He had left home jauntily enough in the morning, but give any lad of his years a ten-miles' walk on a hot summer day, on a rough road up hill and down dale, and add a couple more miles of scrambling over ruins, and I venture to say all the jauntiness would be taken out of him. He would look as dusty and limp and jaded as did William Edwards, and his secret enthusiasm would not prevent a wistful look at the table, bare of all save crumbs and milky rings where mugs had been.
Rhys had stood propping up the door-post as he ascended the stony lane, and entered the enclosure in front of the house by the stile.
'What do you mean by coming home at this time of night?' he cried sharply, catching his brother by the shoulder. 'Where have you been all day, you vagabond, wearing the shoes off your feet?'
'I've not been after Cate Griffith,' was flung back in retort, and, as if a stone had struck him, the grip of Rhys on the shoulder relaxed, to let the 'vagabond' pass in.
The empty table was not more expressive to him than was the averted countenance of his mother, who sat on the high-backed settle, her brow clouded, her unseeing eyes steadfastly gazing at the low hearth where the embers were smouldering into white ashes. Probably she did not see him as he dropped wearily down on a three-legged stool opposite.
Davy sat at the table, half asleep, his face hidden on his folded arms. Evan was busy in the farmyard. He could hear his wooden shoes clattering over the stones. Ales was going in and out.
Jonet, who had been watching for William's return, with her light-brown head and half her body stretched out of the bedroom window, came noiselessly across the wide kitchen. Her arm stole lovingly around his neck. 'You are tired, Willem; do you be hungry?'
He gave her hand a squeeze and nodded. Her bare feet were off towards the dairy.
There was a whispering in the passage. In a few minutes Ales brought in a mug of buttermilk and a great hunch of brown bread.
'Here,' she cried, 'eat that; though you don't deserve it, going off no one knows where.'
He thanked her for the unhoped-for supper, but he did not tell her where he had been, though he knew she had an old mother living somewhere in Caerphilly. Whereabouts he did not know, and, having no news of the poor rheumatic old woman, he munched his bread in silence.