We had stopped at the gate of an old farmhouse, built with massive
boulder stones, laid dry, and flushed in with mortar. As dreary a place
as was ever seen; at the head of a narrow mountain-gorge, with mountains
towering over it. There was no sign of life about it, except that a
gaunt hog trotted forth, and grunted at us, and showed his tusks, and
would perhaps have charged us, if we had not been so many. The house
looked just like a low church-tower, and might have been taken for one
at a distance if there had been any battlements. It seemed to be four or
five hundred years old, and perhaps belonged to some petty chief in the
days of Owen Glendower.
“Knock again, Thomas Edwards. Stop, let me knock,” said one of our party
impatiently. “There, waddow, waddow, waddow!”
Suiting the action to the word, he thumped with a big stone heavily,
till a middle-aged woman, with rough black hair, looked out of a window
and screamed in Welsh to ask what this terrible noise was. To this they
made answer in the same language, pointing to their sad burden, and
asking permission to leave it for the doctor's inspection and the
inquest, if there was to be one. And I told them to add that I would
pay well--anything, whatever she might like to ask. But she screamed out
something that sounded like a curse, and closed the lattice violently.
Knowing that many superstitions lingered in these mountains--as, indeed,
they do elsewhere plentifully--I was not surprised at the woman's stern
refusal to admit us, especially at this time of pest; but I thought it
strange that her fierce black eyes avoided both me and the poor rude
litter on which the body of George lay, covered with some slate-workers'
aprons.
“She is not the mistress!” cried Evan Peters, in great excitement, as I
thought. “Ask where is Hopkin--Black Hopkin--where is he?”
At this suggestion a general outcry arose in Welsh for “Black Hopkin”;
an outcry so loud and prolonged that the woman opened the window again
and screamed--as they told me afterward--“He is not at home, you noisy
fools; he is gone to Machynlleth. Not long would you dare to make this
noise if Hopkin ap Howel was at home.”
But while she was speaking the wicket-door of the great arched gate was
thrown open, and a gun about six feet long and of very large bore was
presented at us. The quarrymen drew aside briskly, and I was about to
move somewhat hastily, when the great, swarthy man who was holding the
gun withdrew it, and lifted his hat to me, proudly and as an equal.
“You cannot enter this house,” he said in very good English, and by no
means rudely. “I am sorry for it, but it cannot be. My little daughter
is very ill, the last of seven. You must go elsewhere.”
With these words he bowed again to me, while his sad eyes seemed to
pierce my soul; and then he quietly closed the wicket and fastened it
with a heavy bolt, and I knew that we must indeed go further.
This was no easy thing to do; for our useless walk to “Crug y Dlwlith”
(the Dewless Hills), as this farm was called, had taken us further at
every step from the place we must strive for after all--the good little
Aber-Aydyr. The gallant quarrymen were now growing both weary and
uneasy; and in justice to them I must say that no temptation of money,
nor even any appeal to their sympathies, but only a challenge of their
patriotism held them to the sad duties owing from the living to the
dead. But knowing how proud all Welshmen are of the fame of their race
and country, happily I exclaimed at last, when fear was getting the
mastery, “What will be said of this in England, this low cowardice of
the Cymro?” Upon that they looked at one another and did their best
right gallantly.
Now, I need not go into any further sad details of this most sad time,
except to say that Dr. Jones, who came the next day from Dolgelly, made
a brief examination by order of the coroner. Of course, he had too much
sense to suppose that the case was one of cholera; but to my surprise
he pronounced that death was the result of “asphyxia, caused by too
long immersion in the water.” And knowing nothing of George Bowring's
activity, vigour, and cultivated power in the water, perhaps he was not
to be blamed for dreaming that a little mountain stream could drown
him. I, on the other hand, felt as sure that my dear friend was foully
murdered as I did that I should meet him in heaven--if I lived well for
the rest of my life, which I resolved at once to do--and there have the
whole thing explained, and perhaps be permitted to glance at the man who
did it, as Lazarus did at Dives.
In spite of the doctor's evidence and the coroner's own persuasion, the
jury found that “George Bowring died of the Caroline Morgan”--which the
clerk corrected to cholera morbus--“brought on by wetting his feet and
eating too many fish of his own catching.” And so you may see it
entered now in the records of the court of the coroners of the king for
Merioneth.
And now I was occupied with a trouble, which, after all, was more urgent
than the enquiry how it came to pass. When a man is dead, it must
be taken as a done thing, not to be undone; and, happily, all near
relatives are inclined to see it in that light. They are grieved, of
course, and they put on hatbands and give no dinner parties; and they
even think of their latter ends more than they might have desired to do.
But after a little while all comes round. Such things must be happening
always, and it seems so unchristian to repine; and if any money has been
left them, truly they must attend to it. On the other hand, if there has
been no money, they scarcely see why they should mourn for nothing; and,
as a duty, they begin to allow themselves to be roused up.
But when a wife becomes a widow, it is wholly different. No money can
ever make up to her the utter loss of the love-time and the
loneliness of the remaining years; the little turns, and thoughts, and
touches--wherever she goes and whatever she does--which at every corner
meet her with a deep, perpetual want. She tries to fetch her spirit up
and to think of her duties to all around--to her children, or to the
guests whom trouble forces upon her for business' sake, or even the
friends who call to comfort (though the call can fetch her none); but
all the while how deeply aches her sense that all these duties are as
different as a thing can be from her love-work to her husband!
What could I do? I had heard from George, but could not for my life
remember, the name of that old house in Berkshire where poor Mrs.
Bowring was on a visit to two of her aunts, as I said before. I
ventured to open her letter to her husband, found in his left-hand side
breastpocket, and, having dried it, endeavoured only to make out whence
she wrote; but there was nothing. Ladies scarcely ever date a letter
both with time and place, for they seem to think that everybody must
know it, because they do. So the best I could do was to write to poor
George's house in London, and beg that the letter might be forwarded at
once. It came, however, too late to hand. For, although the newspapers
of that time were respectably slow and steady, compared with the rush
they all make nowadays, they generally managed to outrun the post,
especially in the nutting season. They told me at Dolgelly, and they
confirmed it at Machynlleth, that nobody must desire to get his letters
at any particular time, in the months of September and October, when the
nuts were ripe. For the postmen never would come along until they had
filled their bags with nuts, for the pleasure of their families. And I
dare say they do the same thing now, but without being free to declare
it so.