road to the historic crags of Wateffa came sharply upon other tourists
returning from them, and glared suspiciously at them, as if to wrest the
dread secret from their souls--a scrutiny which the others returned with
half-humorous pity or superior calm.

The consul knew, also, that the service by boat and rail was admirable
and skillful; for were not the righteous St. Kentigerners of the tribe
of Tubal-cain, great artificers in steel and iron, and a mighty race
of engineers before the Lord, who had carried their calling and accent
beyond the seas? He knew, too, that the land of these delightful
caravansaries overflowed with marmalade and honey, and that the manna
of delicious scones and cakes fell even upon deserted waters of crag
and heather. He knew that their way would lie through much scenery
whose rude barrenness, and grim economy of vegetation, had been usually
accepted by cockney tourists for sublimity and grandeur; but he knew,
also, that its severity was mitigated by lowland glimpses of sylvan
luxuriance and tangled delicacy utterly unlike the complacent snugness
of an English pastoral landscape, with which it was often confounded and
misunderstood, as being tame and civilized.

It rained the day they left St. Kentigern, and the next, and the day
after that, spasmodically, as regarded local effort, sporadically, as
seen through the filmed windows of railway carriages or from the shining
decks of steamboats. There was always a shower being sown somewhere
along the valley, or reluctantly tearing itself from a mountain-top,
or being pulled into long threads from the leaden bosom of a lake; the
coach swept in and out of them to the folding and unfolding of umbrellas
and mackintoshes, accompanied by flying beams of sunlight that raced
with the vehicle on long hillsides, and vanished at the turn of the
road. There were hat-lifting scurries of wind down the mountain-side,