, replacing the necklace in the box.

"That you are going home for good, going to turn farmer and say
good-bye to the shipping and the docks." And as she spoke she laid her
hand on the box which Gethin was closing, and drew out its contents.
There was a greedy glitter in her bold eyes as she asked, "Who's that
for?" and she clasped it round her own neck, while Gethin's dark face
flushed.

"Couldn't look better than there," he answered gallantly, "so you keep
it, to remember me," and tying up his canvas bag he bade them all a
hurried good-bye.

Mrs. Parry followed him to the doorway with regretful farewells, for
she was losing a friend who had not only paid her well, but had been
kind to her delicate boy, and whose strong fist had often decided in
her favour a fight with her brutal husband.

"There you now," she said, in a confidential whisper and with a nudge
on Gethin's canvas bag, "there you are now; fool that you are! giving
such a thing as that to Bella Lewis! What did you pay for it, Gethin?
Shall I have it if I can get it from her? Why did you give it to her?
you said 'twas for little Morva--"

"Yes, it was," he said; "but d'ye think, woman, I would give it to
Morva after being on Bella Lewis's neck? No! that's why I am running
away in such a hurry, to buy her another, d'ye see, and Dei anwl, I
must make haste or else I'll be late on board. Good-bye, good-bye."

Mrs. Parry looked after him almost tenderly, but called out once more:

"Shall I have it if I can get it?"

"Yes, yes," shouted Gethin in return, and as he made his way through
the grimy, unsavoury street, he chuckled as he pictured the impending
scrimmage.

CHAPTER II

"GARTHOWEN"

Along the slope of a bare brown hill, which turned one scarped
precipitous side to the sea, and the other, more smooth and undulating,
towards a fair scene of inland beauty, straggled the little hamlet of
Pont-y-fro. Jos Hughes's shop was the very last house in the village,
the road beyond it merging into the rushy moor, and dwindling into a
stony track, down which a streamlet trickled from the peat bog above.
The house had stood in the same place for two hundred years, and Jos
Hughes looked as if he too had lived there for the same length of time.
His quaintly cut blue cloth coat adorned with large brass buttons, his
knee breeches of corduroy, and grey blue stockings, looking well in
keeping with his dwelling, but very out of place behind a counter.