BEGGARS ON HORSEBACK. 155 



CHAPTER XL 



Hitherto farewell had been slightly said, with a 

 few backward looks of good feeling, a few civil 

 wishes for an indefinite return. But at Bettwys, 

 for the first time, and perhaps also because it 

 was — of this vagrant expedition — so near the last, 

 parting gave pain. Turning on the face of a hill 

 we looked back over the valley and across the 

 flitting showers to the peaks of Snowdon and 

 Moel Siabod, a retrospect to be remembered and 

 thirstily to be desired in other summers. Darkly 

 and greenly the woods sank into every cleft, or rose 

 with the piled-up landscape till the cold breast of 

 Snowdon was half hidden behind them. A river, 

 whose name is quite immaterial, plunged uproari- 

 ously down to the five crooked arches of Pont-y- 



