Before Thine altar-throne
This mercy we implore;
As Thou dost knit them, Lord, in one,
So bless them evermore."
As the crashing, rolling chords ceased and echoed far away among the purple mountains, they found that they had come into the higher lands and were upon the last mountain moorland, from which before them the granite peak of their final endeavor rose stark and awful, its head still hidden by the clouds.
And then, as they moved towards the steep path among the boulders and the slate terraces, a change came over the spirits of all of them. It was not a chill of depression, but rather a sense of awe and the imminence of awful things. The immediate occasion was forgotten. Out of the minds of all of them, save only those of the man and maid who had been made one upon that happy morning, the remembrance of the marriage feast passed and dissolved.
They were going up the last part of their journey to meet the Teacher who was up there in the clouds by the tomb of Lluellyn Lys, waiting for them with a message from God.
Silently, and almost without effort, they wound up the huge, steep rock.
The bracken ceased, the heather was no more, and only the vast granite boulders, painted a thousand fantastic colors—ash-green, crimson, orange, and vivid grey—by the lichens which covered them, reminded them that they were still in a world where herbs grew and the kindly nature of the vales yet held a divided sway with the mysterious and untrodden places of the sky.
Now the light, which had become fainter and more faint as the first fleecy heralds of the great cloud-cap into which they were entering enveloped them, began to fail utterly. They walked and climbed upwards, upwards and for ever up, in a white world of ghostly vapor, until at last, without a sound, and with profound expectation and reverence in every heart, they knew by the change in the contour of the ground that they were near upon the mountain-top, and close to the cairn of stones where their old leader, Lluellyn Lys, lay in his long sleep, and where their living guide and Master, Joseph, was awaiting them.
On the very top of the mountain itself the air was bitter chill, and the ghostly cloud-wreaths circled round them, while their quiet, questioning voices sounded muffled and forlorn.
They waited there, not knowing whether to advance or to call to the man whom they had come to seek. At the head of the little group Thomas and Mary stood hand in hand, looking at each other with questioning eyes and waiting.
Then, through the swaying whiteness, they saw a grey shadow advancing towards them. It grew from a shadow into a blackness, from a blackness into the form of a tall man, and in a second more the Teacher had come to them.