Blair Collection > Rhys Lewis, minister of Bethel

JiHYS LEWIS.
•was, but I thouglit he resembled Bob in build and gait, only lie
was older and stronger. Their intention, as far as I could make
out, was to give Bob a chance of escape, but when they saw he
did not avail himself of it, but, on the contrary, assisted the
officers, both took to their heels. On my return to the house,
and apprising mother of what I had seen, she got up and
locked the door.
Neither of us went to bed. Much as I tried to repress my feel-
ings, for mother's sake, and much as she tried to hide her trouble
for mine, we were both repeatedly overcome by fits of crying in
the course of the night. The morning broke— a lovely Sabbath
morning. I saw the people, as they went by to their different
places of worship, eyeing our cottage askance. Mother and I
never once crossed the threshold, and I heard her repeatedly
murmur something about "The day of Tribulation!" We ate
but little. The day seemed as long as a week. Mother opened our
big old Bible dozens of times, but, as soon as she began to read,
her eyes overflowed, and she would fix them abstractedly in one
long gaze on the same spot. I saw the people going home from
morning service, but no one called. I saw them again going to
Sunday School, and returning from it, but no one turned into
our house. I felt sure some of our chapel folk would come to
inquire for us after evening service ; but no one came. In
mother's words, "Nobody darkened her door throughout the
whole of the day." We were anxious that someone should
call, because we did not know how many had been taken to the
lock-up, and mother feared lest Bob had been the only one.
The clock struck nine and mother said it was best we should
both go to bed and endeavour to get a little rest. But at this
moment someone knocked at the door, and I, jumping up eagerly
to open it, found — two deacons? ISlo, but Thomas and Barbara
Bartley, who told us they could not retire to rest without
coming to see how mother got on in her trouble. Two visitors
more unlike my mother in character and disposition it would
have been almost imj)ossible to imagine ; and yet we were
heartily glad to see them. It gave us an opportunity of pouring
forth the grief which had been storing itself up within us for
four and twenty hours. Thomas and Barbara had been to the
Crown, where they were given full particulars of the business.