“I don’t like you to do that, mother,” or, “I don’t like you to say that.” She was a sore problem to Brangwen and to all the people at the Marsh. As a rule, however, she was active, lightly flitting about the farmyard, only appearing now and again to assure herself of her mother. Happy she never seemed, but quick, sharp, absorbed, full of imagination and changeability. Tilly said she was bewitched. But it did not matter so long as she did not cry. There was something heart-rending about Anna’s crying, her childish anguish seemed so utter and so timeless, as if it were a thing of all the ages.
She made playmates of the creatures of the farmyard, talking to them, telling them the stories she had from her mother, counselling them and correcting them. Brangwen found her at the gate leading to the paddock and to the duckpond. She was peering through the bars and shouting to the stately white geese, that stood in a curving line:
“You’re not to call at people when they want to come. You must not do it.”
The heavy, balanced birds looked at the fierce little face and the fleece of keen hair thrust between the bars, and they raised their heads and swayed off, producing the long, can-canking, protesting noise of geese, rocking their ship-like, beautiful white bodies in a line beyond the gate.
“You’re naughty, you’re naughty,” cried Anna, tears of dismay and vexation in her eyes. And she stamped her slipper.
“Why, what are they doing?” said Brangwen.
“They won’t let me come in,” she said, turning her flushed little face to him.
“Yi, they will. You can go in if you want to,” and he pushed open the gate for her.
She stood irresolute, looking at the group of bluey-white geese standing monumental under the grey, cold day.
“Go on,” he said.