146 BEGGARS ON HORSEBACK. 



she was leading astray our search for her nest ; 

 then Capel Curig, a scattered village, lying pleas- 

 antly and beautifully on the shoulder of a lake- 

 filled valley. Through the windows of a big hotel 

 we saw luncheon lie even more beautifully, but it 

 could not be thought of. Six miles of mountain 

 rain had not been thrown away upon us ; our 

 clothes had admitted it at all possible crevices ; 

 the red comforters were inscribing equally red 

 stripes upon our necks with their wet, harsh folds ; 

 the gingham looked like a widowed vulture, weep- 

 ing tears of gluey ink upon all things in its vast 

 circumference. Better to accumulate all possible 

 wetness, and spread ourselves irrevocably to dry 

 at Bettwys-y-Coed. 



The road was suddenly lovely at Capel Curig, 

 and thereafter to Bettwys. Trees shaded it, deep 

 glens beside it hid their rivers and waterfalls 

 under the locked branches of beech and oak, and 

 the rain dropped more kindly in the still shelter. 

 We were on the great Holyhead and London 

 coach-road, along which previous generations had 



