Roused by the old beldame’s outrageous expressions of grief and fury, he asked in a very pathetic tone, the cause of her sorrow, which she related with many curses, sobs, and furious exclamations. Shocked at her impiety, and want of resignation, Twm took upon him to rebuke her, and edified her much, by a discourse on the virtue of patience; assuring her she ought to thank heaven that she was not a neglected being. In conclusion, he remarked, that fairs and markets in these degenerate days were so sadly infested with rogues and vagabonds, that an honest person was completely encompassed by dangers.
“Now for my part,” continued he, “I never enter such places without previously sewing my goods to my clothes, which you ought also to have done, in this manner.”—showing at the same time, the roll beneath his arm, which he thought the old crone’s eyes had glanced on, with something like a light of suspicion, that instantly vanished, on this notable display and explanation.
Our hero’s appetite only grew by what it fed upon, and the taste of fun he had as yet been able to snatch only made him wish for more. He did not wait long for an opportunity; it was his habit to be so; he either met “opportunity” half-way or entirely created his chance, making circumstances, in a measure, contribute to his especial purposes.
Casting a sharp glance around, he saw making towards him, a man of the cadaverous aspect, one who was an entire stranger to substantial creature comforts, or, if not, one who “shamed his pasture” considerably.
On closer scrutiny, Twm saw it was his old friend Moses, whose hungry stomach had kept him hopelessly poor. Moses advanced and tried to bargain for a few yards of his flannel; but on reckoning his money found he could not come up to the price, as he said he had to buy a three legged iron pot, in addition to a winter petticoat for his wife: “and,” observed the man of tatters, with a grin of miserable mirth, “it will be better for her to go without flannel than our whole family to want a porridge pot.”
Twm liked Moses, but not his logic; which implied a want of courtesy and due deference to his better half, whose indisputable right to warm petticoats claimed precedence to all the pots, pans, and every earthly consideration.