Blair Collection > Rhys Lewis, minister of Bethel

RHYS LEWIS. 327
which I couldn't make top nor bottom of. But, tell me— I
almost forgot, and I knew I had somethin' to ask you— what
sort of livin' do they get there? Pretty good, I should
think."
" They don't provide for any one, Thomas. Each mu^t pro-
vide for himself," replied I.
"But how in the world do the boys get along? Are they
'lowed so much a week to live on ?" he asked.
" Oh, no," said I. "Every one has to find his own food,
drink, lodging and washing. They're permitted to go about
preaching, and on the little they get for that they live."
" Never '11 1 go to Caerwys fair again, if that college isn't
the rummest place /'ve hard talk of!" observed Thomas.
"The boys, you say, don't larn to preach there; they don't
iarn the language of the Blacks, only the language of some
old people's bin dead for cent'ries ; they don't get any pay,
everybody livin' on his own hook, starve or not ; and the only
thing worth talkin' of they do larn is History and that other
thing — what did you call it ? Matthew ? to be shwar,
Matthew Mattis. "What in the wide world do you want to go
there for, say ? Do they larn anythin' about Jesus Christ
there ? I didn't hear you mention it."
" Doubtless they do, Thomas," replied I; " but the place is
almost as strange to me as it is to you."
" Most the pity. If 1 were you I'd go a month on trial and
take my food with me. D'ye know what ? It's just this
minute struck me that every one I've seen comin' here from
college preachin' looked half starved; and it's not a bit of
wonder after what you've told me 'bout the way they manage
there. The longer he lives, the more a man hears, the more he
perceives. I always thought the college an uncommon nice
place, though I used to wonder why all the boys, poor things,
looked so pale and dispirited. I fancied they were only a bit
nervous, like a witness in the box, and that if I was to see 'em
on the Monday mornin' I'd find 'em all right, p'r'aps. But
they must have bin gettin' better livin' there at one time,
'cause I remember, when a lad, happ'nin' to go to chapel; and
who should be preachin' but John Jones, of Llanllyfni — it was
in college he was at thsst time, I should fancy— and his two