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.