Welsh Journals

THE LIFE AND OPINIONS ROBERT ROBERTS X. — Continued. I soon made friends with my fellow lodgers, and kind, quiet men they were. Edward Thomas was a preacher, and perhaps the most rustic looking and ignorant of the fraternity. He was an awkward big man of about forty, with immense hands and feet, the former intensely red and swollen as if he had perpetual chiblains, and the latter encased in huge mis-shapen boots that might have fitted the seven leagued giant. His diess was a rusty suit of black with the sleeves of the coat very shiny, and the legs of his trousers very brown with sitting too close to the fire. His clothes were ill-made and fitted him badly, but the best of tailors, let alone the village tailor, could not have made a becoming dress for that ungainly figure. He was, moreover, extremely shy and blushed to the colour of a new tile when spoken to, especially by a female. He knew very little English, and did not seem likely ever to learn any. He had been a couple of years at the bottom of the awkward squad," and he was just in the same place when I left him; even to the end he was not sure of but or also without referring to his little dictionary. It may well be supposed that Edward Thomas was not sent to Bala by any presbytery, in the hope of making a scholar of him the most rustic conclave of elders would have seen at once the use- lessness of such a proceeding. But Edward had money of own. He had saved some, and he had succeeded to a small legacy, so he was determined to be a scholar in spite of the fates. They must have been short of oratorical talent where he came from; otherwise his admission for a preachership is hard to be accounted for. A more painful exhibition in a pulpit it would be hard to conceive. He twisted his limbs into the most uncouth-looking shapes; he drew up his long legs one after another, and stood on each foot alternately. He leaned over the pulpit till his face touched the cushion in front, stretching out his great elbows on each side of him, and glaring hideously at the ceiling; he would then suddenly recollect himself, blush fiery red over his neck and face and jump up with a jerk that made the pulpit OF A WANDERING SCHOLAR AS TOLD BY HIMSELF creak, and as to the contortions of his countenance, they were indescribable. All this time he drawled out something in a lugubrious tone, but his hearers could pay little attention to the words they were too busy watching the gestures. And yet, for all his grotesque antics, in spite of them or because of them, I don't know which, he never had a vacant Sunday in his diary. Other rising preachers, or at least men so deemed, were often unemployed on a Sunday. Edward Thomas was never without engagements to preach at some of the chapels around, and he worked hard to keep those engagements In that thinly peopled mountainous district, the chapels were small and pretty wide apart. In most of them only one sermon was preached on a Sunday, and two or three of them constituted the Sunday's engagement so poor Edward Thomas had to walk some ten or twelve miles on a Saturday afternoon to the first chapel on his list, lodge at some farmhouse in the neighbour- hood, and preach his first sermon at nine or ten next morning; that done, he would walk two or three miles further to the next chapel and preach there in the afternoon then, after a hurried cup of tea. he would proceed to the third, where he would conclude the day's work with an evening service. This pretty extensive Sabbath day's journey ended in a long walk back to Bala. How much he received for his hard day's work was not known, but I think that it was very trifling indeed, not much more than would pay for the wear and tear of the big boots. The fee, or acknowledgement," was always given privately and it was not considered good etiquette to ask the preacher what the amount was. I suppose that there was a certain rate fixed, and that it was not left to the discretion or honesty of the deacon to fix the sum. It was rumoured that the price rose or fell according to the oratorical reputation of the preacher. If that is true, I do not think that Edward Thomas's pay would rank in the first class. He never mentioned it and it seems that the pay was low, as he would throw out hints about it, and would sometimes grumble a little at the deacons. But he was a patient, much- enduring man and though he thought himself to be a better preacher than most of his friends would admit