“A director of the power of steam,” said I, “and an explorer of the wonders of Iscander’s city willing to hold the candle to Mr. Bos. I will tell you what, you are too good for this world, let us hope you will have your reward in the next.”
I breakfasted and asked for my bill; the bill amounted to little or nothing—half-a-crown I think for tea-dinner, sundry jugs of ale, bed and breakfast. I defrayed it, and then inquired whether it would be possible for me to see the inside of the church.
“O yes,” said Pritchard. “I can let you in, for I am churchwarden and have the key.”
The church was a little edifice of some antiquity, with a little wing and without a spire; it was situated amidst a grove of trees. As we stood with our hats off in the sacred edifice, I asked Pritchard if there were many Methodists in those parts.
“Not so many as there were,” said Pritchard, “they are rapidly decreasing, and indeed Dissenters in general. The cause of their decrease is that a good clergyman has lately come here, who visits the sick and preaches Christ, and in fact does his duty. If all our clergymen were like him there would not be many Dissenters in Ynis Fon.”
Outside the church, in the wall, I observed a tablet with the following inscription in English:
Here lieth interred the body of Ann, wife of Robert Paston, who deceased the sixth day of October, Anno Domini
1671.
R. P. A.
“You seem struck with that writing?” said Pritchard, observing that I stood motionless, staring at the tablet.
“The name of Paston,” said I, “struck me; it is the name of a village in my own native district, from which an old family, now almost extinct, derived its name. How came a Paston into Ynis Fon? Are there any people bearing that name at present in these parts?”
“Not that I am aware,” said Pritchard.