BEGGARS ON HORSEBACK 



the grey sky was laid against the hills, and the 

 undisciplined drops did not long want for re- 

 inforcement. The salmon - coloured Dolgelly 

 parasol made but a dismal debut under these 

 auspices, and glowed with a more and more sullen 

 flush as the rain soaked through it and dropped 

 in dirty pink tears from its spikes. Between the 

 tears I saw little except the endless downward 

 progress of the path and unprepossessing glimpses 

 of landscape blind with rain. We mounted the 

 Tommies and scrambled by many stony descents 

 and wet fields to lower levels ; a thin cascade 

 glanced over the black lip of a ravine and dropped 

 delicately with slanting leaps down a hundred feet 

 or more ; wet roofs appeared below us, then a 

 public road, public -houses, public conveyances, 

 and an intelligent public interest in us and the 

 Dolgelly parasol. The conclusion that we were a 

 circus, or some part of one, was immediately and 

 loudly announced by the infant population ; and 

 a vivid representation on a poster of a young lady 

 hovering in pink tights above the foaming manes 



