Before Night, However, Pritchard Became Himself Intoxicated, And
Was Trundled To The Vicarage In The Usual Manner.
During the whole
of the next day he was very ill and kept at home, but on the
following one he again repaired to the public-house, sat down and
called for his pipe and tankard.
The goat was now perfectly
recovered, and was standing nigh. No sooner was the tankard
brought than Rees taking hold of it held it to the goat's mouth.
The creature, however, turned away its head in disgust, and hurried
out of the room. This circumstance produced an instantaneous
effect upon Rees Pritchard. "My God!" said he to himself, "is this
poor dumb creature wiser than I? Yes, surely; it has been drunk,
but having once experienced the wretched consequences of
drunkenness, it refuses to be drunk again. How different is its
conduct to mine! I, after having experienced a hundred times the
filthiness and misery of drunkenness, have still persisted in
debasing myself below the condition of a beast. Oh, if I persist
in this conduct what have I to expect but wretchedness and contempt
in this world and eternal perdition in the next? But, thank God,
it is not yet too late to amend; I am still alive - I will become a
new man - the goat has taught me a lesson." Smashing his pipe he
left his tankard untasted on the table, went home, and became an
altered man.
Different as an angel of light is from the fiend of the pit was
Rees Pritchard from that moment from what he had been in former
days.
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