"Well, what d'ye think?" said Hugh. "'Tis shocking close here, and the room is too full. I think Lallo will be glad to get rid of a few of us. I'll stop if thou lik'st; but I was thinking perhaps thee and Mari would come in and have supper with us to-night. There's one of the ducks since dinner got to be eaten, and we've tapped the fresh cask, and it's as clear as cryshal—thanks to thy secret, 'n'wncwl Jos!"
"Well, indeed, I think I will come," said the old man, "for I've sat by that coffin till I'm stiff. Good-bye, Lallo fâch!" he said, turning into the penisha. "I see you have so many friends here, I will only be in the way. Good-bye, Gwen fâch! I will be at the funeral to-morrow." And he searched his memory for one of the stock phrases which he tried to carry with him on such occasions. "Cheer up, merch i, and remember what the Bible says, 'Would God I had died for thee, my son!'"
When the Mishteer had piloted him safely into the soft evening air, he was rewarded by a look of gratitude from Mari's blue eyes.
"'N'wncwl Jos and you are coming to supper with us, Mari; he has agreed to come, so now don't you hold back."
"Oh, well, that's a good thing," said Mari, "for I have already promised Gwladys to come."
Lallo and her friends were already forming a semicircle around the bright fire, Gwen sitting straight and silent in the corner. Hour after hour of the long night they sat there talking, at first quietly and solemnly, but as the night wore on, and the contents of 'n'wncwl Jos's bottle was handed round, tongues were loosed and conversation flowed more freely.
Stories were told of "corpse candles" which wound their flickering way from cottage to churchyard; of phantom funerals, in which the narrator had been so closely pressed by the unseen crowd as nearly to lose his breath, and become himself one of the mysterious company of "cwn bendith y mamman"—the weird invisible pack of hounds, whose yelping chorus rushes by on the wings of the wind; and many other tales, but always ending with the words, "but that was in the olden time, you know! Now, of course, we're wiser!" Their vaunted wisdom, however, did not prevent their cowering more closely over the blazing logs when the wind moaned in the chimney as it swept up the valley in the small hours of the morning, when one day was dead and the other was scarcely living. In the early morning, when the grey dawn came in as well as it could through the little covered window, everyone was glad to welcome it, and to blow out the candles which stood at the head of the coffin, to hang the kettle on the hook over the fire, and to help Lallo with her preparations for breakfast, returning without regret to the material pleasures of tea and buttered toast from their incursions into the realm of darkness and mystery.
On the third day after its death, the little one was laid to rest, followed by all the inhabitants of Mwntseison—for a funeral, no matter of how young a child, is an important function in Wales, and few within an area of two miles will fail to attend it, for there is a chance of hearing a sermon, and the certainty of an old Welsh hymn or two; and if there be anything on earth calculated to move the feelings, and awaken sleeping memories, it is a Welsh funeral hymn. Its rising and falling strains, always in a minor key, are harrowing to the feelings of the bereaved; but by those not too closely interested, their emotional character is thoroughly enjoyed.
Lallo's small cottage was crowded, the throng overflowing into the garden and the road; and when the little coffin was carried out, and the large concourse of people, outside and in, joined in the funeral hymn, its wailing, dirge-like notes, rising and falling on the air, touched poor Lallo's heart beyond endurance, and she moaned and wept loudly, her sobs being accompanied by many a sympathising tear from the crowd; but Gwen walked beside her, silent and tearless, with a hard, angry gleam in her eyes.
"Poor thing! poor thing!" whispered the women; "she can't cry; there's a pity! She looks like Peggi Shân to-day!"