Blair Collection > Rhys Lewis, minister of Bethel

2 So RHYS LEWIS.
mother; and although I cannot help thinking of them in this
place, their further description is altogether too painful a
business to undertake.
My uncle James, so Bob told me, had not much trouble in
enmeshing father in his evil habits. Before long the pair came
to be looked upon as professional poachers who succeeded
surprisingly in escaping the clutches of the law. This was
attributed to my father's Herculean strength, which was said
to be the terror of the police. Uncle James, as I haye often
intimated, was but a weakling; but he possessed a cunning,
craft, and daring beyond my father. The havoc wrought by
both on his property made the Hall owner dance with fury
and frequently change his keepers. At last he found a couple
of men who were not quite afraid of their own shadows. Both
were Scotch. But they had not been on the estate a whole
month before they were both wounded and laid up. "For some
days one of them was not expected to recover. From that
time forth two old inhabitants— uncle James and my father —
were lost sight of, and, although much sought after, never
found. All this happened before I was born. Mother was
"worse than widow " now, to use her own words; but Bob
was wont to say that this was the luckiest thing that ever
happened to her. I have already described, at length, the
hardship she underwent before Bob became able to support
the family ; but that hardship was nothing in comparison to
the grief of mind which my father's irreligion caused her, and
the constant fear she was in lest he should come to visit us, or
be caught. Her sorrow was renewed and deepened by the sur-
reptitious visits of my uncle, which mother always took as a
reminder thcit her husband could not be far oflP. These visits oc-
curred, regularly and without exception, at awkward moments,
and on dark nights, up to the time when Bob got big enough
to put a stop to them— their object being always the appropria-
tion of the whole of mother's money. After every visit mother
would for days remain sad and silent. I rather think she
never breathed a word about my uncle's visits to anyone save
Thomas and Barbara Bartley ; and I make no doubt but it was
to protect her from all such undesirable occurrences that the
two kind-hearted old neighbours persuaded her to end her days