Blair Collection > Rhys Lewis, minister of Bethel

RHYS LEWIS. 173
■was his whole delight to set the boys a-fighting. In con-
nection with the chapel, again, he a thousand times preferred
accounts of a wrangling teachers' meeting to listening to a
good sermon. Ever since he began to part his hair and
"make a Q.P," mother was very much prejudiced against him,
and was always putting me on my guard lest he should corrupt
me. "Will understood this very well, and, whenever he visited
our house, he always took care to pull his hair down over his
forehead before coming in. This had an excellent effect on
mother, and I think would have uprooted her prejudices had
she not accidentally, in looking through the window one day,
caught "Will going through this preliminary. She reproved him
severely for his hypocrisy.
But, after all, as I have previously intimated, Will under-
stood my mother perfectly, and managed her with remarkable
skill. When it served his purpose he could, in his own way,
talk as religiously as herself, almost. I do not think she was
displeased to see Will coming home with me that night. She
had had a neighbour or two in to cheer her, and so, doubtless,
believed that Will was some sort of a support to me. When we
entered, we were both struck with her calmness.
"The old woman keeps up like a brick," said Will in my ear.
"I see," observed my mother, "it is bad news you have
again. But it's only what I expected. Something has
happened to him or he would have been home before now."
"Don't be down-hearted, Mary Lewis," said Will. "I
belieye Bob will turn up from somewhere, just directly."
" You've no foundation for that belief, William," returned my
mother. " To-night, look you, I'm made to feel the words of
the wise man coming home to me : ' Hope deferred maketh the
heart sick.' And then Job, when ho was in trouble, said,
' Thou washest away the things which grow out of the dust of
the earth, and thou destroyest the hope of man.' 'Where is
now my hope ? ' 'As for my hope, who shall see it ? ' "
"Well, but didn't the preacher say the other Sunday, Mary
Lewis," asked Will, " that it came right with Job in the end,
after all the humbugging he got, didn't he .'^ "