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Penmawr. It was built by contract in the 1860’s, when the slate trade was doing well. The quarry is almost worked out now, but the village is still full—overcrowded it is, indeed: at least, that is my opinion. There are men who still work in the quarry, keeping the pumps in order, and the old quarrymen with silicosis who have pensions, and there are the grown-up children who go to work in Llanfair or Dinas—it is difficult to find houses near their work. There are twenty-one houses: there are some people who do not like the style, but I prefer things squared off and exact rather than straggling. And there is the school and the chapel. The school is large for a village school, big enough for me to have had a female teacher for the infants. It has a good asphalt yard and slate lavatories; you can see the building from far off because of the big green ventilators.
    “We were very proud of the chapel. It was built when the men were earning good money—they worked by bargains then—and it was big enough to hold everybody when we had an eisteddfod. No expense had been spared inside, and a carver had come from Liverpool for the woodwork: it is in the Gothic taste inside; the outside is plainer—it is not stucco, but a patent composition.
    “The village does lack some things. There are no shops except for the sub-post-office, and no smithy, and the bus does not come nearer than three miles. But there is the telephone, and the air is very healthy. The schoolmaster’s house has indoor sanitation and a bath in the scullery.
    “Then there are the farms. The upper farms, the ones above the bridge, make a whole with the village; the ones below, except for Cletwr, belong more to Pontyfelin, the village down on the main road. They are much older than the village, of course. Some of them are very old-fashioned, and you find the cattle under the same roof as the people and only the big open fire to cook by and the people sleeping in the half-loft, with no doors, but those farms are in the lower part. In the upper part there are three farms; Hendre on the left, nearest the village, owned by Gwilym Thomas, a little farm with not much mountain; then farther up Hendre Uchaf, John Evans. On the other side is Gelli, which is reckoned the best farm. It has not as much mountain as Hendre Uchaf, but it has more arable at the bottom of the valley, and the mountain it has is sheltered, with good enough pasture for them to run some beasts as well as the sheep.
    “There are also two cottages in the upper part of the valley, one on each side, about halfway up. The one on the left is Bwthyn-bach, Megan Bowen’s cottage. The other is Hafod; it used to be taken by people for the summer until Mr. Pugh came to live there.
    “The other farms by the village and to each side in the valleys next to ours also belong to our community. There are eight—nine if you count Tyddyn Mawr.”
    “We might leave them to one side for the moment. It is Gelli that interests me particularly.”
    Lloyd gave him a hesitating look and paused before he went on.
    “Well, Gelli was the best farm. It was farmed by Armin Vaughan. He came from Cwm y Glo when I was a very young man. I had known him before and we were friends, although he was older than me. I always liked him very much; even when he was young he was quiet, sober and respectable. He came of good parents; they were very poor, but they did their best for their children. He was a strong worker and a religious man: everyone liked him. But he was one of those men things go wrong for: however conscientious he was (and no man could have been more conscientious than Armin Vaughan) some accident would come to spoil his work.
    “The very first year he came to Gelli some Liverpool people made a picnic fire up by the far barn and burnt all the hay; then it was found that his cousin Ifan had forgotten to post off the insurance. It was still in the pocket of his best coat. Then another time a dog bit a man in his farmyard