I shuddered to think how I should feel if suddenly deprived of
my health. Far worse, no doubt, than that poor invalid. He was
young, and in youth there is hope - but I was no longer young. At
last, however, I thought that if God took away my health He might
so far alter my mind that I might be happy even without health, or
the prospect of it; and that reflection made me quite comfortable.
CHAPTER XLIV
National School - The Young Preacher - Pont Bettws - Spanish Words
- Two Tongues, Two Faces - The Elephant's Snout - Llyn Cwellyn -
The Snowdon Ranger - My House - Castell y Cidwm - Descent to Beth
Gelert.
IT might be about three o'clock in the afternoon when I left
Caernarvon for Beth Gelert, distant about thirteen miles. I
journeyed through a beautiful country of hill and dale, woods and
meadows, the whole gilded by abundance of sunshine. After walking
about an hour without intermission I reached a village, and asked a
man the name of it.
"Llan - something," he replied.
As he was standing before a long building, through the open door of
which a sound proceeded like that of preaching, I asked him what
place it was, and what was going on in it, and received for answer
that it was the National School, and that there was a clergyman
preaching in it. I then asked if the clergyman was of the Church,
and on learning that he was, I forthwith entered the building,
where in one end of a long room I saw a young man in a white
surplice preaching from a desk to about thirty or forty people, who
were seated on benches before him. I sat down and listened. The
young man preached with great zeal and fluency. The sermon was a
very seasonable one, being about the harvest, and in it things
temporal and spiritual were very happily blended. The part of the
sermon which I heard - I regretted that I did not hear the whole -
lasted about five-and-twenty minutes: a hymn followed, and then
the congregation broke up. I inquired the name of the young man
who preached, and was told that it was Edwards, and that he came
from Caernarvon. The name of the incumbent of the parish was
Thomas.
Leaving the village of the harvest sermon I proceeded on my way
which lay to the south-east. I was now drawing nigh to the
mountainous district of Eryri; a noble hill called Mount Eilio
appeared before me to the north; an immense mountain called Pen
Drws Coed lay over against it on the south, just like a couchant
elephant with its head lower than the top of its back.
