Page:My people stories of the peasantry of West Wales.djvu/234

 Bowen. Try he to make her sense better, little Silas.”

Thrice Silas spat on the ground, for his mind was grief-stricken.

“Nansi,” he said, “Leisa is going against her father.”

“So Jos Gernos does say.”

“You have been a bad mother to the wench,” Silas shouted. “What for you have not looked after her, you old ram?” Nansi came out of the cart, now that it was empty, and raked together the small hay that lay scattered on the ground, and while she was doing this she said: “Silas bach, speak you not harshly to me now. Am I not always out in the fields tending the animals and seeing to the crops? Your little place needs a lot of watching.” Silas took his stick, and went out into the high roads groaning.

He came upon Abram Bowen sitting on a log of wood outside his mother’s house;