"'N'wncwl Jos is asleep, I think."
"I am glad," said Ivor; "that is good news. I could not let another day pass without coming to ask for him. I am going back at once."
"You had better stay," said Gwladys, "till Mari comes out. I am going."
Ivor nodded silently, and Gwladys passed out into the sunshine. Left alone, he drew his hand over his face as if awaking from a dream, and Hugh watched him gravely. Suddenly a light gleamed in his eyes, a flush overspread his face, and looking round like a thief who espies a treasure, he stretched out his hand to the table, and clutched a bunch of sea-pinks which had fallen from the folds of Gwladys' neckerchief. Hugh had noticed them there when she entered. For a moment Ivor looked at them, then pressed them to his lips before thrusting them inside the breast of his coat. He stood a few moments in silent thought, and then left the house.
In the inner room, Hugh still watched with troubled eyes; but the hand which held the sick man's remained firm and unmoved, and 'n'wncwl Jos slept on.
[[1]] Blacksmith.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE MILL.
Round the old mill at Traeth Berwen the night wind sighed and moaned, as it always did here at the opening of the narrow valley. Even in the hot summer days, when the cattle sought the shade, and the flowers drooped languidly, there was always a breeze blowing up or down the cwm, and to-night it blew in gusts round every gable of the old building, shaking the ricketty shutters, and brushing the overhanging ivy against the window panes. Inside, however, there was no sign of anything but comfort and cheerfulness. On the stone hearth in the large kitchen a bright fire glowed, on which a huge log had just been thrown, a crowd of crackling sparks and blue smoke flew up the wide open chimney, and the ruddy glow brought into relief the numerous pegs and stakes driven into its brown smoked walls, for the suspension of future flitches and hams when Ivor Parry should have become more settled into his domestic menage. At present it was empty, and as Ivor and his friend Robert the miller sat well under its shade, they could look straight up its wattled walls to the night sky above, where a bright star shone down upon them. On a small table beside them stood a quaint brown jug of ale, accompanied by two "blues"; they smoked in silence, while Acsa clattered her pails and wooden shoes in the background. She had lived there all her life, at least from childhood, as maid-of-all-work to Robert and his family, and had been taken over by Ivor Parry as part of the furniture. Indeed, to have separated Acsa from the mill would have been a difficult task. Robert had attempted it once, when some of her wilful ways had tried the good-wife beyond endurance; but she had howled and cried like a beaten dog, and had stayed starving and cold about the precincts of the mill so pertinaciously, that she was at last allowed to re-enter, to the delight of the children, and to the secret satisfaction of the miller and his wife, who had missed her faithful service. No one had ever tried to eject her again, so here she was to-night, perfectly satisfied to click clack about in her wooden shoes, in and out of the brown shadows, scraping the potatoes, cleaning the shoes, scouring the brass pans and the pails, without a thought of any reward, except the small pittance of wages which she always received with humble gratitude and a bob curtesy on the 11th of November, this being the day appointed all through Cardiganshire for the ending and beginning of a year of domestic service.
Robert had come down for a smoke and a chat with his successor at the mill, and they had apparently exhausted every topic of interest, for they puffed long in silence. Suddenly a weird wailing sound came down the chimney, and both men looked up at the shining star above them, while Acsa exclaimed, "Ach y fi!"