90 BEGGARS ON HORSEBACK. 



been given as our clue still led us onwards, and 

 the village of Rhyddu seemed, like all our des- 

 tinations, to have pitched its moving tent a mile 

 beyond our estimate. 



At length a line of unlovely grey houses stood 

 by the roadside on a broad green ridge, the tele- 

 graph wire sent a feeler down into one of these, 

 and a modest signboard presently introduced to 

 us the Ouellyn Arms. It was a very small hotel 

 indeed, but it contained a smell of fried bacon 

 that would have filled St Paul's, and an ignorance 

 of the English language that was almost equally 

 stupendous. We were at this moment on a flank 

 of Snowdon, as we stretched our stiff legs along 

 the horse-hair chairs ; the terminus of the Snow- 

 don Railway was above us, within a stone's- 

 throw, and a toy train was curling incredibly 

 round corners and down into a green valley that 

 was dovetailed in among the great roots of the 

 mountain. Outside the parlour window a thick- 

 set figure with a long stick waited immovably 

 — as immovably as Snowdon, or as the misty 



