BEGGARS ON HORSEBACK. i6i 



to the east, with faces turning always back to the 

 splendid barrier across the west. It was a lonely 

 road, with scarcely a mark to ruffle its white dust 

 except the ribbed footprint of the traction-engine, 

 that stretched like an illimitable ladder in front 

 of us. We met no one save two tramps who eyed 

 us curiously, as members of the fraternity who 

 ought to be able to impart useful facts about the 

 temper of the nearest farmer's wife, or the quality 

 of the skilly at the Llanberis workhouse ; a little 

 farther on, on a long reach of road, quite remote, 

 as it seemed, from human habitation, we met three 

 tall women, dressed alike in widows' weeds, and 

 each pressing a pocket-handkerchief with a wide 

 black border to the point of a pink nose. Their 

 eyes turned at us above these emblems of woe 

 with something of interest, but they did not pause, 

 and went on, three black blots on the white road 

 between the glowing hedgerows ; and we mar- 

 velled if some Welsh Mormon elder had lived 

 and died, unknown, but obviously lamented, in 

 these sunny solitudes. 



L 



