"If you are a woman, Gwen, act like one, and remember that sorrow, if properly borne, may turn to a blessing."
"I want neither blessing nor cursing," said Gwen, "but only to be let alone. Go home, Hugh Morgan, and attend to your own affairs; you will find plenty to do with them," and she flung her shawl over her head and left the shed. Taking no notice of the scared looks of her fellow-workers, she walked homewards, straight and unbending, and passed her much-enduring mother in the cwrt without a word. Lallo looked after her sorrowfully, and went to the pig-stye door, over which she leant in a musing attitude for some time.
When the soft grey November days had commenced, "Tewi du bach," or the "little black weather," as it is called at Mwntseison, the sea looked still and dreamy under its sheeny leaden surface, and the land seemed to lie in a cold swoon, for the summer and autumn were dead, and the sharp winter weather had not arrived; it was coming steadily and rapidly behind that grey haze which looked so calm and innocent on the north horizon of the bay. The boats were overhauled, and the nets were gathered in from the stretchers. As the evening shadows fell, over the steely glitter of the sea there came a rippling roughness, and an oily movement on the tide, which told its tale to the watchful fishermen. The doors of the sail-shed were closed, and down the grey beach the boats were pushed into the plashing waves; lights glimmered on the bay, and every man in Mwntseison was full of interest in the hauls of silver herrings which the boats brought to land.
"Come home and sup with me, Ivor," said Hugh, after one of their fishing excursions; "thou art tired out."
"Man alive!" answered Ivor, "am I fit to enter any clean house covered with tar and herring-scales like this? No, no, another time!"
"To-night it must be, or thou wilt offend me," said Hugh. "Go home and wash off thy herring-scales, lad, for I know Gwladys has a wheaten loaf and a fine lobster for supper; and I'll take no more of thy 'no, no's.'"
"Well, I'll follow thee," said Ivor, seeing a grave look in Hugh's face.
"I'll go and tell Gwladys thou art coming," said Hugh; and as he went up the uneven road, carrying a string of herrings, he fell into a deep study—one of those reveries which had become rather frequent with him of late.
"What can be the matter with Ivor?" he thought. "What ails the man that he never darkens my door? I thought when once he came back we should be always together; but no—it is always 'not to-night, Hugh,' or 'another time, Mishteer.' I cannot make him out. And Gwladys, too! what ails her? When I say 'I will ask Ivor to come in to-night,' she never seems glad, but turns away without a word. Have they had any quarrel, I wonder? but no!" and again a shadow fell over his face, and an uneasiness crept into his mind, which had hitherto been a stranger there; but he chased it away as he entered the house and handed the herring to Gwladys to be fried for supper.
Ivor had tried so hard to put off his friend's frequent offers of hospitality. To-night he had no choice but to accept. When, cleaned and brushed, he entered the cottage, he would have given worlds to be able to rush away and hide his eyes from the sight which he knew awaited him there. Yes, there she was, busying herself with the arrangements of the simple supper, and, in the fitful light of the blazing log fire, looking more beautiful than ever, though paler and more pensive.