The Adventures And Vagaries Of Twm Shon Catti Part 13

Immediately a party of ten persons, wearing masks appeared, one of which was arrayed in a clerical habit, who without further ado commenced the marriage ceremony, Twm the while holding her hand through the window.

The wedding service had been more than half gone through, when four windows of the first floor were suddenly opened, and several persons put their heads out, while, with the most sideshaking peals of laughter, they looked down on this singular wedding. The "ho, ho, ho!" of the merry Prothero, was heard with surpa.s.sing loudness; and, "Well done Twm," were the first words that the spirit of t.i.tillation permitted him to utter.

Notwithstanding this interruption, the ceremony was finished, and parson Hughes p.r.o.nounced them man and wife. Unwilling to loosen the hand which he now considered his own, our hero held it fast till he entered the house through the window. Once within the mansion that now called him master, an amazing change of circ.u.mstances took place.-The lady endearingly asked forgiveness for her latter conduct, while Twm intreated the same for himself. Squire Prothero had been the author of many good offices to our hero; having conciliated Sir John Price, who, although a proud man, was also something of a humorist, as he proved himself in this instance. A plan was concerted to throw every impediment in the way of Twm's union, for him to surmount them as he could, to afford sport for the old baronet and his merry friend Prothero, in which trickery the lady herself was by promise compelled to join, which accounts for her latter conduct. Being ushered by his bride into the drawing-room, our hero was introduced to, and well received by more than one stranger-namely, Sir John Price, and his own father! On the following day their public wedding took place in Brecon, when our hero's friend Powell was also united to the amiable Miss Meredith. These parties being made happy, little remains to be added. Evans of Tregaron, had soon after, to add to his other losses, that of his clerical gown, on account of a fine chopping boy affiliated on him by the luckless Bessy Gwevel hir; and his magisterial functions were also numbered with "things which were, but are not."

The annals of those times evince that our hero filled various civil offices of the first rank in the good town of Brecon, with great ability; and "Thomas Jones, Esq." s.h.i.+nes conspicuously on the list of its mayors and sheriffs; but no where more honourably than in the pages of his early friend Rhys-the Doctor Rhys-whose undoubted testimony crowns him with the fame of an accomplished herald and antiquary. A single anecdote, ill.u.s.trative of his good humour in late life, shall close this book.

"Bless me!" cried the lady mayoress one day to her husband, as they pa.s.sed arm in arm through the street from church, "the people are always laughing to think of my having married you." "I don't wonder," replied the hero of these adventures, "for I always laugh when I think of it myself."

THE END.