On the mountainside, toward the bald and stony summit, was Hilliard’s house, with a view of the sea. A quarter of a mile away, along a rough track and a little higher up, was the small and almost unworkable farm that provided her with milk, eggs, a little butter, and a slab of bacon now and then. Occasionally one of the farm girls, either Megan or Olwen, daughters of the dour and taciturn Rees, would come along the track with a couple of chickens in her hand.
When Hilliard first took the house, seven or eight years before, Megan and Olwen were skinny children in skimpy jersies and serge skirts that showed their bloomers and their dirty knees, scratched and scabbed. They carried the chickens by the scaly yellow feet, and the heads dragged in the dust. Suddenly, just this summer, they had grown up. Olwen bounced along the path in an off-the-shoulder blouse she had bought in Dolgelly, and Megan came dreamily, in sprigged cotton. The chickens dangled clear of the ground, the girls had grown so tall.
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