Where shall I begin? During the first week Eustace and I had our meals, as seemed but natural, in the great hall with his uncles and his one cousin. For two days things went decently enough. The uncles--Simon, Edward, Gwyn, David, and the cousin, Evan, son of David, were evidently under considerable restraint, and fear (methought) of the Reverend Hubert, who seems somehow a creature from another planet. The latter sat by Eustace and me, at the high end of the table; the others, and with them the Bailiff Lloyd, at the lower. The service was rough but clean, and the behaviour, although gloomily constrained, decent and gentlemanly. But little by little a spirit of rebellion seemed to arise. It began by young Evan, a sandy-haired lad of seventeen, coming to dinner with hands unwashed and red from skinning, as he told us, an otter; and on the Reverend Hubert bidding him go wash before appearing in my presence, his father, David, taking his part, forcing the lad into his chair, and saying something in the unintelligible Welsh language, which contained some rudeness towards me, for he plainly nodded in my direction and struck the table with his fist. At this the Reverend Hubert got up, took the boy Evan by the shoulders and led him to the door, without one of the party demurring. "The lovely Lady Brandling," he said, turning to me as he resumed his place, "must forgive this young Caliban, unaccustomed like the one of the play, to beautiful princesses." I notice he loves to lard his speech with literary reminiscences, and is indeed a better read person than one would expect to meet in such a place. This was, however, only the beginning. Uncle David appeared next night undoubtedly in liquor, and was with difficulty constrained to decent behaviour. Simon, a heavy, lubberly creature, arrived all covered with mud, in shirtsleeves, and smelling vilely of stale fish. Then it was the turn of Edward, a great black man, with a scar on his cheek, to light his pipe at table, and pinch the Welsh serving wench as she passed, and whisper to her in Welsh some jest which made the others roar. Eustace and Hubert, between whom I sat at the far end, pretended not to notice, though Eustace reddened visibly, and Hubert took an odd green colour, which seems to be the complexion of his anger. And then while our clergyman uncle and Eustace busily fell to discussing literature, and even (in a manner which, under other circumstances, would have made me laugh) quoting the classics, the conversation at the lower end became loud and violent in Welsh. "They are discussing the likelihood of a shoal of pilchards," said Hubert to me with a faint uneasy smile. "My brothers, I grieve to say, dear Lady Brandling, are but country bred, and very rough diamonds; and the Saxon, as they call our Christian language, is a difficulty to their heathenishness."