Chapter 75

And on a summer day, when the deserted doorstep of the ‘Mermaid’s Rest’ is blue with birdseye, a boy with eyes so bright and dark with vitality that you cannot tell the colour of them says: ‘A long time ago, when our dad was a cowman, mother lived there.’ And a younger lad, with solid shoulders and a masterful air, asks: ‘Why dunna she live there now?’ ‘Oh! Father fetched her away,’ says Bob; ‘ye see, he wanted her for himself and us. He was nobut a cowman then, our dad wasn’t.’ But the eldest, whose hands are full…