BEGGARS ON HORSEBACK. 15 



Tommy alternated on either side with tolerable 

 regularity, so that one shy acted as a corrective 

 to the last ; but these advantages were denied 

 to Miss O'Flannigan. Her Tom fled along before 

 me, cantering with the fore and trotting widely 

 with the hind legs, and making startling attempts 

 to turn in at unexpected side entrances — attempts 

 that were only frustrated by serious effort on the 

 part of his rider. 



It was somewhere durincr this rush throuorh 

 Welshpool and its environs, while the saddles rolled 

 and our faces blazed, that we were conscious of 

 passing a building like a Methodist chapel, from 

 which came men's and women's voices, singing in 

 harmony. It was only a moment's hearing, but 

 it lived, ringing and resonant, in our ears, and is 

 notable still to us as our first experience of Welsh 

 voices. When, at sunset, we returned dishevelled 

 and hairpinless, but masters of the situation, Miss 

 O'Flannigan had remembered several quotations 

 from the poets to express the effect of these keen, 

 strong voices flung out into the sleepy afternoon. 



