THE DEVIL IN EDEN
“Off now, you boy bach, and buy two pounds of sugar in Shop Rhys. Take you this silver little sixpence.” On another day she said to him: “Go off, now indeed to death, and change these eggs for money at Shop Rhys,” and she gave him thirty eggs, each egg worth a penny. Yet on another day she said to him: “A broom I must have. Take a shilling and buy one in Shop Rhys.” But Michael, to her great distress, performed these errands faithfully.
In the twilight of an afternoon Dinah was preparing Ianto’s supper. Michael was sleeping in a chair under the chimney. The room was illumined by a thin light from the fire; Dinah turned around, and she beheld that Michael’s feet were cloven hoofs, and that from his head there came forth two horns. In the twinkling of an eye she knew whom she had been entertaining. Hastening into the lower parlour, she placed the palms of her
115
