And the next day she wore them again, and, longing to see for herself how she looked, made her way up to the moor in the early morning sunshine to where a clear pool in the brown peat bog reflected the sky and the gold of the furze bushes. Here she stood on the edge and gazed at her own reflection in the clear water.
"Oh, 'tis pretty!" she said leaning over the pool, and as she gazed her own beautiful face with its halo of golden hair impressed itself on her mind as it had never done before. "And there's pretty I am, too," she whispered, and gazing at her own image she blushed, entranced with the vision. "Good-bye, Morva," she whispered again, "good-bye. I wonder does Gethin see me pretty? But I must not think that; what would be the use? Will does, and that must be enough for me;" and with a sigh she turned down the moor again.
CHAPTER VII
THE BROOM GIRL
One morning in the following week the high road leading to Castell On presented a lively appearance. It was white and dusty from the tramp of the country folk and the vehicles of all descriptions which followed each other towards the town, whose one long street would be crowded from ten o'clock in the morning till late afternoon, as it was market day. This was the weekly excitement of the neighbourhood, and there was scarcely a household within the radius of a few miles that did not send at least one of its members to swell the number of chafferers and bargainers in the market. Jolly farmers, buxom maidens, old women in witch hats and scarlet scarves, pigs, sheep, horses, all followed each other in the same direction.
Amongst the rest came a girl who rather stooped under what looked like a large bunch of blooming heather. It was Morva, who was carrying her bundle of heath brooms to the corner of the market-place, where she was eagerly waited for by the farmers' wives.
Dyc "pigstye" was accustomed to bring her a bundle of broom handles, which he had roughly fashioned in the wood in the valley, and she and Sara employed their leisure hours in tying on to them the bunches of purple heather, binding them firmly with the young withies of the willows growing here and there on the boggy moor.
There was always quite a little knot of women round her stall of brooms and wings, for she collected also from the farmhouses the wings of the geese and ducks which had been killed for the market, and after drying them carefully in the big chimney, sold them as brushes for hearth and stairs. Sometimes, too, her stock-in-trade was increased by a collection of wooden bowls, spoons, scales, and trenchers, which Stiven "Storrom," living on the shore below, turned off his lathe, and sold through Morva's agency. At such times she borrowed Stiven's donkey-cart, and stood by it in the market until her wares were sold. But to-day she had only her brooms, and tying them on her shoulders, she held the cords crossed over her bosom, stooping a little under their weight. Her head was buried in the purple blossoms, so that she did not hear the tramp of footsteps following close behind her.
Gethin and Will were going to the market together, and the latter had recognised the girl at some distance off, but had kept silence and lessened his speed a little until his brother had asked:
"Who is this lass walking before us? Let's catch her up and carry her brooms for her."