BEGGARS ON HORSEBACK. 89 



fast. It was almost alarming in its simplicity, and 

 in the way in which it degraded the ascent of the 

 highest mountain in England and Wales into a mere 

 episode of the late afternoon. But, with a baro- 

 metrical future so uncertain that, as Miss O'Flanni- 

 gan's cook is in the habit of saying, "you couldn't 

 tell a day from an hour," its merit was too obvious 

 to be disregarded. 



Low as we had sunk in the social scale, we yet 

 retained just enough self-respect to preserve us 

 from asking the rare passer-by which of the misty 

 bulks that confronted us was Snowdon ; but none 

 the less, we should have liked to know. Snow- 

 don had been to our minds a lonely autocrat, un- 

 mistakable as Vesuvius or Fuji-yama ; but here 

 were four or five round-shouldered monsters, all of 

 about the same height, and none quite as mon- 

 strous as we had expected. We settled on several, 

 and tried successively to make the best of them, 

 and to experience the sensations of awe which the 

 guide-book assured us were inevitable under the 

 circumstances ; but the telegraph wire that had 



