“Art commin’, Tom,” they called, “or art for stoppin’?”
“Ay, I’m commin’,” he replied, rising reluctantly, an angry sense of futility and disappointment spreading over him.
He met the full, almost taunting look of the girl, and he trembled with unusedness.
“Shall you come an’ have a look at my mare,” he said to her, with his hearty kindliness that was now shaken with trepidation.
“Oh, I should like to,” she said, rising.
And she followed him, his rather sloping shoulders and his cloth riding-gaiters, out of the room. The young men got their own horses out of the stable.
“Can you ride?” Brangwen asked her.
“I should like to if I could—I have never tried,” she said.
“Come then, an’ have a try,” he said.
And he lifted her, he blushing, she laughing, into the saddle.