ures with the merched anladd of
Northampton, which brought powerfully to my mind part of what Ellis Wynn
had said with respect to the practices of drovers in his day, detestation
for which had induced him to put the whole tribe into Hell.

All of a sudden I heard a galloping down the road, and presently a mighty
plunging, seemingly of a horse, before the door of the inn. I rushed out
followed by my companions, and lo, on the open space before the inn was a
young horse, rearing and kicking, with a young man on his back. The
horse had neither bridle nor saddle, and the young fellow merely rode him
with a rope passed about his head--presently the horse became tolerably
quiet, and his rider jumping off led him into the stable, where he made
him fast to the rack and then came and joined us, whereupon we all went
into the room from which I and the others had come on hearing the noise
of the struggle.

"How came you on the colt's back, Jenkins?" said Mr Pritchard, after we
had all sat down and Jenkins had called for some cwrw. "I did not know
that he was broke in."

"I am breaking him in myself," said Jenkins speaking Welsh. "I began
with him to-night."

"Do you mean to say," said I, "that you have begun breaking him in by
mounting his back?"

"I do," said the other.

"Then depend upon it," said I, "that it will not be long before he will
either break his neck or knees or he will break your neck or crown. You
are not going the right way to work."

"Oh, myn Diawl!" said Jenkins, "I know better. In a day or two I shall
have made him quite tame, and have got him into excellent paces and shall
have saved the money I must have paid away, had I put him into a jockey's
hands."

Time passed, night came on, and other guests came in. There was much
talking of first-rate Welsh and very indifferent English, Mr Bos being
the principal speaker in both languages; his discourse was chiefly on the
comparative merits of Anglesey runts and Scotch bullocks, and those of
the merched anladd of Northampton and the lasses of Wrexham. He
preferred his own country runts to the Scotch kine, but said upon the
whole, though a Welshman, he must give the preference to the merched of
Northampton over those of Wrexham, for free and easy demeanour,
notwithstanding that in that point which he said was the most desirable
point in females, the lasses of Wrexham were generally considered
out-and-outers.

Fond as I am of listening to public-hous