"Well, indeed, it seems cruel to say so; but I think so, too," Ivor answered; and he proceeded to tell them of her eccentric behaviour on the cliffs the previous night, and the uncanny nature of her song.
Mari Vone laughed heartily; looking up from her knitting, she said:
"Why, Ivor bâch, hast forgotten thy childhood completely? Dost not remember that old game? Why, we played it in a ring on the sands in the summer evenings, singing those words all the time. Every child in Mwntseison knows it!"
"Well, b'tshwr!" said Ivor; "what a ffwlcyn[[3]] I was! Well, indeed, I thought it seemed familiar to me somehow; and Robert Owen, too, said he thought he had heard it somewhere."
'N'wncwl Jos was extremely amused.
"Well, there's two fools you were! 'There's a pair of you,' as the devil said to his wooden shoes."
Ivor joined in the laugh, and felt relieved by the discovery of his mistake, more particularly when Gwen herself entered the house suddenly and silently. She stood a moment, with her white face and piercing eyes half hidden under the shade of her grey shawl. A silence fell upon them as they encountered her cold stare, and Ivor was the first to speak.
"Well, Gwen fâch!" he said kindly; "and how art thou and Lallo?"
"I am quite well, Ivor Parry, and my mother is quite well. How art getting on at the mill?" And without waiting for an answer, she went quietly away.
"We can't call that woman mad enough for an asylum, poor thing!" said Mari.