They slept comfortably enough for an hour or more, and very likely, taking into account the sultry weather, they would have slept on still longer had they not been awakened by the train stopping and some one—or more than one—getting in.
'What a bore!' said Kathie to herself. 'Dear me, the carriage will be quite full,' and in they continued to come. Two women with big baskets, another with two babies, and then two oldish men, of a class above the women apparently, for the latter were evidently simple peasants, returning from market very likely, and chattering to each other in Welsh.
The sound of their queer talk made Kathie a little forget her ill temper at being disturbed; she sat up and listened, and Neville, opposite to her, did the same. But after a while they grew tired of listening to what they could not understand a word of, and they took out their books and read for half an hour or so. At the end of that time the train stopped again, and to their great relief the three women, the two babies, and the two baskets all got, or were got out, and the brother and sister were left alone with the two elderly men. When the train went on again these two began talking to each other in English, though with a curious accent, and now and then some words of what they were saying fell on the children's ears, though without catching their attention.
Suddenly, however, Kathleen heard a name and then another which made her listen more closely, and looking across at Neville, she saw that he too was on the alert. The names were those of 'Miss Wynne,' and 'Ty-Gwyn.'
'Yes,' one of the old worthies was saying to the other, 'it is a strange story. She was—was Mrs. Wynne, a good old lady, though she had her ways, but she was not one to play a trick on nobody.'
'No, surely,' said the other. 'That was what I always heard. And she was careful and exact.'
'She had not her match for that. She never forgot a promise, she never but paid all she owed, to a day. No—no—there was no carelessness about her. Why, last Christmas as ever was she came down to see my wife, who was very bad with her rheumatiz just then; couldn't stir hand nor foot, and now she's hearty enough and the poor old lady gone! Well, she came down with a present she had made for her; she was wonderful handy with her fingers, and my wife and she was very old friends. "Here, Ellen," says she, "here's a pincushion I've made for you my own self. You'll keep it, Ellen, and show to your great-grandchildren maybe, as the work of an old woman of eighty-three. It may be the last Christmas I'll be here." And that was a true word, surely.'
'Dear, dear,' said the other old man. Then after a moment's silence he spoke again. 'You don't think now, as she could have had any reason for changing at the last? The Captain's a right sort of a young man by all accounts—he can't have done anything to displease the old lady?'