"Before I was quite fourteen," says he, "I had made another interlude, but when my father and mother heard about it they did all they could to induce me to destroy it. However, I would not burn it, but gave it to Hugh of Llangwin, a celebrated poet of the time, who took it to Landyrnog, where he sold it for ten shillings to the lads of the place, who performed it the following summer;but I never got anything for my labour, save a sup of ale from the players when I met them. This at the heel of other things would have induced me to give up poetry, had it been in the power of anything to do so. I made two interludes," he continues, "one for the people of Llanbedr in the Vale of Clwyd, and the other for the lads of Llanarmon in Yale, one on the subject of Naaman's leprosy, and the other about hypocrisy, which was a re-fashionment of the work of Richard Parry of Ddiserth. When I was young I had such a rage or madness for poetizing, that I would make a song on almost anything I saw - and it was a mercy that many did not kill me or break my bones, on account of my evil tongue. My parents often told me I should have some mischief done me if I went on in the way in which I was going. Once on a time being with some companions as bad as myself, I happened to use some very free language in a place where three lovers were with a young lass of my neighbourhood, who lived at a place called Ty Celyn, with whom they kept company. Isaid in discourse that they were the cocks of Ty Celyn. The girl heard me, and conceived a spite against me on account of my scurrilous language. She had a brother, who was a cruel fighter;he took the part of his sister, and determined to chastise me. One Sunday evening he shouted to me as I was coming from Nantglyn - our ways were the same till we got nearly home - he had determined to give me a thrashing, and he had with him a piece of oak stick just suited for the purpose. After we had taunted each other for some time, as we went along, he flung his stick on the ground, and stripped himself stark naked. I took off my hat and my neck-cloth, and took his stick in my hand, whereupon running to the hedge he took a stake, and straight we set to like two furies. After fighting some time, our sticks were shivered to pieces and quite short; sometimes we were upon the ground, but did not give up fighting on that account. Many people came up and would fain have parted us, but he would by no means let them. At last we agreed to go and pull fresh stakes, and then we went at it again until he could no longer stand. The marks of this battle are upon him and me to this day. At last, covered with a gore of blood, he was dragged home by his neighbours. He was in a dreadful 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, Icontrived 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 partly by carrying and partly by playing interludes, soon raised money enough to pay his debt.
