ul condition, and many thought he would die. On the morrow there
came an alarm that he was dead, whereupon I escaped across the mountain
to Pentre y Foelas to the old man Sion Dafydd to read his old books."

After staying there a little time, and getting his wounds tended by an
old woman, he departed and skulked about in various places, doing now and
then a little work, until hearing his adversary was recovering, he
returned to his home. He went on writing and performing interludes till
he fell in love with a young woman rather religiously inclined, whom he
married in the year 1763, when he was in his twenty-fourth year. The
young couple settled down on a little place near the town of Denbigh,
called Ale Fowlio. They kept three cows and four horses. The wife
superintended the cows, and Tom with his horses carried wood from
Gwenynos to Ruddlan, and soon excelled all other carters "in loading and
in everything connected with the management of wood." Tom in the pride
of his heart must needs be helping his fellow-carriers, whilst labouring
with them in the forests, till his wife told him he was a fool for his
pains, and advised him to go and load in the afternoon, when nobody would
be about, offering to go and help him. He listened to her advice and
took her with him.

"The dear creature," says he, "assisted me for some time, but as she was
with child, and on that account not exactly fit to turn the roll of the
crane with levers of iron, I formed the plan of hooking the horses to the
rope, in order to raise up the wood which was to be loaded, and by long
teaching the horses to pull and to stop, I contrived to make loading a
much easier task, both to my wife and myself. Now this was the first
hooking of horses to the rope of the crane which was ever done either in
Wales or England. Subsequently I had plenty of leisure and rest instead
of toiling amidst other carriers."

Leaving Ale Fowlio he took up his abode nearer to Denbigh, and continued
carrying wood. Several of his horses died, and he was soon in
difficulties, and was glad to accept an invitation from certain miners of
the county of Flint to go and play them an interlude. As he was playing
them one called "A Vision of the Course of the World," which he had
written for the occasion, and which was founded on, and named after, the
first part of the work of Master Ellis Wyn, he was arrested at the suit
of one Mostyn of Calcoed. He, however, got bail, and partl