Page:My people stories of the peasantry of West Wales.djvu/271

 in the inn, and the ale made him drunk, and he cried a ribald song; the men with whom he drank mocked him, and they carried him into the stable and laid him in a manger, and covered him with hay; and in the stall they put a horse, thinking the animal would eat Evan’s hair and beard. But the Big Man watched over Evan, and the horse did not eat his beard.

“What shall we do,” said the light men, “to humble him before the congregation?”

One said: “Let us strip the skin from the horse that perished, which is buried in the narrow field, and we will throw it over his head.”

Thus they did, and Evan went home with the skin of the horse covering the back of him like a mantle.

His daughter Maltida saw him and was disturbed, and she kept out of his way until he slept. Then she issued forth from her