Free From Across the Ancient Waters by Michael Phillips

block.
    “All right, then, up you go,” said Radnor, offering Percy a hand.
    Still wondering if this was wise, Percy slowly mounted.
    “Follow the road there up the hill,” added the groom, pointing ahead of him. “In half a mile you’ll come to the high gate. After that you’ll have the whole of Snowdonia in front of you!”

T HIRTEEN
    On the Slopes of Gwynedd
    F ollowing the groom’s instructions, Percy rode tentatively away from the stables.
    He had hardly gone a hundred yards, and was still within the precincts of house and garden, when suddenly the form of his cousin appeared from behind the trunk of a great beech tree. If her unexpected movement startled the mare called Grey Tide, the animal showed no sign of it other than a brief upward jerk of the head.
    “Where are you going?” asked Florilyn Westbrooke. She stepped into their path, reached for the rein at the mare’s nose, and stopped her.
    “Just for a ride,” answered Percy.
    “Where?”
    “I don’t know … nowhere. Just there—up in the hills, I suppose.”
    “You must be a skilled horseman.”
    “Not really. Why?” asked Percy.
    “To go out alone … on our wildest horse.”
    “The man back there in the barn—I’ve already forgotten his name—he said she was perfect for me.”
    Florilyn saw the quick look of anxiety that passed through Percy’s eyes as he spoke. She met it with a mischievous smile of her own.
    “Oh … Hollin?” she said with pretended innocence. “One thing you will learn is that he is the biggest liar around here.”
    “Why would he—”
    He did not have a chance to finish his question.
    As quickly as she had appeared, his cousin now leaped aside, ran to the back of the horse, and gave its rump a great swat, followed by a piercing shriek.
    The mare lurched forward, nearly throwing Percy backward onto the ground. Desperately trying to keep his seat, he grabbed frantically for any piece of mane or saddle his hand could find. The next moment he found himself hanging on for dear life as Grey Tide galloped out of the grounds. Florilyn’s laughter echoed in his ears.
    In less than ten seconds, which nevertheless seemed a lifetime, his mount slowed. Gradually she resumed a gentle walk away from the house. Knowing full well that his cousin was still watching behind him, Percy did his best to regain his composure after the brief scare and do so without looking back.
    Vowing to get even with the little vixen the first chance he got, he tried to relax. Slowly the manor receded in the distance behind him.
    After passing through the eastern gate of the estate ten minutes later, Percy found himself on open hillside. He continued at a slow walk. Now that it was behind him—and now that he had survived it!—the memory of his brief skirmish with death atop a galloping horse filled him with a sense of exhilaration. As a result, he quickly gained confidence as he went. This was nothing like the lessons he had had at twelve on the Clydebank. He had to admit it was an agreeable sort of activity once he was comfortable enough to trust the beast underneath him.
    For one accustomed to the rolling hills and dales of Ayrshire, the countryside over which Percy Drummond now made his way might not have appeared scenic or beautiful. To the young Glaswegian, however, though he would persist yet for a while in trying to convince himself he hated the rugged and mountainous aspect of the place, it could not help but strike into him a vague sense of awe.
    Beautiful, perhaps, it would not be called by some, but wild certainly … big, high, even magnificent. If rugged starkness possessed an allure not found either in city street or tidy countryside, that appeal might explain why the ancient race of Brythonic Celts, now known as the Welsh, had made their home here. He supposed the area through which he now rode was like the highlands of his native Scotland. But in his two or three sojourns up Scotland’s western coast with his parents, he had