Mushroom Town

Porth Neigr and Llanyglo road. It had been built as a pair-horse vehicle for Squire Wynne, of Plas Neigr, but the door at the back of it

e aware when the road departed by as much as a fraction from the true horizontal. Taking the good with the bad, he was doing a fair

llow anything else to pass it, wisps had lodged also in the cords of the great pile of boxes and brown tin trunks that occupied the forward part of it. Honeysuckle tangled the hedge-to

er left by the angle of the trap, and in front by the hamper, the three or four straw basses, the cardboard boxes, the hold-all of sticks and umbrellas, with a travelling-rug thrown in (all of which articles she strove to balance on her short, steep lap), she could only perspire. Her husband, who sat opposite, could see no more of her than the top of her hen's-tail, lavender bonnet. Even this h

ad, had the double effect of wiping his short nose and causing his shock of gilded hair to stand up like flames, all in one movement. He carried a catapult in one hand. Both pockets of his moleskin knickers bulged with ammunition for this engine. In the heat of a catapult action, against hens or windows, he used his mouth as a magazine, discharging and loading again with great dexterity.-B

any day it had pleased him; and his opinions and judgments, when he saw fit to utter them, were quoted. But he rarely uttered them. When asked for his advice, say upon a letter, he would adjust his glasses, read the letter slowly through, turn back and read it all over again more slowly still, and then, when the person in difficulties was awaiting the weighty pronouncement, would look through the letter rapidly a third time, and at last, glancing over the top of his glasses, would mildly observe, "This seems to be a letter." Sometimes he would come to the very verge of committing himself by adding, "From So-and-So." The grey eyes that looked over those gold rims were remarkable. They seemed to serve less as appreciative

nd the black legs that issued from her pink check frock, trimmed with crimson braid, swung slackly with every jolt of the cart. Mrs. Garden's face glistened; Mr. Garden allowed Little Folks to fall from his h

here to-day the summer dust never settles for touring-c

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ed through a gateless gap in a thymy earth-wall, and all save Mrs. Garden and Minetta had descended. The cart-track had become less and less di

ls, the sea had appeared, and the la

es, old kedge anchors, corks, a mass of potato-parings in which three or four hens scratched, and the skeletons of a couple of disused boats. The half-dozen serviceable boats were gathered a couple of hundred yards away about a short wooden jetty. A mile away

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d blunted the angles of posts and palings until they were as smooth and rounded as the two or three ships' figure-heads that stood within them. Grey old oars leaned up in corners; umber nets, with cork floats like dangling fruit upon them, h

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ut a convenient nearness, half a dozen barefooted children described as it were rainbow-curves in the air with their hands from the foreheads downwards, and a little further away the maritime population of Llanyglo watched the Royal Hotel

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idity. Question him directly (say about those apples or that broken window-pane), and he knew nothing whatever. Question him further, and he knew less than nothing. You might conceivably have questioned him to the extreme point when his unadmitting blue eyes would have said, as plain as speech, "What is an apple?" His primrose hea

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o on Mr. Garden's lips. He had opened the

eigr that the material had been delivered. And so it had. There it was. There, too, were the walls. But the matchboarding was not on the walls. It lay, tongued and grooved, with the scantling for fixing it, just where the timber merchant's men had deposited it-on the floor. It filled half the place. On the

ed them, replaced them, and then, l

afydd Dafi

behind him, interrupted him. She fell bac

ward!-I never

Dafis?" Mr. Ga

it isn't enough to-I

se and slowly put his

know where Daf

ued. "Up since five this morning, and come all that way, a

e would have said, "These appear to be boards,"

re in that box under the shawls-and to think we might have come in wet, and not even a winter-hedge to dry our things on!-There's no wood, you say? Wood enough, marry! I can see nothing else!-And the

tled about, like the capable creature she was, as ready t

keeper of the single shop of the place. He was in his shirt-sleeves, wore an old bowler hat, and wiped his hands on the coarse, white apron about his middle. Over his glasses Edward Garden watch

arrived? How d'you do, madam? How d'you

f them, and then be

fydd Dafis is?" Mr. G

Perhaps he maake fenss for S

e boards as if he had not noticed them

lood. She iss nine-ty, and for two weeks they have prayers for her in the chap-pil, and Doctor Williams, he come from Porth Neigr, and that is five s'illing, but the pains in her body was soa ba

were still looking

to let them season

oothingly.-"Naw-w-w! Not

ot to get his living in Manc

nds, as if he congratulated himself th

say that the pip-ple there is n

nees by the boxes, and could not find the sugar for tea. At th

called from the doorway-"run to your mother, and say we be there in one minnit! And do not answer me in Welss when there are pip-ple who do not understand it-where are your manners, indeed!" He tu

Blodwen, his wife, in a clean apron that showed the knife-edged creases of its ironing, was curtsying as if she did not know how to stop. The parlour communicated with the inner side of the counter, and behind the counter, on the left, was the window. Bottles and canisters stood on the shelves, and below them were innumerable small drawers. The fire-place had a high mantelpiece with countless china objects upon it, and a large dresser with blue and white plates stood against the inner wall. Next to the dresser was a tall clock, with

is tea, Mrs. Garden. It is not tea like the fine pip-ple in Manchester drink, but we are simple pip-ple here. Blodwen, the cranpogs; make a good tea, Mr. Garden; indeed, you eat noth-thing; tut, tut, they ta

twenty times, John Willie Garden would st

have eight"-he held up his fingers-"eight-sisters. And every one of them has a brother. Now yo

en contemptuously, with his m

no discomfitur

leman ... but, dear me, there is the s'op again! We must earn our

in, while his wife boiled more eggs and sp

whispered and the wind rippled. The black mantelpiece had brass candlesticks and china ornaments, and on one side of the tall clock was a grocer's almanac-portrait of Mr. Gladstone, while on the other was one of Dr. Rees, the President of the Congregational Union of England and Wales. A sampler, rather difficult to see in the bad light, hung immediately within the door, and the window opened six inches, in which position it had to be propped with a short stick. There were geraniums on its si

There was stone to be had in abundance within three or four miles. Mutton was plentiful and delicious, beef not quite so plentiful nor quite so good. The larger grocery supplies could be sent direct from Manchester, the odds and ends purchased from Howell Gruffydd. Water was to fetch only a hundred yards, and lamp oil, etc., came twice a week in the cart from Porth Neigr. And soon-Edward Garden did not know yet, and if he did not know you may be sure nobody else did-Porth Neigr might be brought nearer to the rest of the world than ten miles' journey by road. For, besides being a spin

he came to Llanyglo first of all for