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 sur-prise
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