i66 BEGGARS ON HORSEBACK. 



still-room, until the Venite, clear and harmonious, 

 came across the graves to the wide kitchen window 

 that leaned its sill on the churchyard grass. 



Presently, when seated in the porch of the 

 church itself, we heard again the rich accord of 

 Welsh voices, with all their grave and fearless 

 certainty, their peasant simplicity, their unblem- 

 ished nationality. Would that many Irish and 

 English congregations, shrieking in hideous rivalry 

 half a bar behind the organ, could comprehend 

 the reticence of strength, the indwelling instinct 

 of time, and the sense of harmony, manifested 

 at a Welsh country service, where the children 

 lisp in altos, and the farm-hand and the butcher's 

 boy add their tenor or bass with modest assurance. 

 The preacher's voice was a fine one, and rung and 

 swung in that strange metrical wail of Welsh that 

 we had heard before in the church of Mallwydd, 

 but it lacked something of the melancholy passion 

 given to that first voice by the touch of age in 

 the tone, the inference of sadness and misgiving. 

 Owen Glendwr had a pew in this very church ; 



