Blair Collection > Rhys Lewis, minister of Bethel

J?HyS LEWIS. 323
fancied he "n-ould like to have been able to conceal his charity
even from himself. I noticed, many times, that in handing
an aim to a beggar he -would talk of something else, as if
endeavouring to divert his own attention and the recipient's
from what he was doing with his hand. I remember well one
night in August, about a fortnight before the time I meant to
go to College, I was preparing for the journey, and feeling a
little fidgetty, never having been more than two nights
together from home in all my life. I had just shut shop, and
my master Abel was sitting on the sofa near the parlour
window. He seemed fatigued, sad, and languid. He at once
began to talk of my going to college. Seeing me put my hat
on, be asked me where I was bound for, and I replied I had
promised to call on Thomas Bartley.
"Will you be long ? " he asked.
"I don't think I shall be," was my response, with the
addition : " What is it, sir ? Would you like m.e to stay in .'' "
" Not on any account," he rejoined. *' But I do not feel like
myself at all to-night, somehow."
" I'll stay," I observed. " I can go to the Tump to-morrow
l;ight."
Abel, however, insisted I should not. "There isn't much
the matter with me," he went on. "I'll be better directly, and
I expect Marg'ret in every minute. Thomas Bartley, doubt-
less, will be waiting you."
As I was going through the doorway he called after me.
"Wait a minute; one never knows what may happen," he
said, opening a cupboard close by, taking out his cashbox, un-
locking it, and drawing from it one or two bank notes, which
he suddenly replaced, with the observation: "What is the
matter with me ? Am I getting childish, or what ? Isn't there a
fortnight yet ? Away you go ; never mind me, and make haste
back."
On the road to the Tump I could not help thinking there was
something strange in Abel's demeanour that night, and I
resolved to return soon, in consequence. But once under the
Bartley roof-tree it was no easy matter to come away quickly.
To do 60 without taking supper was, I immediately saw,
altogether out of the question; for hardly had I sat down