Page:My people stories of the peasantry of West Wales.djvu/263

 places in Capel Sion; and he revelled with loose, wild men in the inn which is kept by Mistress Shames.

Now the day the Big Man chastened him he drank much ale, and, unaware of what he was doing, he sinned against his daughter Matilda. In the morning he perceived what he had done, and was fearful lest his wife Hannah should revile him and speak aloud his wickedness. So, having laid a cunning snare for her, and finding that the woman did not know anything, he spoke to her harshly and without cause. This is what he said: “Filthier you are than a cow.” “Evan, indeed to goodness,” Hannah replied, “iobish you talk. Sober dear, do I not work to the bone?” With a knife she scraped through the refuse on her arm and displayed to him the thinness to which she referred. Then in her anger she spoke: “Slack you are, Evan Rhiw. Your little land you drink in the tavern