[The Child]
The irons of the fireplace glowed in the light of the steady peat-fire. The odour from the peat was delicious with the aroma of age-old forests. With this was mingled the odour of the supper Jane Morris was clearing away. As she moved nimbly about the table, Jane’s shadow advanced and withdrew across the blackened rafters of the roof.
“Whoo-o!” said Tom, comfortably, at the sound of the wind booming down the rocky mountain-side. “’Tis a bad night for strangers to be abroad, bad to be wandering along Bryn Bannog.”
“Aye, ’tis dark,” answered Owen, removing his pipe, and rubbing the head of a pet lamb that lay beside him. “One minute it cries like a child, and another it wails like a demon. But ’tis snug within, lad, an’ we’ll never know want.”
The bachelor brothers regarded each other and their sister with contentment. Outside the wind shouted and cried by turns, and then died away clamorously in the deep valley.
“Snug within, lad,” reaffirmed Owen, drawing his harp to him.
Tom lifted his finger.
“Hush! Some one comes.”