for him."

These were kind words, and I shook his hand to let him know that I felt
them; and then, as if he were ashamed of having talked rather weakly,
he took with his strong legs a dangerous leap of some ten or twelve feet
downward, and landed on a narrow ledge that overhung the river. Here he
put his rod together, and I heard the click of reel as he drew the loop
at the end of the line through the rings, and so on; and I heard him cry
"Chut!" as he took his flies from his Scotch cap and found a tangle; and
I saw the glistening of his rod, as the sunshine pierced the valley, and
then his tall, straight figure pass the corner of a crag that stood as
upright as a tombstone; and after that no more of any live and bright
George Bowring.

CHAPTER IV.

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