The Angel

by Guy Thorne

Then he drew her to him and kissed her on the lips.

The music broke out once more as all the company sat down. It was a short and merry feast, yet not untainted with the Celtic sadness which all the Welsh folk feel at happy moments.

One and all, from bride and bridegroom down to the humblest worker there, knew that there were more stirring and awful things to come; that a trumpet was sounding on the mountain summit; that they were to climb as if into the presence of the Almighty.

Old David Owen, Joseph's trusted lieutenant, lifted on high a great goblet of the pure mountain water, in which he pledged the newly married pair.

"I pledge you," he said, "Mary and Thomas, brother and sister in the Lord, followers of our dear Teacher—I pledge you and call upon all that are present here to join me in the toast. May your life together be one long song of happiness! May you, with all the opportunities that God has given you, always remain true to the trust reposed in you, and follow the banner of Jesus, and once more plunge into the battle for the winning over of Babylon to the Lord!"

Then the old man paused, and, setting down his glass, placed his hands upon the table, and leaning forward, spoke very earnestly and quietly, rather to the assembled company than to the married pair.

"The Master," he said, "is not with us now; but we are going to meet him, and I doubt not we are all to receive another signal proof of the Lord's favor. To some of us it has been a grief that Joseph was not in the church when the marriage was made of the two we love. But Joseph's ways are not our ways, and he is led as we are not led. But I would say this to you, dear brethren and sisters. I see around me those who a long time ago—it seems a very long time ago—accompanied the Master from these hills to the great Modern Babylon of our time. There is no one here who does not remember the saint of the mountain, Lluellyn Lys. There is no one here who has not known the circumstances under which our dear Teacher first came down to these parts. I mind well that I was one of those who carried him up to the mountain, ill and crippled as he was. And it was through that strange fellowship of Joseph and Lluellyn that the things have come to pass. We all assembled on the mountain-top, where we are going soon, to bury Lluellyn, and we all heard our Master as he took on the mantle of Elijah and called us to rally round the standard of Jesus with him as leader. And now we are all going once more to that sacred spot on the top of Pendrydos, and God grant that we may hear inspiring and edifying things there. I have just pledged Thomas and Mary as our brother and our sister in the fight we are waging, and have still to wage, against the sins of the great city so far away from here. I pledge them in the name of you all, and as our brother and our sister. But it would ill become me not to say a word upon another part of the question. We must remember that Thomas, our brother, is also Sir Thomas Ducaine, a man of great fortune and of high lineage. We must also remember that Mary, our sister, was Miss Mary Lys, the sister of Lluellyn Lys, and the descendant of the old kings of Wales who ruled these parts. Just as they are leaders of our band in Christ, so also are they leaders in the great things of this world, and we owe them a double loyalty."

He stopped for a moment, and the old face worked as he thought deeply. Then with a wild, free Celtic gesture, he threw out one hand.

"I can say no more," he said; "but you all know what they are, and who they are. God bless them for our natural leaders and our friends in the Lord! And now, what think you, shall we not climb the mountain?"

It is a steep road from the little village through the pine plantations, until one comes out upon the mountain-side itself. At that point a green gorge stretches up between two spurs of the hill above, a green gorge covered with soft, pneumatic turf cropped like a lawn by the innumerable sheep which range over those high pastures. And then on and up, through the pleasant, slanting valley, until the heather-covered plateau is reached.