48 BEGGARS ON HORSEBACK. 



from the dark stream of Welsh, apprised us that 

 it was the call of Samuel and the humiliation of 

 Eli with which his strong brows rose or bent in 

 sympathy. 



Behind the reader was a glimpse of a surpliced 

 arm, and a pale and languid hand supporting a 

 grey head with the air of melancholy befitting a 

 pastor of the Church of Wales at the present 

 crisis. The thought of coming disaster was in- 

 separable from him and the venerable little church, 

 while the service progressed through prayers and 

 hymns with a fervour worthy of dissent ; and 

 when the grey head and the sad face were above 

 us in the pulpit, and the text, " The violent take it 

 by force," was given out in Welsh and English, 

 it was easy to imagine the drift of the sermon 

 that followed, spoken, or rather sung, as the 

 Welsh manner is, in the preacher's native tongue. 

 With the monotony of a mountain wind, with 

 the swinging cadence of a belfry, the minor 

 periods rose and died. It might have been the 

 sombre prophesying of a Druid, chanted beneath 



