"Well, if I had my shoes. Run, Grif, to Garthowen and fetch them."
And in a short time the boy returned, bringing Gethin's best Sunday shoes under his arm.
The floor was cleared again, and everybody watched eagerly while the sailor took his stand, with arms folded across his chest and head well thrown back.
"Now, Robin, a jig tune for me."
"Yes, yes, the sailor's hornpipe proper," said Robin; and he struck up the time with spirit, and Gethin began the dance with equal vigour.
The company looked on with breathless admiration, Neddy with critical nods of approval; but Morva's delight was indescribable. With eagerness like a child's she followed every dash, every scrape, and every fling of the dance, and when it was ended, and Gethin returned, laughing and panting, to his seat on the barrow, alas! alas! he had danced into her very heart.
"Oh! there's handsome he is!" said Magw, the dairymaid, with a sigh; and Morva echoed the sentiment, though she did not give it utterance.
"Yes, 'twas very well," said Neddy; "but thee couldn't do it if thou hadst the candles."
"That I couldn't, Neddy; nobody but thee could," and the old man was quite satisfied.
In the early grey of the morning the stray visitors dropped off one by one, and Neddy, having slept for an hour in his cosy corner, shook himself awake and betook himself, crooning an old song, once more to his solitary rambles over the hills. It was not until the sun had well risen, and the whole remaining party had breakfasted together in the mill kitchen, that the Garthowen household returned home, leading with them the lumbering blue and scarlet carts, laden with the sacks of meal sufficient for the coming year, Tudor following the procession with the air of a dog who congratulates himself upon having brought affairs to a satisfactory conclusion. Ebben Owens was already up to receive them, the big oak coffers in the grain room were swept out, the dry meal poured into them, and Twm the carter, with white cotton stockings kept for the occasion drawn over his feet and legs, stood in the coffers treading the meal into as hard a mass as possible. When they were full to the brim the heavy lids were closed with a snap, and the Garthowen cynos was over for the year. Afterwards the work of the farm went on as usual, but there were many surreptitious naps taken during the day, in hay loft or barn, or behind some sunny hedgerow or stack.