This was the morning of mornings!
When the sun had risen higher in the heavens, he would walk to the little granite-walled, slate-roofed church. Mary would meet him there, and Joseph and the brethren who had accompanied the Teacher from London back to their old beloved home. And there, without pomp or ceremony, noise of publicity, or the rout and stir of a great company, he would place his hand in the hand of the girl he loved, and the old village priest would make them one for ever in this world and the next, and afterwards give them the Body and Blood of Our Lord.
Behind the cottages the great mountains towered up into the sky. One purple peak, still covered at the summit by a white curtain of cloud, was the mountain where Lluellyn Lys, the brother of Mary, lay in sleep.
Thomas could see the mountain from the cottage, and as his eyes traveled up the green and purple sides to the mysterious cap which hid the top, he remembered all that he had heard about it, and looked upward with an added interest and awe.
For this was the mountain upon which Joseph had first met the mysterious recluse of the hills who had changed him from what he had been to what he was. This was the modern Sinai, where the Master had communed with God. Here he had gathered together his disciples, had preached to them with the voice which the Holy Spirit had given him, and blessed them, and led them to the conquest of London, to the Cross.
Yes, it was there, on those seemingly inaccessible heights, that the great drama of Joseph's life had begun, and it was there that the drama of his life—the life of Thomas Ducaine—was to receive its seal and setting.
After the marriage and the simple feast, which was to be held in the village, they were all to climb the heights, and there, up in the clouds, Joseph was to bless them and give them, so it was said, whispered, and understood, a special message.
The bridegroom left the window, knelt down at his bedside, and prayed. This complex, young, modern gentleman—a product of every influence which makes for subtlety and decadence of brain and body—knelt down and said his prayers with the simplicity of a child. Despite his vast wealth, his upbringing as a young prince of modern England, Thomas Ducaine had lived a life far more pure and unspotted than almost any of his contemporaries. It was that fact, so patent in his face and manner, which had first attracted Hampson to him, when the two had met in the Frivolity Theatre—how long ago that seemed now!
So the young man with great possessions said the Lord's Prayer in the fresh morning light, and then prayed most earnestly that he might be worthy of the gift that God had given him—the love of the sweetest, purest, and loveliest lady in the land.
He prayed that God would be pleased to bless their union at the supreme moment which was now so imminent, and for ever afterwards. His whole heart and soul went up to the throne of the Most High in supplication for himself and the girl who was to be his wife. That they might live together in godly and righteous wedlock; that they might spend their lives, and the wealth which had been given them, for the good of others and for the welfare of the world; that at the last they might be gathered up in the company of the elect, might tread the shining pavements of Heaven, and see the face of God—these were the prayers of the young man as, like a knight of old, he kept the vigil before the Sacrament which was to come.