic in popular books of the day-there is his natural, graceful, and perspicuous style; terse and idiomatic, but pure, limpid, and fresh as the flow of a mountain rill. Then, in addition to the incidents and masterly touches which make up a faithful por- traiture of a most lively and somewhat boisterous period in local annals, we have exquisite bits of scenic description and sporting adventure. The few sentences here appended may give some idea of the author's powers in this respect: [Brings his first guests to Trewern.] The sun was setting in a red sky behind Trewern, which loomed up black in face of us. The leaves of the brambles which over-ran the woodland path were of all shades, from creamy white to blazing red, so that a full-plumaged cock pheasant running in front of us seemed almost sombre-hued by comparison. Rabbits darted across the track, and squirrels scampered over the fallen leaves, pan tg' with the curiosity which is their besetting weakness, to watch us from a distance scarce secure had we harboured hostile designs. The beauty of the place seemed to be suddenly revealed to me. Hitherto," &c. [Scene of the duel in a county adjoining Merlinshire. ] It was a walk of a mile and a half from Llangenny to the sea, and it was not fully light when we started out next morning. The air was so soft that you would have scarcely believed it near mid-winter. The grass under foot was beaded with the night's gentle rain. Missel-thrushes were singing, and the woods smelt almost as if spring were at hand. That bit of coast has its back to the prevailing winds, so that the woods run down to the cliff, and rank growth thrives to the very margin of the spring tides. Dull as the sky was, the sun being yet below the hills, whose misty outline could just be made out across the bay to the eastward, the landscape that we opened out as we left the woods had, for a winter's scene, a surprising wealth of colour. A little stream ran down the valley beneath us between meadows as green as a well-kept lawn in a dropping spring. Yellow sandhills topped with the grey-green I of the bayonet grass dam the brook into a little pond fringed with iris and bulrushes. Over the tops of the sandhills we could see from the higher ground the milky sea, while framing the view on either hand were the cliffs, whose red brown was streaked "here and there with trailing ivy or the brighter green of moss and fern where some landspring had its outfall in the rock face." [Lover's fate settled'; a ride with Diana Trevor. ] "It was a warm August night, and the smell of recent rain after drought was in the air. Save for the call of a night-jar, there was no sound as we made our way along, the grass ride that led for a mile from the turnpike road up to Trawscoed House. The moon had risen full and big, and a fleecy mist rose from the stream and spread over the meadow on our left as we drew near to the house, which lay in the shadow of a steep-wooded slope." [On a moor some miles north of Merlinston.] I wandered many a mile over peat and grass. There is not much ling in this part. There was a good westerly breeze blowing, and walking down wind I found the snipe rising nicely, for snipe can give you as easy shots as any other game. All you have to do is to seize the moment when, having risen against the wind, they hang in the air before going off on their zig-zag flight. I had shot near twenty couple by the middle of the after- noon, when," &c. [Shooting party at Graves' of Llangenny after a night's debauch.] "The sport was good next day, though no one but Major Byrne and myself was able to shoot very straight. In the morning we walked the marsh in line without dogs, and got a good many duck, teal, and snipe, besides a few hares. Captain Fenton was next to me on my left, and, not content with miss- ing his own birds, he kept snapping at game which rose in front of me. I had no love for the operation known as wiping another's eye, and seldom, if I could decently help it, fired at a bird which another man had missed, but after Fenton had killed under my nose a stray cock pheasant, I took, &c. Having done with the marsh, we beat a narrow dingle down to the sea, and came out on a green sward overlooking a pebble beach and a flat, grey sea. Here we rested, ate cold meats and drank ale, and shot the morning's bag over again." [Meet of hounds six miles from Trewern.] "Mrs Hamlyn came with me. The Judge, who would have comfortably carried another six stone, jumped like a stag, and she rode nicely, though the high banks were new to her. My knowledge of the country enabled us to keep well up with the hounds. We had a long, slow run, with one bit of hard galloping over the high ground and a kill in the open-a good day for that country, though a sportsman from the shires would have thought poorly of it. Our hounds were slow, as they had need to be in that cramped country, short in the leg, deep jowled, shaggy, powerful, fierce, good on a cold scent, and with fine, deep music. The deep dingles make pace impossible, and often throw the whole field hopelessly behind, but they give you at times a chance of seeing the work of the hounds and finer effects of sight and sound than can be got in a flat, flying country. It is pleasant on a fine November morning to look down on one of these dingles while the hounds are drawing the oak coppice and gorse below, startling the woodcock from the cover and the wild duck from the stream at the bottom, and very pleasant to hear the valley fill with crashing music as they find. Then you watch, and pray that the fox may break on the right side, for," &c. [Reflections and observations. ] For money seems to slip faster between fingers which are merely nerveless than through the hands of a livelier spendthrift. Even when two people live together in fullest harmony, neither can enjoy perfect freedom of action, for many of the trifles with which we should fill our days were we absolute lords of our own lives do not seem worth the doing unless they can be done unconsciously, which cannot be when another looks on. The relations between my father and myself fell far short," -&c. The artist and the writer are of a class from which is withheld the wholesome dicipline of distasteful labour, whence perhaps it comes that such people are so often, if common reputation be not false, of somewhat loose moral character." [Young Evans's reply to Miss Trevor, who be- lieved, from hearsay, that the Welsh were untruthful.] "Ihave had no experience by which I could compare them with other people of the same class. I think the farmers particularly, more so than the people of lower station, live in a state of suspicion of their landlords and all whom they imagine to belong to the land-owning class. They are afraid that anything they say may be twisted into an occasion for raising their rents. They may be more untruthful than Englishmen, though it is hard to make comparison, but I am certain that no people could be more kindly and helpful among themselves, nor more hospitable, and the Welshman has some other qualities for which the !ftiglish would be better. Think of the Welshman's love of music, literature, and oratory. Remove the language difficulty, and take two boys, the one Welsh and the other English, each representing the average of his nation, give them the same opportunities of education, and the Welsh boy will outstrip the English by miles.' The Welshman may have the quicker in- telligence' said she, 'but has not the Englishman a greater power of work? and is not that of far more value ?' It may be so,' I replied, 'I only want to say that there are Welsh characteristics which are worth proservi-ig. I do not like to hear -6. f-a. the best hope for the Welsh is that they should become English.' It will be seen that we have not given any argument" or summary of the tale proper, with its unconventional love scenes, family bickerings, and homely tragedy. For all this the reader must go to the book itself, where he will soon find his attention absorbed by the lively proceed- ings of a number of life-like and strongly-drawn characters. The most superficiiil notice of "Trewern," however, must make some reference to John Gwyn, the fiery, generous. irrepressible Whig attorney who ruined his prospects, got im- prisoned, and shortened hs life by the furious zed with which he fought for the Blues and the Reform Bi!l in Merlinston and Merlinshire. His wife, who was almost as striking a personality as himself, says of him "Do you think that a man who cannot manage his own business is fit to advise others ? Do you know that my husband has squandered twelve thousand pounds. since we were married r On what ? His wife and daughter ? Oh, dear no! Horses ? mistresses ? dice ? No. These one could at least understand. But on the Party, if you please-the Party-a gang of maniacs waving blue flags and yelling for Reform. Five thousand pounds went on the election for coroner, bringing drunken freeholders up from the end of the county. He got in, and what does he get for it?: Forty ponnds a year, and a horse foundered every six months, the way he gallops about the country." Without tracing John Gwyn's career, let us try to get a glimpse into his thoughts and character. With that view we here let him speak for himself as he stands up C orating" in the Half Moon, holding a glass of brandy in his hand How often are a man's actions determined by his convictions? Do you suppose that if the belief in God were suddenly wiped from men's minds as with a sponge, there would be one empty seat the more next Sunday in any chapel or church in the kingdom? Who cares how you think so long as you wear a red favour at election time? An inherited creed is, like a pauper's birth-settlement, a difficult thing to get rid of. Just now the Whigs for their own ends would give the people some part of what they want, so Whig is the word. And yet I sometimes wish that the Tories would hold out, and we should have the whole house about their ears, Crown, Church, peers, landlords and all. The asses i They do not understand," &c. What am I ? You may call me a Radical, as that is the last new word. I go with the people. They are as stupid as the Tories, and more distrustful of each other, or they would not have been quiet so long, but at least they haven't the damned self-sufficiency of the squires and parsons. The Bill ? Oh, I don't deceive myself about that. Things will go on much the same when we have it, only some small abuses will be swept away, and The Crown and the Church will last for a time, but their time will come. Indeed, if the Corn Laws go, as they must, the squires will cease to believe in God's providence, and they would be glad enough to let the Church go if we gave them the tithes as a plaster for their wounded consciences. I respect the Tory who is only a thief, and that unconsciously. Prejudice, pride, and stupidity are tolerable if there goes with them perfect honesty, but these scoundrelly squires and parsons will scheme and lie and cheat for their party, and think no worse of them- selves than a horse coper selling a doctored screw." [After staking his last chance on the de- cision of the judges in London and losing the game, Gwyn returns impoverished, disheartened, and broken down in mind and body. In his last conversation with David Evans, the narrator he says :] Well, lad, that ends it. They have won the rubber. I want some brandy. I think I will go back to my wife," he said, after a while, as if speaking to himself. I do not feel that I can do any more work, and I have no money. I have helped some few people in my time, and not one of them would lend me a sixpence if I were to ask them to-day. I have behaved rather badly to my wife, and she will give me what I need for the rest of my days. I am not an old man, but I have been living on my capital, and he who drinks brandy borrows from hell at compound interest." We have not thought of limiting these re- marks to the space ordinarily occupied by reviews in the Welshman, because "Trewern" is, for South Wales people, no ordinary book, being 1 something like a good novel, a local history, and a series of historical paintings combined. Our comments and extracts, however, have consider- ably exceeded reasonable bounds, and so we must conclude without citing specimens of the fun, knavery, and violence that accompanied the old elections, or referring to several other very note- worthy incidents which it would be pleasant to touch upon. But all these things are really part of the story, and many readers will, no doubt, prefer not to have it half told beforehand. When they have enjoyed it, they will be pretty sure to agree with us in saying that Mr. R. M. Thomas has turned his literary talents to excellent account, and that Trewern is a book likely to maintain a lasting popularity, in South Wales at any rate. The publisher, who has certainly done his part well, is T. Fisher Unwin, Pater- noster Square.