Summon the Bright Water Read Online Free PDF Page B

gold.’
    I objected that it was not possible. Gold could be made from lead but required immense and uneconomic plant – lasers and cyclotrons and God knows what. It couldn’t be made by a rack of crucibles and a magic circle.
    ‘But don’t ask him about it,’ she warned me. ‘We talk of it ourselves, but never to him.’
    I decided that gold was none of my business; it kept this hospitable colony happy and prosperous, and the profit and loss account was a matter for the Inspector of Inland Revenue, not for me. So my thoughts returned to the trade balance of Roman Britain and its commerce. This, the original object of my wanderings, had rather faded away – not unnaturally, considering the excitement of Elsa and the surprising efficiency of Broom Lodge in spite of being collectively devoted to poppycock.
    In case I revived Marrin’s nightmare of pre-historians flipping in and out of his river I tackled him very cautiously. Rome seemed a safe subject, too solid, too eternally present for mysteries, and I knew he was well up to date in the long history of the Forest. So over the evening drinks I ventured to ask him if he had ever spotted any underwater foundations at Woolaston which would help archaeologists to decide whether the Romans had built a commercial wharf or just a breakwater to shelter the naval commander’s galley.
    His sane and pleasant side at once appeared, or was allowed to appear. It may be that I have not sufficiently emphasised his personal charm, for it stands to reason that without it he could never have kept his commune together and loyal, religion or no religion.
    ‘Why don’t we both look?’ he replied. ‘It occurs to me that we are of the same build and I have a spare suit. We’ll dive in daylight, of course, and at slack water. That will be about eight to eight-thirty tomorrow, if it isn’t too early for you.’
    It was the fourth morning of my stay. After we had grabbed a light breakfast he unlocked the door of a tiled cubicle which led off the guests’ washroom at the end of the passage. There he kept his diving kit. I was glad to see that his own suit and the spare were of Neoprene, for I was used to the wet suit. He had only surface life-jackets, but as we were unlikely to go deeper than twenty feet or so they were good enough and saved trouble.
    He had chosen to go in off the Guscar Rocks which I had never seen. The west bank of the Severn is concealed till you reach it. Rough farm tracks lead down to it from the main road to Wales and either stop at the railway embankment or go under it, always past a notice that bathing is extremely dangerous. Beyond the embankment are the flat and empty meadows, without a living thing but the sheep to take an interest in what you do or how you are equipped, abruptly ending at the immensity of the tideway, itself also empty.
    It was near the time of low water, and the Guscar Rocks were jagged islands of weed standing above the last eddies of the ebb. It seemed impossible to get at them, for the shore, beneath a miniature cliff of crumbling red rock, was of mud and shale; but Marrin confidently led the way along the banks of a pill until we could swim on the surface across to the rocks, land on them and jump in from the far side clear of the weed.
    The water was warmer than I expected and despite its colour of pale milk chocolate – gold if one wants to be politer to Severn than I feel – visibility was not too bad. All I could discover close under the Woolaston shore was that somebody at some time had built something. Not very satisfactory! A narrow and difficult secondary channel led to the old port at Lydney and may have offered a straight run up-river in Roman times. If it did, the Guscar Rocks sheltered a natural harbour. But only dredging could reveal solid evidence, and I doubt if even that expensive process would have much success against the silt and sand brought down by every relentless tide.
    We pulled out again on to the rocks, facing