"Bless me! no!" said the vicar, "I quite forgot that," and he laughed heartily at his own want of thought. "But I'm sure it won't be much. Two or three pounds, I suppose!"
"Two pounds I thought of getting for this one, and two pound ten for the other."
"Very cheap, too," said the vicar, drawing out the two sovereigns from his waistcoat pocket.
Leaving the pen in charge of a friend, Ebben Owens accompanied Mr. Price in a state of joyful bewilderment. To walk up the street, in friendly converse with the vicar, he felt would do more than anything else to reinstate him in the good opinion of his neighbours, and as they passed through the crowded market in animated and confidential conversation, the hard verdict which many a man had passed on his conduct was changed into one of pitying sympathy.
"Well," they thought, "the vicar has forgiven him, whatever, and he is a good man."
Sitting in the vicarage dining-room, listening to the praises of his beloved son, Ebben Owens became less depressed, and felt braver to meet the consequences of his confession.
Although he never discovered that the purchase of the pig was but a blind of the vicar's to hide his plans for helping him to regain, in some degree, the respect of his neighbours, Ebben Owens never forgot the strengthening sympathy held out to him on that much dreaded morning, and Price the vicar became to him ever after, the exemplar of all Christian graces.
"There's a man now," he would say, rubbing his knees as he sat under the big chimney at home; "there's a man now, is fit to help you in this world, and to guide you to the next; and there's the truth! But he does not know much about pigs."
The prospect of seeing Will once more in his old home shed a radiance over everything, and in spite of the humiliation and contrition which overshadowed him, a new-born calmness and peace gradually filled his heart.
To Morva too had come a season of content and joy—why, she could not tell, for she was not free from anxiety concerning Sara's prolonged absence. Certainly the longing for Gethin's return increased every day, but in spite of this, life seemed to hold for her a cup brimming over with happiness. Going home through the gloaming one evening, singing the refrain of her milking song, she broke off suddenly and began to run towards the cottage, for lo! against the brown hill across the valley she saw the blue smoke rise from Sara's thatched chimney, and in another moment a patch of scarlet showed bright against the golden furze.