BEGGARS ON HORSEBACK. 



atom, retaining even, as a silhouette of the eighth 

 of an inch square, its air of gamin self-suffici- 

 ency and adequacy for its position of overseer to 

 England and Wales. With the aid of field-glasses, 

 it and its inmates might have come to the con- 

 clusion that two aproned and gaitered Deans of 

 the Church of England were leading a pair of 

 heavy - laden sumpter - palfreys over the pass to 

 Llanberis, or might eventually have made the dis- 

 covery that the most simple manner of adapting a 

 riding-habit to mountain walks is not necessarily 

 the most graceful. 



From our private point of view it seemed many 

 times that we had gone as high as was possible 

 before we found the gate that was to compose 

 all difficulties. It linked two long strips of grey 

 wall that had striven towards each other from 

 afar, down mountain flanks and up from boggy 

 valleys, like two lives fated to meet and over- 

 coming circumstance. Their juncture was, as the 

 boy had truly said, on the highest point of the 

 hill ; and leaning breathless on the gate, while the 



