“Oh, I’ll ride astride,” said Rhys, “or I shan’t be able to lay about me so well if need be.”
“Petticoats an’ all?”
“I suppose so.”
Here a roar of laughter went up at the thought of his appearance, which Mary could hear plainly in the room overhead.
Had poor old Eli been in his son’s place, the whimsicalities of his own costume would have given him hours of study and enjoyment. But it was not so with Rhys; humour was not predominant in him. He did not live sufficiently outside himself for that.
“I must look round for some sort of clothes,” he said, rather stiffly. “It would be well for everybody to have something to hide their faces. I’ll get Nannie Davis up at the farm to lend me an old sun-bonnet.”
“An’ I’ll give ye a brown bit of a gown my sister Susan left here when her was over for Crishowell feast September last,” volunteered Hosea. “It’s been hangin’ behind the door ever since.”
“An’ I’ll find ye a cloak more fit for a skeercrow than for any other person,” said a man called Jones. “Will ye have it?”
“Oh, yes, it’ll do,” replied Rhys.
“G’arge! an’ you’ll be a right hussy! Fit to skeer the old limb without any o’ we.”