A Noble Sacrifice by Emily Grace Harding

"He shall only well known be By the holy harmony That his coming makes in thee. " -- ANON.

It was in the dim twilight silence reigning about the mysterious dark pools below the Craig Aran Peak, whither Percival Vere had followed Primrose with eager feet to her well-known haunt, and on the brink of the black lake round which he had first watched the slow-moving footsteps of the immortal maiden, that on the evening of the day of his conversation with Lady Bryn Afon he poured out his tale of love, and heard from her sweet lips such shyly-answered confession, as made the dying evening sunlight suddenly illume the landscape, to the eyes of his dazzled vision, with all the golden glories of heaven. And when, after much sweet converse in that vast solitude, and a solemn mutual commending of themselves and their new-found joy into the hands of God, they descended the steep hillside to Glyn Melen hand in hand, their feet seemed to tread upon air for very lightness of heart, and Primrose, creeping into her mother's arms in speechless happiness, after they had together received her blessing, felt that for her the world had verily been created anew, and that all dark shadows had for ever rolled away from her long-dreaded future, in the deep, abiding sense of joy and peace with which the knowledge of Percival's love had filled her heart. Each day of the blissful weeks that followed seemed only more happy than the last, as the souls of the lovers grew more firmly knit together in a bond of love which, like the rainbow to which Percival one day pointed on the mountain-top, rested but one foot on earth, and hid the other in heaven. Each day Shanno found in her Sir Galahad more of those virtues and beautiful traits of character with which she had ever clothed her ideal knight, and each day likewise he found her more richly endowed with those tender graces and that innocence and purity of heart which had so surely been revealed to him in that sweet, haunting face of his midnight vision. Lady Bryn Afon, rejoicing greatly in their happiness and in her own newly-found joy of reconciliation with her father, who still remained with her, seemed to grow younger and more beautiful day by day, and to renew her failing health marvellously in the exhilarating air of the mountains, and in the new sense of peace which filled her heart. And who so radiant as old Jack the boatman, again restored to the love of one whom he had so long mourned as dead, and looking forward when the present short season of bliss should be ended, to having once more the charge of his loved granddaughter during some portion of the ensuing months? For Lady Bryn Afon must shortly rejoin her husband in town, and the chaplain must resume his duties in the earl's household, until, on the resignation of good old Master Rhys in the following year, he should succeed, by Lord Bryn Afon's express desire, to the living of Cwmfelin, the earl vowing that while in town the guardianship of the faithful Rhiwallon was enough for him, and that he had resolved henceforth, for the sake of his wife, to spend a great part of his time in his old Welsh castle in spite of the malediction upon its walls, during which seasons Percival should continue to act as his chaplain in addition to his new duties. Such plans for the future had the earl determined, bent upon the union of his beloved chaplain with the Fair Maid of Gwynnon, and knowing well Percival's secret desire to make the Gwynnon Vale some day the starting-point of his own unwearied labours in the cause of temperance and sobriety. And, all unaware the while of the strange events which had lately come to pass within his own household, his own ideas curiously furthered the development of those of his wife and of the lovers themselves.