He was therefore unusually bright and fresh when he arrived at the mill.

He and Robin had walked up all the way from Abersethin through the surf, carrying their shoes under their arms.
"'Twill freshen thy feet, and make them hard for the candles," said Robin.
Neddy's thin haggard face, surmounted by a thick crop of grizzled curly hair, lighted up with pleasure as he felt the warm air of the roasting room.
"Here, sit down by the kiln, man," said Gethin, "and rest a bit before thou begin'st." "Yes, and sing us 'Aderin pur'," said Jacob, "'twill prepare the air for the dancing." And Neddy struck up at once.

He never required pressing, for his songs seemed always on his lips.

He sang his ballads as he passed through the country towns and villages, and the people came out and pressed pennies into his hand, or invited him into their houses for a rest, a hunch of bread and cheese, or a bowl of cawl; and he sang as he tramped over the lonely hillsides, sometimes weary and faint enough, but still singing; and when at night he retired to rest in some hay-loft or barn, or perhaps alone under the starry night sky, he was wont to sing himself to sleep, as he had done when a child in the old homestead of which nobody knew.
When he began the words of the song so sweet to every Welshman's ear: "Oh! lovely bird with azure wing Wilt bear my message to her ?" every ear was intent upon the melody, and as the rich sonorous voice carried it on through its first fervid strains of love, to the imploring cadences of the ending, heads and hands beat time, eyes glistened, humid with feeling, and when the song had come to an end, there was a breathless silence and a sigh of satisfaction.
"There's lovely it is! Sing us again, Neddy bach." And Neddy sang again the song of the red-cheeked little prince, who slept in his golden cradle, a red-cheeked apple in his hand.

It was but a simple nursery rhyme, but Neddy put his soul into it, for he was but a child himself in spite of his tall stature and grizzled locks.
Morva was sitting on the steps which led up to the rickety, windy loft, Gethin beside her on an upturned barrow.
"I might go on with my knitting," said the girl, "if somebody would hold my skein for me to wind." Gethin held it, of course; and while the ball increased in size there was plenty of time and opportunity for talk, which was interrupted by Robin's fiddle striking up a merry jig time.