"There is no jest here," answered St. Joseph with unruffled look. You say truly. By no power of mine could the seasons alter, or the effects of them. My Master has said: 'All the days of the earth, seed-time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, night and day, shall not cease!' But what if his power and his will unite to make some wonderful change in all this?"
"His power is great in the summer," answered Hoel, casting a look at the declining sun; "but in the winter time he seems further off, or feebler. He cannot melt the ice, nor draw up the dew, nor warm my fingers while I stand watching my sheep."
It was plain he was speaking of his deity, then sinking in the west, lower every moment.
"Ah!" said Avitus, "is it even such darkness as this into which the land is plunged? Would we had pushed on sooner from Gaul!"
"Courage, brother," whispered Simeon in answer. "There has been no time lost, Man can do but little, except pray and obey. If he does these well, he does good all around him. What says the holy text? 'Well done, good and faithful servant; because thou hast been faithful in a little.'"
Meanwhile St. Joseph had been in silent prayer. By some inspiration he felt moved to ask for power to work the first miracle ever wrought in Britain. Our Lord had promised: "These signs shall follow them that believe. In my name they shall cast out devils, they shall speak with new tongues, they shall take up serpents, and if they shall drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them: they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover." "Amen, amen, I say to you, he that believeth in me, the works that I do, he shall do also; and greater than these shall he do, because I go to the Father. And whatsoever you shall ask the Father in my name, that will I do; that the Father may be glorified in the Son."
And even while St. Joseph prayed, it seemed as if witnesses of the miracle, and disciples of the truth, were being given him; for, stealing up the ascent from various directions, knots of the wild Britons, in threes and fours, converged on the summit of Weary-All Hill. I do not suspect Hoel of treachery, or that he had meant to lead the foreigners into a snare. It is likely the rude inhabitants had perceived them from afar as they stood there, their forms traced on the hill-top against the red sunset sky. But these new-comers seemed to have no friendly intention. Most of them held in their hands the rude weapons of ancient British warfare. The bare arms of some were stained blue with the juice of the woad; others were tattooed; they had the wild and savage look we have seen in prints of the Sandwich Islanders. So, with threatening aspect and gestures, on they came, brandishing their lances and celts, or bronze hatchets, and beginning a sort of war-cry.
Yes; the moment was come, and the sovereignty of the true Lord both over nature and grace was to be manifested in one and the same moment.
St. Joseph told his companions how strongly the thought had come into his mind. It had, indeed, guided much that he had already said to Hoel. As by one impulse, they all knelt again, and besought our Lord to remember now his promise; so that the soul that had remained impervious to his word might see his work.
St. Joseph then approached the peasant, who by this time was surrounded by his countrymen. In a mild voice, yet with an authority not to be resisted, he said: