Swift is the flight of Time whenever a man would fain lay hold of him.
All created beings, from Behemoth to a butterfly, dread and fly (as best
they may) that universal butcher--man. And as nothing is more carefully
killed by the upper sort of mankind than Time, how can he help making
off for his life when anybody wants to catch him?
Of course, I am not of that upper sort, and make no pretence to be so;
but Time, perhaps, may be excused for thinking--having had such a very
short turn at my clothes--that I belonged to the aristocracy. At any
rate, while I drew, and rubbed, and dubbed, and made hieroglyphics, Time
was uneasily shifting and shuffling the lines of the hills, as a fever
patient jerks and works the bed-clothes. And, worse than that, he was
scurrying westward (frightened, no doubt, by the equinox) at such a pace
that I was scared by the huddling together of shadows. Awaking from a
long, long dream--through which I had been working hard, and laying the
foundations of a thousand pounds hereafter--I felt the invisible damp of
evening settling in the valleys. The sun, from over the sea, had still
his hand on Cader Idris; but every inferior head and height was gray in
the sweep of his mantle.
I threw my hair back--for an artist really should be picturesque; and,
having no other beauty, must be firm to long hair, while it lasts--and
then I shouted, “George!” until the strata of the mountain (which
dip and jag, like veins of oak) began and sluggishly prolonged a slow
zig-zag of echoes. No counter-echo came to me; no ring of any sonorous
voice made crag, and precipice, and mountain vocal with the sound of
“Bob!”
“He must have gone back. What a fool I must be never to remember seeing
him! He saw that I was full of rubbish, and he would not disturb me. He
is gone back to the Cross-Pipes, no doubt. And yet it does not seem like
him.”
“To look for a pin in a bundle of hay” would be a job of sense and
wisdom rather than to seek a thing so very small as a very big man among
the depth, and height, and breadth of river, shingle, stone, and rock,
crag, precipice, and mountain. And so I doubled up my things, while the
very noise they made in doubling flurried and alarmed me; and I thought
it was not like George to leave me to find my way back all alone, among
the deep bogs, and the whirlpools, and the trackless tracts of crag.
When I had got my fardel ready, and was about to shoulder it, the sound
of brisk, short steps, set sharply upon doubtful footing, struck my ear,
through the roar of the banks and stones that shook with waterfall. And
before I had time to ask, “Who goes there?”--as in this solitude one
might do--a slight, short man, whom I knew by sight as a workman of
Aber-Aydyr, named Evan Peters, was close to me, and was swinging a
slate-hammer in one hand, and bore in the other a five-foot staff. He
seemed to be amazed at sight of me, but touched his hat with his staff,
and said: “Good-night, gentleman!” in Welsh; for the natives of this
part are very polite. “Good-night, Evan!” I answered, in his own
language, of which I had picked up a little; and he looked well pleased,
and said in his English: “For why, sir, did you leave your things in
that place there? A bad mans come and steal them, it is very likely.”
Then he wished me “Good-night” again, and was gone--for he seemed to
be in a dreadful hurry--before I had the sense to ask him what he meant
about “my things.” But as his footfall died away a sudden fear came over
me.
“The things he meant must be George Bowring's,” I said to myself; and I
dropped my own, and set off, with my blood all tingling, for the place
toward which he had jerked his staff. How long it took me to force my
way among rugged rocks and stubs of oak I cannot tell, for every moment
was an hour to me. But a streak of sunset glanced along the lonesome
gorge, and cast my shadow further than my voice would go; and by it I
saw something long and slender against a scar of rock, and standing
far in front of me. Toward this I ran as fast as ever my trembling legs
would carry me, for I knew too well that it must be the fishing-rod of
George Bowring.
It was stuck in the ground--not carelessly, nor even in any hurry; but
as a sportsman makes all snug, when for a time he leaves off casting.
For instance, the end fly was fixed in the lowest ring of the butt, and
the slack of the line reeled up so that the collar lay close to the
rod itself. Moreover, in such a rocky place, a bed to receive the spike
could not have been found without some searching. For a moment I was
reassured. Most likely George himself was near--perhaps in quest of
blueberries (which abound at the foot of the shingles--and are a very
delicious fruit), or of some rare fern to send his wife, who was one
of the first in England to take much notice of them. And it shows what
confidence I had in my friend's activity and strength, that I never
feared the likely chance of his falling from some precipice.
But just as I began, with some impatience--for we were to have dined at
the Cross-Pipes about sundown, five good (or very bad) miles away, and
a brace of ducks was the order--just as I began to shout, “George!
Wherever have you got to?” leaping on a little rock, I saw a thing that
stopped me. At the further side of this rock, and below my feet, was a
fishing basket, and a half-pint mug nearly full of beer, and a crust of
the brown, sweet bread of the hills, and a young white onion, half cut
through, and a clasp-knife open, and a screw of salt, and a slice of the
cheese, just dashed with goat's milk, which George was so fond of, but
I disliked; and there may have been a hard-boiled egg. At the sight of
these things all my blood rushed to my head in such a manner that all my
power to think was gone. I sat down on the rock where George must have
sat while beginning his frugal luncheon, and I put my heels into the
marks of his, and, without knowing why, I began to sob like a child who
has lost his mother. What train of reasoning went through my brain--if
any passed in the obscurity--let metaphysicians or psychologists,
as they call themselves, pretend to know. I only know that I kept on
whispering, “George is dead! Unless he had been killed, he never would
have left his beer so!”
I must have sat, making a fool of myself, a considerable time in this
way, thinking of George's poor wife and children, and wondering what
would become of them, instead of setting to work at once to know what
was become of him. I took up a piece of cheese-rind, showing a perfect
impression of his fine front teeth, and I put it in my pocketbook, as
the last thing he had touched. And then I examined the place all around
and knelt to look for footmarks, though the light was sadly waning.
For the moment I discovered nothing of footsteps or other traces to
frighten or to comfort me. A little narrow channel (all of rock and
stone and slaty stuff) sloped to the river's brink, which was not more
than five yards distant. In this channel I saw no mark except that some
of the smaller stones appeared to have been turned over; and then I
looked into the river itself, and saw a force of water sliding smoothly
into a rocky pool.
“If he had fallen in there,” I said, “he would have leaped out again in
two seconds; or even if the force of the water had carried him down into
that deep pool, he can swim like a duck--of course he can. What river
could ever drown you, George?”
And then I remembered how at Salop he used to swim the flooded Severn
when most of us feared to approach the banks; and I knew that he could
not be drowned, unless something first had stunned him. And after that I
looked around, and my heart was full of terror.
“It is a murder!” I cried aloud, though my voice among the rocks might
well have brought like fate upon me. “As sure as I stand here, and God
is looking down upon me, this is a black murder!” In what way I got back
that night to Aber-Aydyr I know not. All I remember is that the
people would not come out of their houses to me, according to some
superstition, which was not explained till morning; and, being unable
to go to bed, I took a blanket and lay down beneath a dry arch of the
bridge, and the Aydyr, as swiftly as a spectre gliding, hushed me with a
melancholy song.