“But, Pedr, how could you love me when I’d grown very old? I wouldn’t have any hair at all,” she faltered, “an’ not any teeth,” she continued, gasping painfully, “an’—an’ wrinkles an’ oh—an’ oh—dear!” she half sobbed.
“Tut,” said Pedr calmly, “what of it? It’s always that way, an’ I’m thinkin’ love could get over a little difficulty like that, whatever. Indeed, I’m thinkin’ what with love an’ time we’d scarcely notice it. I dunno,” he added reflectively, “if we did notice it I’m thinkin’ we’d love each other better.”
At these words Nelw smiled a little as if she were forgetting her trouble. After a while she spoke—
“You are comin’ this afternoon again, Pedr, are you?”
“Yes, dearie,” he answered, “I’m comin’.”
“Och, an’ it must—it must be told,” she ended, forlornly.
It was quiet up and down the winding cobblestone street; no two-wheeled carts jaunted by; there was no clatter of wooden clogs, no merriment of children playing, no noise of dogs barking. And all this quietude was due to the simple fact that people were preparing to take their tea, that within doors kettles were boiling, piles of thin bread and butter being sliced, jam—if the family was a fortunate one—being turned out into dishes, pound-cake cut in delectably thick slices, and, if the occasion happened to need special honouring, light cakes being browned in the frying-pan. Previous to the actual consumption of tea, the men, their legs spread wide apart, were sitting before the fire, enjoying the possession of a good wife or mother who could lay a snowy cloth. And the children, having passed one straddling age and not having come to the next, were busy sticking hungry little noses into every article set upon the cloth, afraid, however, to do more than smell a foretaste of paradise.
So the street, except for a gusty wind that romped around corners, was deserted. When Nelw Parry opened a casement on the second floor, she saw not a soul. She looked up and down, up and down,—no, there was not a body stirring. Then her head disappeared, and shortly one hand reappeared and hung something to the sill. True, there was not a soul upon the street, but opposite the Raven Temperance, behind carefully-closed lattice windows, sat a woman who saw everything. Catrin Griffiths had been waiting there some time to discover whether Pedr Evans would come to-day as he did other days at half-past four. But when she beheld Nelw’s hand reappear to hang something at the window, she jumped up, with a curious expression on her face, exclaiming, “A wonder!” and ran swiftly downstairs and out into the street. Once in the street she gazed steadily at the object swinging from the casement of the Raven, and again, “A wonder!” she ejaculated. She began to laugh in a harsh low fashion, then shrilly and more shrilly. “Oh, the lamb!” she exclaimed, “oh, the innocent!” Her hilarity increased, and she slapped herself on the hip, and finally held on to her bodice as if she would burst asunder. At the doors, heads appeared; some disappeared immediately upon descrying Catrin, but others thrust them out further.
“See” she called, seeing Modlan Jones coming towards her, “there’s Nelw Parry’s cocyn.”