LONG-LOST EVAN HAD COME BACK.—See page 252.
'Ay, ay, it's me for certain,' was answered cheerily, as the sturdy, unshaved man brushed past her, carrying his limp sweetheart into the kitchen and grandfather's stiff-backed chair, heedless of the wet trail he left upon the floor.
Picture the excitement. Strong-minded Ales in hysterics! Jonet and Cate rushing about wildly, and shouting out that long-lost Evan had come back! William and Rhys hurrying in, astonished and delighted, followed by Davy, for once in a hurry; and Evan, loth to release Ales, puzzled to find hands for them all to shake at once, and equally puzzled how to compose Ales, who is sobbing and laughing by turns.
Housewifely instinct, or a peculiar fume in her nostrils, acts as a restorative. 'The bread's burning,' she gasps and Cate presses forward to the rescue of the scorching loaves, forgotten in the confusion and excitement.
Then follows a string of questions, huddled one upon another, but before any one can be answered, Mrs. Edwards says dolefully, 'Ah, Evan, we be thankful to see you back, but you have come on a sad day for all that.'
'Have I? Then, 'deed, it had nearly been a sadder for in coming across the ford, I either mistook my depth, or the water is rising, for it came up to my waistband, and nearly carried me off my feet. But I'm not to be drowned, that's clear, till I've settled with that old rogue Pryse,' he says, with an emphasis and a look that are in themselves anathemas.
'Ah, I told you so,' cries Ales. 'Woe to the man that makes a hundred sad!' but in the midst of an affirmative chorus comes an interruption in the shape of the old brown house-dog, wagging his tail and dropping a big bundle wrapped in sailcloth at the feet of Evan, then jumping up to ask for recognition and thanks.
It is then seen that Evan is standing in a pool of water, whereupon Mrs. Edwards orders him off to change his wet clothes for the dry ones in his bundle, whilst she and the other women bestir themselves to set the dinner on the table, Ales making all sorts of blunders in the process.
It is by no means a common dinner on a Welsh farm table at that period, although it only comprises pork, potatoes, and greens, boiled in the same pot with the dough dumplings. Mrs. Edwards marks it out reverently as they take their seats.
'Let us be thanking Almighty God that the good food provided for our last dinner under this roof should have become, by His blessing, a thanksgiving feast; for the one supposed dead do be alive again, the one lost do be found.'