It was a wonderful Whitsun-day morning that none of the little party
could ever forget. The sunrise could not be seen in that deep,
narrow place, but the sky was of a strange pale shining blue, and the
tender young green of the trees overhead was touched with gold, the
glades of the wood were intensely blue with hyacinths, and with all
sorts of delicate greens twined above in the bushes over them. A
wild cherry, all silver white, was behind their Altar, the green
floor was marbled with cuckoo flowers and buttercups, and the clear
little stream whose voice murmured by was fringed with kingcups and
forget-me-nots. The scents were of the most delicious dewy
freshness; and as to the sounds! Larks sang high up in the sky, wood
pigeons cooed around, nightingales, thrushes, every bird of the wood
seemed to be trying to make music and melody.
And in the midst the grey-haired priest stood close to an ivy-covered
rock, with the white covered Altar, and the bright golden vessels
which he had carefully looked to in the night, and the little
congregation knelt close round him on cloaks and mats, the women
hooded, the old Cavalier's long thin locks, the merchant's dark ones,
and the close cropped heads of the servant and of Steadfast bared to
the morning breeze in its pure, dewy, soft freshness, fit emblem of
the Comforter.
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