y grug
is not food for the like of me. It goes to feed the rich Saxons in Caer
Ludd."

We reached the top of the elevation.

"Yonder," said my guide, pointing to a white bare place a great way off
to the west, "is Bala road."

"Then I will not trouble you to go any further," said I; "I can find my
way thither."

"No, you could not," said my guide; "if you were to make straight for
that place you would perhaps fall down a steep, or sink into a peat hole
up to your middle, or lose your way and never find the road, for you
would soon lose sight of that place. Follow me, and I will lead you into
a part of the road more to the left, and then you can find your way
easily enough to that bare place, and from thence to Bala." Thereupon he
moved in a southerly direction down the steep and I followed him. In
about twenty minutes we came to the road.

"Now," said my guide, "you are on the road; bear to the right and you
cannot miss the way to Bala."

"How far is it to Bala?" said I.

"About twelve miles," he replied.

I gave him a trifle, asking at the same time if it was sufficient. "Too
much by one-half," he replied; "many, many thanks." He then shook me by
the hand, and accompanied by his dogs departed, not back over the moor,
but in a southerly direction down the road.

Wending my course to the north, I came to the white bare spot which I had
seen from the moor, and which was in fact the top of a considerable
elevation over which the road passed. Here I turned and looked at the
hills I had come across. There they stood, darkly blue, a rain cloud,
like ink, hanging over their summits. Oh, the wild hills of Wales, the
land of old renown and of wonder, the land of Arthur and Merlin!

The road now lay nearly due west. Rain came on, but it was at my back,
so I expanded my umbrella, flung it over my shoulder and laughed. Oh,
how a man laughs who has a good umbrella when he has the rain at his
back, aye and over his head too, and at all times when it rains except
when the rain is in his face, when the umbrella is not of much service.
Oh, what a good friend to a man is an umbrella in rain time, and likewise
at many other times. What need he fear if a wild bull or a ferocious dog
attacks him, provided he has a good umbrella? He unfurls the umbrella in
the face of the bull or dog, and the brute turns round quite scared, and
runs away. Or if a footpad asks him for his money, what need he care
provided he has an