still, shocked,
finding the rain on its face, the darkness.

"We'll just give the cows their something-to-eat, afore they
go to bed," Brangwen was saying to her, holding her close and
sure.

There was a trickling of water into the butt, a burst of
rain-drops sputtering on to her shawl, and the light of the
lantern swinging, flashing on a wet pavement and the base of a
wet wall. Otherwise it was black darkness: one breathed
darkness.

He opened the doors, upper and lower, and they entered into
the high, dry barn, that smelled warm even if it were not warm.
He hung the lantern on the nail and shut the door. They were in
another world now. The light shed softly on the timbered barn,
on the whitewashed walls, and the great heap of hay; instruments
cast their shadows largely, a ladder rose to the dark arch of a
loft. Outside there was the driving rain, inside, the
softly-illuminated stillness and calmness of the barn.

Holding the child on one arm, he set about preparing the food
for the cows, filling a pan with chopped hay and brewer's grains
and a little meal. The child, all wonder, watched what he did. A
new being was created in her for the new conditions. Sometimes,
a little spasm, eddying from the bygone storm of sobbing, shook
her small body. Her eyes were wide and wondering, pathetic. She
was silent, quite still.

In a sort of dream, his heart sunk to the bottom, leaving the
surface of him still, quite still, he rose with the panful of
food, carefully balancing the child on one arm, the pan in the
other hand. The silky fringe of the shawl swayed softly, grains
and hay trickled to the floor; he went along a dimly-lit passage
behind the mangers, where the horns of the cows pricked out of
the obscurity. The child shrank, he balanced stiffly, rested the
pan on the manger wall, and tipped out the food, half to this
cow, half to the next. There was a noise of chains running, as
the cows lifted or dropped their heads sharply; then a
contented, soothing sound, a long snuffing as the beasts ate in
silence.

The journey had to be performed several times. There was the
rhythmic sound of the shovel in the barn, then the man returned
walking stiffly between the two weights, the face of the child
peering out from the shawl. Then the next time, as he stooped,
she freed her arm and put it round his neck, clinging soft and
warm, making all easier.

The beasts fed, he dropped the pan and sat down on a box, to
arrange the