Cities and towns -- Growth -- Fiction; Wales -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
"Tudor Williams. Expect he couldn't get out of it. He made a speech the
other day, all about Young Wales, a regular dead set at them, and he'll
sweep the poll after this. I don't know who the other is.--Listen, he's
turning this way now----"
Eesaac Oliver's voice came across the packed still basin.
"Cry aloud--spare not--lift up your voice like a trumppp-pet! I say to
you young men, and I say to you young women, that this cit-ty by the sea
shall not be spared, no, no more than the cit-ties of the plain were
spared! It smells of corrupp-tion; it is an offence in the nostrils of
God! There is more sin packed into it than there is drops of blood in
your bodies, and more wick-kedness, and more fornication, and more
irreligion. And those who should help, do they help? Indeed they do not!
They fill their pock-kets instead! I tell them, their own souls go,
perhaps this night, into the pock-kets of Hell! Aw-w-w, their bazaars
prof-fit them lit-tle there! Their new Chap-pils prof-fit them lit-tle
there! Their funds, and their balance-sheets, and their
foundation-stones with their names on them, prof-fit them lit-tle
there!--But I say to you young men, and you young women, that the Wa-ter
of Life is free. Come now, come now! Do not say, 'I will sin one more
sin and then repent'--perhaps you be taken away before that sin iss
commit-ted----"
He turned again, and his voice became less clear.
Perhaps John Willie and his charges were well where they were, high on
the rim of the basin. Whether with the pressure of those behind, or with
the swelling of their own emotion, many below were moaning softly, and
one or two small and hushed commotions seemed to be centres of fainting.
The inner ring, close to the bandstand, was hatless; the belt above them
was packed so that it would have been impossible to remove a hat; and
always about the uppermost circle matches twinkled in and out. Again
Eesaac Oliver's voice was heard, as if borne upon a wind:
"--he that loveth father and mother more than Me----"
"Is his father here?" June whispered to John Willie....
* * * * *
Howell was at his own home, surrounded by sympathetic neighbours. Sunk
into his arm-chair, he sobbed. Big John Pritchard tried to console him,
but he was inconsolable. He shook with his emotion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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