I was looking up beyond the tall, slight figure set against the background of slanting field and stone hedge cutting a purply-grey sky. That part of Mr. Price's farm reminded me of a bit of the old place at home.
How typically Welsh were the hilly green and the grey stones, and the rich shifting colours of the cloudy distance! These brought back to me my Welsh-set childhood.
* * * * * * *
Days of wandering the marshes, waist-deep in meadow-sweet and bog myrtle, dreaming the long, long dreams of little girlhood! Days of sitting curled up like a squirrel in the school-room armchair while the rain lashed the panes and all the world of Every-day was blotted out as I pored over Shakespere, or "Called Back" or "The Last Days of Pompeii" or "Three Men in a Boat"—ah, the omnivorous and profoundly satisfying reading of the early teens! Meals that to a growing girl were banquets of Welsh mutton and jam roly-poly ... tea-parties that were events ... jokes that brought laughter that brought tears to stream down the cheeks convulsed ... quick fierce likes and dislikes ... shames ... delights—ah, over all, delight! Zest in the newness of Life! How many of these things had I left behind in those days-gone-by!
With a breath of the old wild mountain air, fresh and bewildering, bringing unreasoned tears to the eyes, those days were back, for that moment I felt the thick brown pigtail weigh upon my neck as I bent my face down to the face of the whimpering fox terrier pup in my arms. That pup had been given to me by one of my father's farm pupils seven years ago. I was back in that time.
Into my day dream broke a voice that seemed, for a second, part of it.
"A penny for your thoughts!"
* * * * * * *
With a start I palled myself together, glancing now straight at the young man. How strange—yet how well known to me, he seemed! Why? The thought persisted; why? Of what did he remind me so elusively at this moment?
Then an extraordinary thing happened.