Page:My people stories of the peasantry of West Wales.djvu/41

 A HEIFER WITHOUT BLEMISH “Get you there early in the morning, then,” his father said to him. “Put the black mare in the car. And, Tomos, don't you give a ride to anybody, for fear those old robbers of excisemen will catch you.”

“Make yourself comely,” said Katto. “And when you get there, put out your belly largely. See too that you get a heifer without blemish.”

Tomos shaved his chin and his long upper lip and combed his side whiskers, and he put axle-grease on his boots, and clothed himself in his Sabbath garments of homespun cloth; and harnessing the black mare to the car, in the back of which he placed a cask full of butter, he set out for the Fair of the month of April. Tomos got out of the car at Penrhiw, as the ascent therefrom into Castellybryn is rocky and steep, and guided the mare by the bridle. At the foot of the hillthis morning a street of many people and much cattlehe