Part 12 (1/2)

”I laugh, Janny! Why, dear,” answered Ariel slowly, ”I think--the--window--is beautiful!”

”Oh, Ariel!” said Janny happily.

”Aye, I do; only if ye should have another idea, just tell me about it, dearie, beforehand, for it might--perhaps it wouldn't,” he added gently, ”make it awkward.”

”But, Ariel, I saw----”

”Well, dear, that's enough--ye don't understand these people quite yet.

The window is beautiful; aye,” he continued, ”I like it, so we'll be sendin' it to Liverpool to get a real stained-gla.s.s window something the same--aye, dearie, I can well afford it.”

_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.

”Hus.h.!.+ Some one comes.”

All listened while the wind beat upon the house and sobbed piteously in the chimney. Jane hastened to the door.

”G.o.d's blessin'--rest--on this house!” gasped a man, stumbling in.

”Take the stranger's cloak off,” commanded Owen, before the visitor was in, ”an' here's my clogs dry an' warm.”

”Tut, tut,” objected Jane, ”'tis food he needs, whatever. I'll fetch him bread an' fill the big pint. Now, friend, this chair by the table.”

The Stranger sat down; his deep-set eyes looked out wistfully on the awakened bustle, and on the warmth and the cheer of the cottage room.

But they heard him whisper drearily, ”My little child, my little child!”

Tom tried to lift the silence that was settling over them all with a question here and a question there. The Stranger ate absent-mindedly and ravenously, drinking his ale in greedy draughts. Owen knocked the ashes from his pipe and stared into the fire.

”'Tis late,” he said.

The Stranger lifted his eyes, looked at the two brothers, and long at Jane.

”I shall not rest----” he began.