The village, like most Welsh villages, was of white-washed cottages, slate-roofed, but it was embowered with that luxuriance of foliage and flowers which makes Glamorganshire--out of sight of the coal-mining--seem an earthly paradise.

Every now and then the Revd.

Howel would nudge his son and say: "That man who spoke was old Goronwy, as big a scoundrel now as he was five years ago," or he would introduce David to a villager of whom he thought more favourably.

If she were a young woman she generally smirked and looked sideways; if a man he grunted out a Welsh greeting or only gave a nod of surly recognition.

Several professed fluent recognition but some said in Welsh "he wasn't a bit like the Mr.
David _they_ had known." Whereupon the Revd.