CHAPTER XXXII.
_A New Face in the Dream_
In a settled despair the little bent man waited for the end. Already hefelt himself an outcast from Israel. In spirit he had disobeyed thevoice of Brigham, which was the voice of God; exulting sinfully in spiteof himself in this rebellion. Praying to be bowed and bent and broken,to have all trace of the evil self within him burned out, he had now letthat self rise up again to cry out a want. Praying that crosses mightdaily be added to his burden, he had now refused to take up one thebearing of which might have proved to Heaven the extinction of his lastselfish desire. He had been put to the test, as he prayed to be, and hehad failed miserably to meet it. And now he knew that even his life waswaning with his faith.
During the year when he waited for the end of the world, he had beennerved to an unwonted vigour. Now he was weak and fit for no furthercombat. He waited, with an indifference that amazed him, for the daywhen he should openly defy Brigham, and have penalties heaped upon him.
First he would be ordered on a mission to some far corner of the world.It would mean that he must go alone, "without purse or scrip," leavingPrudence. He would refuse to go. Thereupon he would be sternlydisfellowshiped. Then, having become an apostate, he would be a fairmark for many things, perhaps for simple persecution--perhaps for bloodatonement. He had heard Brigham himself say in the tabernacle that hewas ready to "unsheathe his bowie knife" and send apostates "to hellacross lots."
He was ready to welcome that. It were easier to die now than to live;and, as for being cut off from his glory in the after-time, he hadalready forfeited that; would miss it even if he died in fellowship withBrigham and full of churchly honours; would miss it even if the power onhigh should forgive him,--for he himself, he knew, could not forgive hisown sin. So it was little matter about his apostasy, and Prudence shouldbe saved from a wifehood that, ever since he had pictured her in it, hadseemed to him for the first time unspeakably bad.
They talked but little about it that day, after her first abruptrefusal. There was too much for each of them to think of. He was obligedto dwell upon the amazing fact that he must lie in hell until he couldwin his own forgiveness, regardless of what gentle pardoning might behis from God. This, to him, simple and obvious truth, was now his dailytorture.
As for Prudence, she had to be alone to dream her dreams of a love thatshould be always single. Brigham's letter, far from disturbing these,had brought them a zest hitherto lacking. Neither the sacrilege ofrefusing him, its worldly unwisdom, nor its possible harm to the littlebent man of sorrows, had as yet become apparent to her. Each day, whensuch duties as were hers in the house had been performed, she walked outto be alone,--always to Box Canon, that green-sided cleft in themountain, with the brook lashing itself to a white fury over theboulders at the bottom. She would go up out of the hot valley into itscool freshness and its pleasant wood smells, and there, in the softenedblue light of a pine-hung glade, she would rest, and let her fancy buildwhat heaven-reaching towers it would. On some brown bed of pine-needles,or on a friendly gray boulder close by the water-side, where she couldgive her eyes to its flow and foam, and her ears to its music,--musiclike the muffled tinkling of little silver bells in the distance,--shewould let herself go out to her dream with the joyous, reckless abandonof falling water.
It was commonly a dream of a youth in doublet and hose, a plumed cap,and a cloak of purple satin, who came in the moonlight to the balcony ofhis love, and sighed his passion in tones so moving that she thought anangel must have yielded--as did the girl in the balcony who had let downthe scarf to him. She already knew how that girl's heart must havefluttered at the moment,--how she must have felt that the hands weremad, wicked, uncontrollable hands, no longer her own.
There was one place in the dream that she managed not without someingenuity. It had to be made plain that the lover under the window didnot come from a long, six-doored house, with a wife behind each door;that this girl, pale in the moonlight, with quickening heart andrebellious hands on the scarf, and arms that should open to him, was tobe not only his first wife but his last; that he was never even toconsider so much as the possibility of another, but was to cleave untoher, and to love her with a single heart for all the days of her lifeand his own.
There were various ways of bringing this circumstance forward. Usuallyshe had Brigham march on at the head of his great family and counsel theyouth to take more wives, in order that he should be exalted in theKingdom. Whereupon the young man would fold his love in his arms andspeak words of scorn, in the same thrilling manner that he spoke hisother words, for any exaltation which they two could not share alone.Brigham, at the head of his wives, would then slink off, much abashed.
She had come naturally to see her own face as the face of this happilyloved girl in the dream. She knew no face for the youth. There was nonein Amalon; not Jarom Tanner, six feet three, who became a helpless,grinning child in her presence; nor Moroni Peterson, who became asolemn and ghastly imbecile; nor Ammaron Wright, son of the Bishop, whohad opened the dance of the Young People's Auxiliary with prayer, andlater tried to kiss her in a dark corner of the room. So the face of theother person in her dream remained of an unknown heavenly beauty.
And then one afternoon in early May a strange youth came singing downthe canon; came while she mused by the brook-side in her best-loveddream. Long before she saw him, she heard his music, a young, clear,care-free voice ringing down from the trail that went over the mountainsto Kanab and into Kimball Valley; one of the ways that led out to theworld that she wondered about so much. It was a voice new to her, andthe words of his ballad were also new. At first she heard them fromafar:--
"There was a young lady came a-tripping along, And at each side a servant-O, And in each hand a glass of wine To drink with the Gypsy Davy-O.
"And will you fancy me, my dear, And will you be my Honey-O? I swear by the sword that hangs by my side You shall never want for money-O.
"Oh, yes, I will fancy you, kind sir, And I will be your Honey-O, If you swear by the sword that hangs by your side I shall never want for money-O."
The singer seemed to be making his way slowly. Far up the trail, she hadone fleeting glimpse of a man on a horse, and then he was hid again inthe twilight of the pines. But the music came nearer:--
"Then she put on her high-heeled shoes, All made of Spanish leather-O, And she put on her bonnie, bonnie brown, And they rode off together-O.
"Soon after that, her lord came home Inquiring for his lady-O, When some of the servants made this reply, She's a-gone with the Gypsy Davy-O.
"Then saddle me my milk-white steed, For the black is not so speedy-O, And I'll ride all night and I'll ride all day Till I overtake my lady-O."
She stood transfixed, something within her responding to the hiddensinger, as she had once heard a closed piano sound to a voice that sangnear it. Soon she could get broken glimpses of him as he wound down thetrail, now turning around the end of a fallen tree, then passing behinda giant spruce, now leaning far back while the horse felt a waycautiously down some sharp little declivity. The impression wasconfused,--a glint of red, of blue, of the brown of the horse, a figureswaying loosely to the horse's movements, and then he was out of sightagain around the big rock that had once fallen from high up on the sideof the canon; but now, when he came from behind that, he would besquarely in front of her. This recalled and alarmed her. She began topick a way over the boulders and across the trail that lay between herand the edge of the pines, hearing another verse of the song, almost ather ear:--
"He rode all night and he rode all day, Till he came to the far deep water-O, Then he stopped and a tear came a-trickling down his cheek, For there he saw his lady-O."
Before she could reach a shelter in the pines, while she was poised forthe last step that would take her out of the trail, he was out frombehind the rock, before her, almost upon her, reining his horse backupon its haunches,--then in a
nother instant lifting off hisbroad-brimmed hat to her in a gracious sweep. It was the first time shehad seen this simple office performed outside of the theatre.
She looked up at him, embarrassed, and stepped back across the narrowtrail, her head down again, so that he was free to pass. But instead ofpassing, she became aware that he had dismounted.
When she looked up, he was busily engaged in adjusting something abouthis saddle, with an expression of deepest concern in his blue eyes. Hishat was on the ground and his yellow hair glistened where the band hadpressed it about his head.
"It's that latigo strap," he remarked, in a tone of some annoyance."I've had to fix it every five miles since I left Kanab!" Then lookingup at her with a friendly smile: "Dandy most stepped on you, I reckon."
The amazement of it was that, after her first flurry at the sound ofhis voice and his half-seen movements up the trail, it should now seemall so commonplace.
"Oh, no, I was well out of his way."
She started again to cross the trail, stepping quickly, with her eyesdown, but again his voice came, less deliberate this time, and withwords in something less than intelligible sequence.
"Excuse me, Miss--but--now how many miles to--what's the name of thenearest settlement--I suppose you live hereabouts?"
"What did you say?"
"I say is there any place where I could get to stop a day or so inAmalon?"
"Oh--I didn't understand--I think so; at least, my father sometimes--butthere's Elder Wardle, he often takes in travellers."
"You say your father--"
"Not always--I don't know, I'm sure--" she looked doubtful.
"Oh, all right! I'll ask him,--if you'll show me his place."
"It's the first place on the left after you leave the canon--with thebig peach orchard--I'm not going home just yet."
He stroked the muzzle of the horse.
"Oh, I'm in no hurry, I'm just looking over the country a little. Yourfather's name is--"
"Ask for Elder Rae--or one of his wives will say if they can keep youover night."
She caught something new in his glance, and felt the blood in her face.
"I must go now--you can find your way--I must go."
"Well, if you _must_ go,"--he picked up his hat,--"but I'll see youagain. You'll be coming home this evening, I reckon?"
"The first house on the left," she answered, and stepped once moreacross the trail and into the edge of the pines. She went with the samemien of importance that Tom Potwin wore on his endless errands; and withquite as little reason, too; for the direction in which she had startedso earnestly would have led her, after a few steps, straight up agranite cliff a thousand feet high. As she entered the pines she heardhim mount his horse and ride down the trail, and then the rest of hissong came back to her:--
"Will you forsake your houses and lands, Will you forsake your baby-O? Will you forsake your own wedded lord To foller a Gypsy Davy-O?
"Yes, I'll forsake my houses and lands, Yes, I'll forsake my baby-O, For I am bewitched, and I know the reason why; It's a follering a Gypsy Davy-O.
"Last night I lay on a velvet couch Beside my lord and baby-O; To-night I shall lie on the cold, cold ground, In the arms of a Gypsy Davy-O.
"To-night I shall lie on the cold, cold ground, In the arms of a Gypsy Davy-O!"
When his voice died away and she knew he must be gone, she came outagain to her nook beside the stream where, a moment before, her dreamhad filled her. But now, though nothing had happened beyond the ridingby of a strange youth, the dream no longer sufficed. In place of themoonlit balcony was the figure of this young stranger swaying with hishorse down between the hollowed shoulders of the Pine Mountains andreining up suddenly to sweep his broad hat low in front of her. She wassurprised by the clearness with which she could recall the details ofhis appearance,--a boyish-looking fellow, with wide-open blue eyes and asunbrowned face under his yellow hair, the smallest of moustaches, and asmile of such winning good-humour that it had seemed to force her ownlips apart in answer.
Around the broad, gray hat had been a band of braided silver; when hestepped, the spurs on his high-heeled boots had jingled and clanked ofsilver; around his neck with a knot at the back and the corners flappingdown on the front of his blue woollen shirt, had been a white-dottedhandkerchief of scarlet silk; and about his waist was knotted a longscarf of the same colour; dogskin "chapps" he had worn, fronted with thethick yellowish hair outside; his saddle-bags, back of the saddle,showing the same fur; his saddle had been of stamped Spanish leatherwith a silver capping on the horn and on the circle of the cantle; andon the right of the saddle she had seen the coils of a lariat ofplaited horsehair.
The picture of him stayed in her mind, the sturdy young figure,--ratherloose-jointed but with an easy grace of movement,--and the engagingnaturalness of his manner. But after all nothing had happened save thepassing of a stranger, and she must go alone back to her dream. Yet nowthe dream might change; a strange youth might come riding out of theeast, sitting a sorrel horse with a star and a white hind ankle, a longrangy neck and strong quarters; and he--the youth--would wear a broad,gray hat, with a band of silver filigree, a scarlet kerchief at histhroat, a scarlet sash at his waist, and yellow dogskin "chapps."
Still, she thought, he could hardly have a place in the dream. The realyouth of the dream had been of an unearthly beauty, with a rose-leafcomplexion and lustrous curls massed above a brow of marble. Thestranger had not been of an unearthly beauty. To be sure, he was verygood to look at, with his wide-open blue eyes and his yellow hair, andhe had appeared uncommonly fresh and clean about the mouth when hesmiled at her. But she could not picture him sighing the right words oflove under a balcony in the moonlight. He had looked to be too intenselybusiness-like.
The Lions of the Lord: A Tale of the Old West Page 34