Page:My people stories of the peasantry of West Wales.djvu/124



Old Ianto spoke from his bed: “Dinah, go you off to your loft now. Indulge in no evil thoughts concerning Michael. Think you no less of him, little daughter, because the Big Man has not blessed him with much.” Dinah untied the tape which held her skirt around her waist, and removed the cotton bodice which covered her loosely hanging breasts, and went up the ladder into the loft.

In the morning she baked a loaf of plank bread, which with a bowl of milk warm from the cow she laid before the tramp. To her father she observed: “I think that old serpent of a straggler can abide here a time, and help to do something about the place. What say you now if he set to mend the wall of the pigsty?”

The tempter fattened many days in Ianto’s house. He built a new wall to