Cities and towns -- Growth -- Fiction; Wales -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
And when, on a Monday morning, it became necessary that Mrs. Garden
should put on her garments of civilisation again and traverse those
hundred miles, or years, in order to see how her other home was getting
on, the whole population gathered about the Royal Hotel shandrydan that
came to take her to Porth Neigr, and tears stood in eyes, and sobs
choked throats, and shawls and hands and handkerchiefs were waved as the
vehicle started off over the muffling sandhills, and as many promises
were made that Minetta and John Willie should be well looked after as if
she had been departing never to return, instead of coming back again on
the Friday. Howell Gruffydd picked a tear from his eye with his little
finger, and spoke of the mutability of human affairs.
"The one is ta-a-ke, the other left," he said. "It is all change. Dear
dear, it make me think of my cousin Evan Evans, of Carnarvon, and his
three boys, as fine boys as ever you see, and so-a hap-py, all living
under one roof, till Mary Evans die and wass buried, and the changes
come, and where are those boys now? They are scatter. One is in Bangor,
and one is in Menai Bridge, and one is in Pwllheli. Dear me! Dear me!
Mrs. Garden was a very kind one. There was no kinder 'ooman. Al-ways
the sa-a-me. She seem like one of ourselves. Well, well----"
And he picked away another tear, as grief-stricken as if he had been
reciting an epitaph "_Er Serchog Cof Am Amelia Garden_."
Then, when on the Friday she duly returned, there was as much rejoicing
as if she had been a sister, come back again from a long wandering.
Mrs. Garden had brought back with her in the Royal Hotel conveyance
wellnigh as much luggage as had laden the vehicle on their first coming;
for it had been decided that Minetta's stay was to be still further
prolonged. So warm clothing had been brought, and more blankets, and a
screen for the door, and a small family medicine-chest, and Minetta's
Compendium Box of Games. And that was bad news for John Willie Garden,
for it brought the shadow of his own departure near; and yet it was good
news too, for it seemed to promise a more sure establishment in the
place, with perhaps another visit for himself during the Christmas
holidays. He could not think how the summer days had slipped away, and
grew doleful as he remembered how few of them now remained.
Then, when September was a week or so old, he climbed the Trwyn in order
to take his good-bye look at Llanyglo.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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