distinct outline--would he turn to the old Greek dramas which treat
of a family foredoomed by an avenging Fate. The worn page opened of
itself at the play of the OEdipus Tyrannus, and Owen dwelt with the
craving disease upon the prophecy so nearly resembling that which
concerned himself. With his consciousness of neglect, there was a
sort of self-flattery in the consequence which the legend gave him.
He almost wondered how they durst, with slights and insults, thus
provoke the Avenger.

The days drifted onward. Often he would vehemently pursue some
sylvan sport, till thought and feeling were lost in the violence of
bodily exertion. Occasionally his evenings were spent at a small
public-house, such as stood by the unfrequented wayside, where the
welcome, hearty, though bought, seemed so strongly to contrast with
the gloomy negligence of home--unsympathising home.

One evening (Owen might be four or five-and-twenty), wearied with a
day's shooting on the Clenneny Moors, he passed by the open door of
"The Goat" at Penmorfa. The light and the cheeriness within tempted
him, poor self-exhausted man! as it has done many a one more wretched
in worldly circumstances, to step in, and take his evening meal where
at least his presence was of some consequence. It was a busy day in
that little hostel. A flock of sheep, amounting to some hundreds,
had arrived at Penmorfa, on their road to England, and thronged the
space before the house. Inside was the shrewd, kind-hearted hostess,
bustling to and fro, with merry greetings for every tired drover who
was to pass the night in her house, while the sheep were penned in a
field close by. Ever and anon, she kept attending to the second
crowd of guests, who were celebrating a rural wedding in her house.
It was busy work to Martha Thomas, yet her smile never flagged; and