Blair Collection > Rhys Lewis, minister of Bethel

176 RHYS LEWIS.
I loved the silence. I don't know whether there is another
like rae, but I am thinking that my habit of spending hours at a
stretch in the quiet of the night staring into the fire, with
thousands of things which never had an existence and will
never come to pass, running through my mind, is a legacy left
me by my mother,. Spite of every attempt to shake it off, it
Las clung to me to this day. Some nights I live an age in a
few hours. Among other things, I have seen myself married
to someone whose name I do not know. Our children fill the
house with their clatter, they grow up and are seat to school, I
try and train them as best I can, they give me all sorts of
trouble, they leave home ; at last their mother dies and I, a
white-headed old man, am deserted of all save my crutches. I
am cold and, the clock striking one, I spring to my feet with
the remark that these are but vaiu imaginations, and I myself
but a shivering old bachelor. I then run off to bed; but before
closing my eyelids, I make a resolve that never again will I
give my fancy rein, it being unprofitable, if not actually sinful,
so to do. Next night I read till I am tired, and then say to
myself, " Bhys, you had better, before going to bed, think over
one or two matters, just for five minutes." No sooner do I say
so, than I begin building castles in the air once more ; I imagine
great numbers of things, and fancy myself in one situation and
the other for an hour, two hours, sometimes three ! Away with
such a practice ! And yet I love it. Like the man who is a
slave to strong drink, I hate the failing from the bottom of my
heart, at the same time that I find the greatest pleasure in it,
and am for ever resolving some day to shake it off.
But to return. As I have said, I loved the silence, to which
neither Will's breathing nor the fact that something often rose
to his throat as if it would choke him, did more than add.
Mother and I exchanged not a word, but, so I have since
thought, our fancies, though unconsciously, travelled side by
side, so completely were our minds absorbed by the self-same
object. I know not how long we thus remained, but I re-
member well fancying, a score of times, that I heard someone
walking up the court-yard towards the house, the footsteps
dying away within a yard or two of the door. At times I felt
certain they were Bob's, and held my breath in expectation.