d 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. Though by no means scrupulous as to what
he stole, he was particularly addicted to horse and cattle stealing, and
was no less successful in altering the appearance of animals than his
own, as he would frequently sell cattle to the very persons from whom he
had stolen them, after they had been subjected to such a metamorphosis,
by means of dyes and the scissors, that recognition was quite impossible.
Various attempts were made to apprehend him, but all without success; he
was never at home to people who particularly wanted him, or if at home he
looked anything but the person they came in quest of. Once a strong and
resolute man, a farmer, who conceived, and very justly, that Tom had
abstracted a bullock from his stall, came to Tregaron well armed in order
to seize him. Riding up to the door of Tom's mother, he saw an aged and
miserable-looking