Welsh Journals

consisted of ourselves, two farmers, the school- master on his grey pony, three boys on foot, and Dickie John with his bicycle. It was he who, casting an eye over me, remarked to the company in general that, Indeed, the little mare be all of a sweat already I hoped he had not noticed that the tops of the elastic-sided boots were be- ginning to work out of the bottom of the leggings. With the arrival of the Master, we moved off, and I realised that my difficulties were only be- ginning. While hounds were drawing the lump of go'ss It-where scarcely a yellow bloom was showing-and the field stood in the lane, Polly tried to follow the huntsman through the gate and jabbed my knee viciously into the gate- post. When we moved through the woods, where dead leaves still covered the primroses, Polly capered and curvetted as one who smells the battle afar off; she trotted up every hill, she would have liked to gallop down every dingle she was the one excited member of that lethargic hunt, when even the hounds-feeling that winter was over-stopped to roll on their backs or pursue a rabbit, and the huntsman remarked, mopping his brow, that, Indeed, it was a day for an old dog otter in a deep, still pool." We drew the coverts blank had a fox got up under our feet, there would have been no scent on such a midsummer day. Higher up, the hillsides were blackened with burnt gorse and smelt like toffee in the sun-warmed air even the bogs were almost dry, and ;the wind that blows all day in those high homes of peat and whinberry, had sunk to a scented breeze. We stood together on the topmost edge, watching the hounds work their way alone along the opposite hill, as only Welsh hounds will do. Below in the valley, across the pale brown of the plough, a toy train crept east- ward. One of the two farmers-known as Mr. Jones the Cwm "-brought his horse up beside mine I suppose you'll be back in London again before long? he asked. "I'm afraid so," I said sadly. It must seem rare and quiet to you here- abouts," he continued. You'll be glad, maybe, to get back after a bit of a holiday." But we were moving off before I could answer, and Polly had taken the bit between her teeth for the tenth time that day. Down the next hill, steep as the side of a house," we all dismounted and led our horses to the bottom. It is told of an eminent Welsh theologian and scholar that he made the first ascent of the Täschhorn wearing "Jemimas"; however that may be, I do not know myself of anything worse in which to walk down a cliff-face of slippery grass while leading a horse as often as I lay on my back, Polly, like Falstaff, larding the lean earth as she walked, would step deli- cately over me, stopping to seize a mouthful of grass on her way. As, at last, I scrambled out ot a bog and into the saddle, bucketed over the rocky bed of a stream and lost my hat in an over- hanging hawthorn tree, I reflected that I was ill- suited to the sporting life. I was hot, tired and thirsty, conscious chiefly of the fact that we were many miles from home and a bath, and totally in- different as to whether we did or did not find a fox. Mr. Jones caught me up on the rising side of the dingle. They do say," he remarked (and his glance strayed for an instant to my feet as he searched for a suitable topic of conversation), they do say that new station at Piccadilly Circus is a fair wonder Two days later I was back in London, making my daily way from Hampstead to Fleet Street. Now it chanced that the morning's paper con- tained the review of a book that interested me time and place slipped by unheeded and I raised my head to read with horror the word Angel on the station wall before me. Startled as Balaam's ass, I ran to the door, when the two sides closed upon me-slowly and relentlessly as the doors of hell on a lost soul. There was a shout of alarm from several people in the carriage,. and I drew back my head in time, but with my hat knocked sideways, and returned-a little shaken -to my seat. Angel "? Where on earth was I? This must be one of that alien breed of trains described as City and labelled with the strange name of Morden." A large man with a red, kindly face rose from his seat and crossed over to me. Can I help you? Where do you want to go? he asked. I'm trying to go to Fleet Street," I said humbly. A brisk man opposite, in a bowler hat, leaned forward and barked, Go on to the Bank, and get a 'bus." "I'm getting out at Moorgate," said Num- ber i. It's the next station you'd better come with me and I'll put you right." That's very kind," I murmured, and thought I suppose he thinks I've never been in London before-my hat must be frightfully crooked." Number 2 had hidden himself behind the Financial Times," and at Moorgate, Number 1 and I got out together. This way! There's a moving staircase here; put your right foot on first." As we rose upwards, I wondered whether I should play the rôle assigned to me by "muffing" the last step, but there was no chance of this