Like a true son of a shoemaker, however, he was an arch
rogue. Coming to a small house with a garden attached to it in
which there were apple-trees, he stopped, whilst I went on with the
other boy, and after a minute or two came up running with a couple
of apples in his hand.
"Where did you get those apples?" said I; "I hope you did not steal
them."
He made no reply, but bit one, then making a wry face he flung it
away, and so he served the other. Presently afterwards, coming to
a side lane, the future senior wrangler, for a senior wrangler he
is destined to be, always provided he finds his way to Cambridge,
darted down it like an arrow, and disappeared.
I continued my way with the other lad, occasionally asking him
questions about the mines of Mawddwy. The information, however,
which I obtained from him was next to nothing, for he appeared to
be as heavy as the stuff which his father carted. At length we
reached a village forming a kind of semicircle on a green which
looked something like a small English common. To the east were
beautiful green hills; to the west the valley with the river
running through it, beyond which rose other green hills yet more
beautiful than the eastern ones.
