Beggars on horseback; a riding tour in North Wales (1895) (14782638765)

Identifier: onhorsebabeggars00rossrich (find matches)
Title: Beggars on horseback; a riding tour in North Wales
Year: 1895 (1890s)
Authors: Ross, Martin, 1862-1915 Somerville, E. . (Edith none), 1858-1949
Subjects: Wales, North -- Description and travel
Publisher: Edinburgh, London : W. Blackwood and sons
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN



Text Appearing Before Image:
EBACK. instants warning to exhibit a passion and ecstasyof flight not common in the Don. The hillsideswere alive with their solemn faces ; they were theonly living things we saw, except two old menmending the road as an Irishman mends his house,with the nearest promiscuous stone and a clod ofearth. When it came to the descent of the mountain,we resolved to be merciful and lead the Tommies—a praiseworthy benevolence, but one not valued byTom as it should have been. With stiff forelegsand resentful eye, he was dragged by Miss OFlan-nigan down the immeasurable lengths of steeproad, protesting in every hair against a mode ofprogress that was not, to his conservative mind,justified by precedent. Moreover, being sensitiveto what was otitrc in appearance, he may havetaken exception to the puggaree made by MissOFlannigan out of bracken and a painting rag ;but as, to our certain knowledge, he would havehungrily eaten either if left alone with it, we can-not but regard this as an affectation.
Text Appearing After Image:
■V. « ^ b 5> s BEGGARS ON HORSEBACK. 59 We neared again the freely - wooded valleyscenery of which Wales keeps such store. CaderIdris was suddenly on our left, bare and fierce andcoarsely magnificent: very different from our firstfar-away glimpse of it as a pale ethereal creatureof the horizon — a fit companion for the mostheavenly clouds of sunset. It meant that Dol-gelly was near, but we began to doubt that weshould ever reach Dolgelly. We galloped indesperation through the blinding heat; we re-covered ourselves in the patches of shade. Ourheads swam, our throats were as dry as the tra-ditional lime-burners wig, and we thought, witha kind of passion, of Irish south-westerly galesbursting in floods of rain. We drew rein at a shady roadside spring, atwhose thin trickle a gipsy woman was filling anearthenware jug. Here should the Tommies drinktheir fill, while perchance a sketch was made ofthe tilt of the gipsy waggon, half hidden in treesa little back off the road. But the Tom