The Angel Part 8

Had he fallen asleep?

Still he sat upon the lichen-covered boulder, still the grey curtain of the mist hid all the mountain world.

Yet what was that sound--that deep, ringing voice which sounded in his ears, falling from some distant height, falling through the air like an arrow?

A voice! A voice! And these were the words it chanted--

"Rise up, Joseph, and come to me! Fear not, for G.o.d is with you! Come to me, that the things that are appointed may be done!"

The great voice rolled through the mist like a cathedral bell.

Cold and trembling, Joseph rose to his feet. One hand rested against the granite rock to support him as he answered, in a loud cry of terror--

"Who are you? What is this? Are you the man Lluellyn? I cannot come. I know not where to come. I am too weak to move. I am frightened."

Again the organ voice came pealing through the gloom.

"Joseph, Joseph, rise up and come! Come and fear not, for the power of the Holy Ghost broods upon the mountains."

Joseph stood for a moment trembling, and swaying from side to side. Then he was conscious of the most extraordinary sensation of his life.

Through the mist, invisible, impalpable, a great current of FORCE seemed flowing to him and around him.

It poured into every fibre of his being, body, mind, and soul alike. It was not a delusion. It was wonderfully, marvellously real. Each second he grew stronger, power returned to his tired limbs, the weariness left his brain. He called out aloud--

"Teacher, I am coming to you!" And, with the swinging, easy step of a man in perfect health, together with the ease and certainty of a practised mountaineer, he began to climb upward through the mist.

It was as though he was floating on air, buoyant as a bird is. On and on he went, and all the while the invisible electric force poured into him and gave him strength and power.

Suddenly thin yellow beams of sunshine began to penetrate and irradiate the thick white blanket of mist. Stronger and stronger they grew, throwing a thousand prismatic colors on the thinning vapor, until at last Joseph emerged into full and glorious day.

This is what he saw.

The actual top of the mountain was only two or three yards above him, and formed a little rock-strewn plateau some twenty or thirty yards square--now bathed in vivid sunshine.

Against a cairn of boulders in the exact centre of the s.p.a.ce a tall man was standing.

Both his arms were stretched out rigidly towards Joseph, the _fingers of each hand outspread and pointing to him_, as he emerged from the fog-belt with the sunshine. The man, who wore a long black cloak, was well over six feet high, and very thin. His face was pale, but the strong, rugged features gave it an impression of immense vitality and force.

Joseph stopped in sudden amazement at the sight of this strange figure up in the clouds. He suddenly remembered a picture he had seen showing Dante standing upon a great crag, and looking down into the abyss of the Inferno.

Lluellyn Lys looks like that--exactly like that, Joseph thought.

He went straight up to the Teacher. As he did so, Lluellyn's arms suddenly collapsed and fell loosely to his sides. His eyes, which had been fixed steadily upon Joseph, closed with a simultaneous movement, and he leant back against the cairn as if utterly exhausted.

But this was only for a moment. As Joseph came up to him he roused himself, and his face lit up with welcome. The Teacher's smile was singularly winning and sweet--it was just like Mary's smile, Joseph thought--but it was also a very sad smile.

"Brother," Lluellyn said, "the peace of G.o.d be with you. May you be full of the Holy Ghost, that you may better accomplish those high things for which the Father has destined you, and for which He has brought you here."

Joseph took Lluellyn's hand, and was about to answer him when the former sank back once more against the boulders. His face grew white as linen, and he seemed about to swoon.

"You are ill!" Joseph cried in alarm. "What can I do to help you?"

"It is nothing," Lluellyn answered in a moment or two. "I have been giving you of my strength, Joseph, that you might mount the last stage of your journey. The voice of the Lord came to me as I communed here with Him, and the Holy Spirit sent the power to you through this unworthy body of mine."

Joseph bowed.

"I am moving in deep waters," he said. "Many strange and wonderful things have happened to me of late. My mind is shaken, and my old life with its old point of view already seems very far away. But let me say, first, how much I appreciate your extreme kindness in asking me here, through Miss Lys. As Miss Mary will have told you, I am a poor, battered scholar with few friends, and often hard put to live at all. Your kindness will enable me to recover after my accident."

Lluellyn took Joseph by the arm.

He led him to the edge of the plateau.

"Look!" he said.

The mist had gone. From that great height they looked down the steep, pine-clothed sides of the mountain to the little white village, far, far below. Beyond was the shining, illimitable ocean.

"The world is very fair," Joseph said.

"The world is very fair because G.o.d is immanent in all things. G.o.d is in the sea, and on the sides of the hills. The Holy Ghost broods over those distant waters, and is with us here in this high place. Joseph, from the moment when the cross-wise timbers struck you down in Whitechapel, until this very moment now, you have been led here under the direct guidance of the Holy Ghost. There is a certain work for you to do."

Joseph looked at the tall man with the grave, sweet smile in startled astonishment.

"What do I bring?" he said. "I, the poor, battered wreck, the unknown, the downtrodden? What do I bring _you_?"

Lluellyn looked Joseph in the face, and placed one long, lean hand upon his shoulder.

"Ask rather what you bring G.o.d," he said. "It were a more profitable question. For me, in the power and guidance of the Lord, it is ordained that you bring one thing only."

"And what is that?"

"Death!" said Lluellyn Lys.

CHAPTER V

THE POURING

Lluellyn Lys lived in a cottage on the side of the mountain where Joseph had first been taken to meet him. His small income was enough for his almost incredibly simple wants, and an ancient widow woman who loved and reverenced him more than anything else in the world kept the cottage for him, milked the cow, and did such frugal cooking as was necessary.

Lluellyn was known far and wide in that part of Wales. The miners, the small crofting farmers, and the scattered shepherds revered and honored the mysterious "Teacher" as men of G.o.d, were revered in the old times.

His influence was very great in the surrounding mining villages; he had been able to do what sometimes even the parish priests had tried in vain. The drunkard, the man of a foul and blasphemous tongue, loose-livers and gamblers, had become sober and G.o.d-fearing folk, with their hearts set upon the Eternal Light.

No one knew when the tall ascetic figure would appear among them with a strange appropriateness. It was said that he possessed the gift of second sight, and many extraordinary stories were told of him.