emptiness. Till a violent
thunderstorm broke up the drought, and the river came down roaring; and
the next day all Aber-Aydyr was able to gossip again as usual.

Finding these people, who lived altogether upon slate, of a quaint and
original turn, George Bowring and I resolved to halt and rest the soles
of our feet a little, and sketch and fish the neighbourhood. For George
had brought his rod and tackle, and many a time had he wanted co stop
and set up his rod and begin to cast; but I said that I would not be
cheated so: he had promised me a mountain, and would he put me off with
a river? Here, however, we had both delights; the river for him and the
mountain for me. As for the fishing, all that he might have, and I would
grudge him none of it, if he fairly divided whatever he caught. But
he must not expect me to follow him always and watch all his dainty
manoeuvring; each was to carry and eat his own dinner, whenever we made
a day of it, so that he might keep to his flies and his water, while
I worked away with my brush at the mountains. And thus we spent a most
pleasant week, though we knew very little of Welsh and the slaters spoke
but little English. But--much as they are maligned because they will
not have strangers to work with them--we found them a thoroughly civil,
obliging, and rather intelligent set of men; most of them also of a
respectable and religious turn of mind; and they scarcely ever poach,
except on Saturdays and Mondays.

On September 25, as we sat at breakfast in the little sanded parlour of
the Cross-Pipes public house, our bedroom being overhead, my dear friend
complained to me that he was tired of fishing so long up and down
one valley, and asked me to come with him further up, into wilder and
rockier districts, where the water ran deeper (as he had been told) and
the trout were less worried by quarrymen, because it was such a savage
place, deserted by all except evil spirits, that even the Aber-Aydyr
slaters could not enjoy the fishing there. I promised him gladly to
come, only keeping the old understanding between us, that each should
attend to his own pursuits and his own opportunities mainly; so that
George might stir most when the trout rose well, and I when the shadows
fell properly. And thus we set forth about nine o'clock of a bright and
cheerful morning, while the sun, like a courtly perruquier of the reign
of George II., was lifting, and shifting, and setting in order the
vapoury curl