Part 8 (2/2)
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 s.h.i.+ning, 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.
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