'Oh, bother! It's a place where stone grows,' was the impatient reply.
'Grows like trees?' and the wondering eyes of the six years old querist opened still wider.
'Oh, what a plague you do be! No, grows like coal;' and away strode Rhys to avoid further questioning—a common but very unsatisfactory way of dealing with an inquiring child.
'I'll be asking Robert Jones, he will tell me,' said William to himself. 'Rhys do be caring more for Cate Griffith than for me, whatever,' his aggrieved looks following his well-grown brother as he strode over the grassy mound to join the weaver's wife and daughter under the patriarchal yew-tree, with all the importance of incipient manhood.
The following day William was missing from the farm, but as this was not uncommon, only slight uneasiness was felt until evening.
The boy had long before struck up a strange friendship with the red-haired peat-cutter, who, in fulfilment of his early promise, had taken him on his ass when bound to a colliery across the river for culm, and there let him see the horse plodding round and round in a circle to wind up coal and grimy colliers from the dark, deep pit-shaft, and let down the empty tubs to be refilled. There the child had looked round in wonder at the great black heaps of coal, and at the half-naked children sent down the terrible dark hole, to work in the bowels of the mine, as Robert Jones explained to him.
Later he had taken the little fellow to see how peat was cut with long, narrow, flat shovels, 'shaped like a marrow-spoon,' from the boggy top of Eglwysilan Mountain. And when his sled was loaded, he had placed the child before him on the end of the sled, and gone sliding down the steep mountain-side with him swiftly and securely, to the youngster's infinite delight. He was too young to dream of danger, and to the man, long practice had made the perilous descent safe and easy, swift as was the downward motion, and sharp as was the jerk at the bottom. And many a ride on the turf-cutter's sled did William have after that.
The man had no children of his own, and, perhaps, that was the reason he took so kindly to the lad; answering his strange questions to the best of his untutored ability, and frequently giving him a mount on one of his patient beasts between tubs or panniers when going for loads, or carrying them for sale not too far away. To him the child could open all his wondering heart, fearing neither repulse nor ridicule, of which he had too much at home; and so their friendship grew.
On that particular Monday morning, Robert Jones had started on a long round, and nothing remained for the young inquirer, who had sought him at his ordinary haunts, but to limp homeward in the afternoon, hungry, footsore, and disappointed.
Cate Griffith, returning from the brook with a pitcher of water on her head and another in her hand, caught sight of him as he was passing her father's door.