BEGGARS ON HORSEBACK, 145 



of boulders, and its black walls towering implac- 

 ably, untouched by summer. Upwards also, in 

 exaggerated dolour, crept the Tommies, as well 

 aware as we that the hold-alls, in which were our 

 riding-canes, were following by coach. The stick 

 of the gingham was indeed a formidable club, but 

 being swathed in voluminous folds of material, a 

 blow from it amounted to no more than a cumbrous 

 caress, and the application of handle, spikes, or 

 ferrule proved equally ineffective. 



Bare green hills followed on Llanberis Pass. 

 We were high among them in a strong wind that 

 sang in our teeth, and brought the hard rain 

 slanting against us. We looked neither before nor 

 after, and barely spared a sidelong eye for such 

 things as appeared on either hand. They were 

 not many. The lonely inn of Pen-y-Gwrd, where 

 a glimpse was caught of tourists thronging in a 

 window to snatch this sovereign incident of a day 

 that might otherwise have ended in a strait-waist- 

 coat ; a herd of pony-mothers with their foals ; 

 a plover wheeling and whistling in the belief that 



K 



