Morva seemed to have regained her cheerfulness, and spread the simple supper, sometimes joining in the conversation, while Will and Sara chatted over the blaze of the crackling furze. It was quite late when he rose to go.
"Well," he said, "they will be shutting me out at Garthowen, and thinking I have learnt bad ways at Llaniago. Good-night, Sara fâch, I am glad to see thee looking so well. Good-night, Morva. Wilt come with me a little way? 'Twill be an excuse for another ten minutes under the stars, Sara."
And they went out together, their shadows blending into one in the bright moonlight.
Once more Will extracted the oft-repeated promise, and Morva returned to the cottage, her chains only riveted more firmly, and her heart filled with a false strength, arising from an entire surrender of self and all selfish desires to an imaginary duty.
[1] Pedigree.
CHAPTER XIV
DR. OWEN
It was New Year's Day, the merriest and most festive day of the year, and Ebben Owens, sitting under the big chimney, seemed for a time at least to have shaken off the cloud that had hung over him of late.
Christmas Day in Wales is by no means the day of festivity that it is in England, the whole day being taken up with religious services of some kind; but the first day of the year is given up entirely to pleasure and happy re-unions. For the children it is the day of days. Before the sun has risen they congregate in the village streets, and set out in the dark and cold of the frosty morning in noisy groups, on expeditions into the surrounding country, with bags on their shoulders, in which they collect the kindly "calenigs," or New Year's gifts, prepared for them in every farm and homestead. 'Tis a merry gathering, indeed, the tramp through the frost and snow under the bright stars in the early morning, adding the charm of novelty and mystery to the usual delight of an expedition.
Ann and Morva had cut the generous hunches of barley bread and cheese overnight, and well it was that they were thus prepared, for before the hens and turkeys had flown down from their roosting-place, and before the cows had risen from their warm beds of straw in the beudy, or the sheep had begun to shake off the snow which had fallen on their fleeces in the night, fresh young voices were heard in the farmyard singing the old refrain familiar to generations of Welsh children: