BEGGARS ON HORSEBACK. 107 



that infinitesimal dot be the hotel that had held 

 forty people the night before ? 



It was Miss O'Flannigan who made the con- 

 temptible suggestion that we should return to 

 Rhyddu and get particulars of the sunrise and the 

 view from the landlady's daughter. I repelled the 

 suggestion with appropriate spirit ; but half an hour 

 later, when, with acute neuralgia in the muscles 

 above my knees, I was reduced to lifting each 

 leg in succession with my hands, I hardly dared 

 to think of the horse-hair sofa in the parlour of the 

 Ouellyn Arms. As we dragged ourselves up at 

 the pace relentlessly demanded by Griffith Rob- 

 erts, all sense of connection with the world below 

 went from us. It was weeks since we had supped 

 at Rhyddu, years since the tourist shouted his 

 final warnings after us at Mahntooroch. We were 

 in another planet, toiling up through some dim, 

 endless purgatory to ever higher levels in the 

 manner so trimly arranged by the newer Spirit- 

 ualism — only that instead of the corresponding 

 moral elevation, the one emotion in which we 



