While matters of theology and consanguinity were being debated in Box Cañon, the little bent man down in the first house to the left, in his struggle to free himself, was tightening the meshes of his fate about him. In his harried mind he had formed one great resolution. He believed that a revelation had come to him. It seemed to press upon him as the culmination of all the days of his distress. He could see now that he had felt it years before, when he first met the wife of Elder Tench, the gaunt, gray woman, toiling along the dusty road; and again when he had found the imbecile boy turning upon his tormentors. A hundred times it had quickened within him. And it had gained in force steadily, until to-day, when it was overwhelming him. Now that his flesh was wasted, it seemed that his spirit could see far.
His great discovery was that the revelation upon celestial marriage given to Joseph Smith had been “from beneath,”—a trick of Satan to corrupt them. Not only did it flatly contradict earlier revelations, but the very Book of Mormon itself declared again and again that polygamy was wickedness. Joseph had been duped by the powers of darkness, and all Israel had sinned in consequence. Upon the golden plates delivered to him, concerning the divine source of which there could be no doubt, this order of marriage had been repeatedly condemned and forbidden. But as to the revelation which sanctioned it there could rightly be doubt; for had not Joseph himself once warned them that “some revelations are from God, some from men, and some from the Devil.” Either the Book of Mormon was not inspired, or the revelation was not from God, since they were fatally in opposition.
It came to him with the effect of a blinding light, yet seemed to endow him with a new vigour, so that he felt strong and eager to be up, to spread his truth abroad. Some remnant of that old fire of inspiration flamed up within him as he lay on the hard bed in his little room, with the summer scents floating in and the out-of-doors sounds,—a woman’s voice calling a child afar off, the lowing of cattle, the rhythmic whetting of a scythe-blade, the echoing strokes of an axe, the mellow fluting of a robin,—all coming to him a little muted, as if he were no longer in the world.
He raised upon his elbow, glowing with the flush of old memories when his heart had been perfect with the Lord; when he had wrought miracles in the face of the people; when he had besought Heaven fearlessly for signs of its favour; when he had dreamed of being a pillar of fire to his people in their march across the desert, and another Lion of the Lord to fight their just battles. The little bent man of sorrows had again become the Lute of the Holy Ghost.
He knew it must be a true revelation. And, while he might not now have strength to preach it as it should be preached, there were other mighty men to spread its tidings. Even his simple announcement of it must work a revolution. Others would see it when he had once declared it. Others would spread it with power until the Saints were again become a purified people. But he would have been the prophet, seer, and revelator, to whom the truth was given, and so his suffering would not have been in vain; perhaps that suffering had been ordained to the end that his vision should be cleared for this truth.
He remembered the day was Saturday, and he began at once to word the phrases in which he would tell his revelation on the morrow. He knew that this must be done tactfully, in spite of its divine source. It would be a momentous thing to the people and to the priesthood. It was conceivable, indeed, that members of the latter might dispute it and argue with him, or even denounce him for a heretic. But only at first; the thing was too simply true to be long questioned. In any event, his duty was plain; with righteousness as the girdle of his loins he must go forth on the morrow and magnify his office in the sight of Heaven.
When the decision had been taken he lay in an ecstasy of anticipation, feeling new pulses in all his frame and the blood warm in his face. It would mean a new dawn for Israel. There would, however, be a vexing difficulty in the matter of the present wives of the Saints. The song of Lorena came in to him now:—
“I was riding out this morning
With my cousin by my side;
She was telling her intentions
For to soon become a bride.”
The accent fell upon the first and third syllables with an upward surge of melody that seemed to make the house vibrate. He thought perhaps some of the Saints would find it well to put away all but the one rightful wife, making due provision, of course, for their support. Lorena’s never-ending ballad came like the horns that blew before the walls of Jericho, bringing down the ramparts of his old belief. Some of the Saints would doubtless put away the false wives as a penance. He might even bring himself to do it, since, in the light of his wondrous new revelation, it would be obeying the Lord’s will.
When Prudence came softly in to him, like a cool little breath of fragrance from the cañon, he smiled up to her with a fulness of delight she had never seen in his face before.
There was a new light in her own eyes, new decisions presaged, a new desire imperfectly suppressed. He stroked her hand as she sat beside him on the bed, wondering if she had at last learned her own secret. But she became grave, and was diverted from her own affairs when she observed him more closely.
“Why, you’re sick—you’re burning up with fever! You must be covered up at once and have sage tea.”
He laughed at her, a free, full laugh, such as she had never heard from him in all the years.
“It’s no fever, child. It’s new life come to me. I’m strong again. My face burns, but it must be the fire of health. I have a work given to me—God has not wholly put me aside.”
“But I believe you are sick. Your hands are so hot, and your eyes look so unnatural. You must let me—”
“Now, now—haven’t I learned to tell sickness from the glow of a holy purpose?”
“You’re sure you are well?”
“Better than for fifteen years.”
She let herself be convinced for the moment.
“Then please tell me something. Must a man who comes into our faith, if he is baptised rightly, also marry more than one wife if he is to be saved? Can’t he be sure of his glory with one if he loves her—oh, very, very much?”
He was moved at first to answer her out of the fulness of his heart, telling her of the wonderful new revelation. But there came the impulse to guard it jealously in his own breast a little longer, to glory secretly in it; half-fearful, too, that some virtue would go out of it should he impart it too soon to another.
“Why do you want to know?”
“Ruel Follett would join our Church if he didn’t have to marry more than one wife. If he loved some one very much, I’m afraid he would find it hard to marry another girl—oh, he simply couldn’t—no matter how pretty she was. He never could do it.” Here she pulled one of the scarlet ribbons from her broad hat. She gave a little exclamation of relief as if she had really meant to detach it.
“Tell him to wait a little.”
“That’s what I did tell him, but it seems hardly right to let him join believing that is necessary. I think some one ought to find out that one wife is all God wants a man ever to have, and to tell Mr. Follett so very plainly. His mind is really open to truth, and you know he might do something reckless—he shouldn’t be made to wait too long.”
“Tell him to wait till to-morrow. I shall speak of this in meeting then. It will be all right—all right, dear. Everything will be all right!”
“Only I am sure you are sick in spite of what you say. I know how to prove it, too—can you eat?”
“I’m too busy thinking of great things to be hungry.”
“There—you would be hungry if you were well.”
“I can’t tell you how well I am, and as for food—our Elder Brother has been feeding me all day with the bread of truth. Such wonderful new things the Lord has shown me!”
“But you must not get up. Lie still and we will nurse you.”
He refused the food she brought him, and refused Lorena’s sage tea. He was not to be cajoled into treating as sickness the first real happiness he had felt for years. He lay still until his little room grew shadowy in the dusk, filled with a great reviving hope that the Lord had raised a new prophet to lead Israel out of bondage.
As the night fell, however, the shadows of the room began to trouble him as of old, and he found himself growing hotter and hotter until he burned and gasped and the room seemed about to stifle him. He arose from the bed, wondering that his feet should be so heavy and clumsy, and his knees so weak, when he felt otherwise so strong. His head, too, felt large, and there rang in his ears a singing of incessant quick beats. He made his way to the door, where he heard the voices of Prudence and Follett. It was good to feel the cool night air upon his hot face, and he reassured Prudence, who chided him for leaving his bed.
“When you hear me discourse tomorrow you will see how wrong you were about my being sick,” he said. But she saw that he supported himself carefully from the doorway along the wall to the near-by chair, and that he sank into it with every sign of weakness. His eyes, however, were aglow with his secret, and he sat nodding his head over it in a lively way. “Brigham was right,” he said, “when he declared that any of us might receive revelations from on high; even the least of us—only we are apt to be deaf to the whispered words until the Lord has scourged us. I have been deaf a long time, but my ears are at last unstopped—who is it coming, dear?”
A tall figure, vague in the dusk, was walking briskly up the path that led in from the road. It proved to be the Wild Ram of the Mountains, freshened by the look of rectitude that the razor gave to his face each Saturday night.
“Evening, Brother Rae—evening, you young folks. Thank you, I will take a chair. You feeling a bit more able than usual, Brother Rae?”
“Much better, Brother Seth. I shall be at meeting tomorrow.”
“Glad to hear it, that’s right good—you ain’t been out for so long. And we want to have a rousing time, too.”
“Only we’re afraid he has a fever instead of being so well,” said Prudence. “He hasn’t eaten a thing all day.”
“Well, he never did overeat himself, that I knew of,” said the Bishop. “Not eating ain’t any sign with him. Now it would be with me. I never believed in fasting the flesh. The Spirit of the Lord ain’t ever so close to me as after I’ve had a good meal of victuals,—meat and potatoes and plenty of good sop and a couple of pieces of pie. Then I can unbutton my vest and jest set and set and hear the promptings of the Lord God of Hosts. I know some men ain’t that way, but then’s the time when I beautify my inheritance in Zion the purtiest. And I’m mighty glad Brother Joel can turn out to-morrow. Of course you heard the news?”
“What news, Brother Seth?”
“Brother Brigham gets here at eleven o’clock from New Harmony.”
“Brother Brigham coming?”
“We’re getting the bowery ready down in the square tonight so’s to have services out of doors.”
“He’s coming to-morrow?” The words came from both Prudence and her father.
“Of course he’s coming. Ben Hadley brought word over. They’ll have a turkey dinner at Beil Wardle’s house and then services at two.”
The flushed little man with the revelation felt himself grow suddenly cold. He had thought it would be easy to launch his new truth in Amalon and let the news be carried to Brigham. To get up in the very presence of him, in the full gaze of those cold blue eyes, was another matter.
“But it’s early for him. He doesn’t usually come until after Conference, after it’s got cooler.”
The Bishop took on the air of a man who does not care to tell quite all that he knows.
“Yes; I suspicion some one’s been sending tales to him about a certain young woman’s carryings on down here.”
He looked sharply at Prudence, who looked at the ground and felt grateful for the dusk. Follett looked hard at them both and was plainly interested. The Bishop spoke again.
“I ain’t got no license to say so, but having done that young woman proud by engaging himself to marry her, he might ’a’ got annoyed if any one had ’a’ told him she was being waited on by a handsome young Gentile, gallivantin’ off to cañons day after day—holding hands, too, more than once. Oh, I ain’t saying anything. Young blood is young blood; mine ain’t always been old, and I never blamed the young, but, of course, the needs of the Kingdom is a different matter. Well, I’ll have to be getting along now. We’re going to put up some of the people at our house, and I’ve got to fix to bed mother down in the wagon-box again, I reckon. I’ll say you’ll be with us to-morrow, then, Brother Joel?”
The little bent man’s voice had lost much of its life.
“Yes, Brother Seth, if I’m able.”
“Well, I hope you are.” He arose and looked at the sky. “Looks as if we might have some falling weather. They say it’s been moisting quite a bit up Cedar way. Well,—good night, all!”
When he was gone the matter of his visit was not referred to. With some constraint they talked a little while of other things. But as soon as the two men were alone for the night, Follett turned to him, almost fiercely.
“Say, now, what did that old goat-whiskered loon mean by his hintings about Prudence?”
The little man was troubled.
“Well, the fact is, Brigham has meant to marry her.”
“You don’t mean you’d have let him? Say, I’d hate to feel sorry for holding off on you like I have!”
“No, no, don’t think that of me.”
“Well, what were you going to do?”
“I hardly knew.”
“You better find out.”
“I know it—I did find out, to-day. I know, and it will be all right. Trust me. I lost my faith for a moment just now when I heard Brother Brigham was coming to-morrow; but I see how it is,—the Lord has wished to prove me. Now there is all the more reason why I should not flinch. You will see that I shall make it all right to-morrow.”
“Well, the time’s about up. I’ve been here over two months now, just because you were so kind of helpless. And one of our wagon-trains will be along here about next Monday. Say, she wouldn’t ever have married him, would she?”
“No, she refused at once; she refused to consider it at all.”
He was burning again with his fever, and there was something in his eagerness that seemed to overcome Follett’s indignation.
“Well, let it go till to-morrow, then. And you try to get some rest now. That’s what I’m going to do.”
But the little bent man, flushed though he was, felt cold from the night air, and, piling more logs on the fire, he drew his chair close in front of it.
As often as Follett wakened through the night he saw him sitting there, sometimes reading what looked like a little old Bible, sometimes speaking aloud as if seeking to memorise a passage.
The last Follett remembered to have heard was something he seemed to be reading from the little book,—“The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; He leadeth me beside the still waters.”
He fell asleep again with a feeling of pity for the little man.