The following market day was a trying ordeal to him, but one from which he did not flinch.
At breakfast no one suggested the usual journey into Castell On, until
Ebben himself called to Magw as she passed through the kitchen.
"Tell them to harness Bowler, and put the two pigs in the car. I'll sell them to-day if I can."
"I will come too," said Ann, "and take little Gwil to have a new cap.
He wants one shocking."
She chatted volubly as they drove under the leafy ash branches which bordered the road, her father answering only in monosyllables.
When the pigs had been carried shrieking, in the usual unceremonious ear-and-tail fashion into their pens, and Bowler had been led into the "Lamb" yard, the old man looked rather forlorn and desolate as he gazed after Ann, who was making her way with little Gwil down the busy street.
"'Twill be hard to bear to-day," he thought. "They are all talking about me; but 'tis not so hard as I deserve."
Suddenly a hand was laid on his arm, and a kindly greeting reached his ears. Mr. Price the vicar, standing at his window, had observed the Garthowen car pass into the market, and had startled his housekeeper by turning round suddenly with the question.
"Didn't you say we wanted a pig, Jinny?"
"That I did about six months ago, sare, but you never got one. We wanted one then because we had so much milk to spare, but now Corwen is drying up very much, and Beauty is not so good as she was."