She drew him into the bar-parlour where the old man was sitting.
‘It’s George, my dear,’ she cried excitedly. ‘It’s our George!’
George slapped his father on the back: ‘Don’t you know me, dad?’
The old man only mumbled.
‘He’s gone downhill,’ said George. ‘You’ve been with him all the time. You don’t see the change like I do.’
‘Perhaps,’ she said listlessly. She could not keep her eyes from her son. ‘You’re thin, George, so thin!’
‘Then give us a drop of beer, mother. That’ll help fatten me.’
She could not refuse him. While she was filling the tankard at the counter old Drew and another labourer from the Pentre who had been driving Williams’s bullocks to Llandwlas station came into the bar.
‘My son’s home,’ she told them gaily. ‘And so thin! It’s a scandal. They starve them.’
‘So I’ve always heard tell, ma’am,’ said Drew, with a wink. ‘Here’s his health.’