 | CHAPTER XII.
A GHOUL AT THE FEAST. John Brent |  |
12. CHAPTER XII.
A GHOUL AT THE FEAST.
Mr. Clitheroe's thoughts loved to recur to his
native Lancashire, smoky though its air might
be, and clean-shaved the grass of its lawns. I
could not help believing that all the enthusiasm
of this weak, gentle nature for the bleak plains
and his pioneer life was a delusion. It would
have been pretty talk for an after-dinner rhapsody
at the old mansion he had spoken of in
England. There, as he paced with me, a guest,
after pointing out the gables, wings, oriels,
porches, that had clustered about the old building
age after age, he might have waved it away
into a vision, and spoken with disdain of civilization,
and with delight of the tent and the
caravan. It had the flavor of Arcady, and the
Golden Age, and the simple childhood of the
world, when an enthusiastic Rousseauist Marquis
talked in '89 of the rights of man and universal
fraternity; it would seem a crazy mockery
if the same enthusiast had held the same strain
a few years later, in the tumbril, as he rolled
Speaking of Lancashire, we fell upon the subject
of coal-mining. I was surprised to find that
Mr. Clitheroe had a practical knowledge of that
business. He talked for the first time without
any of his dreamy, vague manner. His information
was full and clear. He let daylight into
those darksome pits.
“I am a miner, too,” said I, “but only of
gold, a baser and less honorable substance than
coal. Your account has a professional interest
to me. You talk like an expert.”
“I ought to be. If I once saw half my fortune
fly up a factory chimney, I saw another
half bury itself in a coal-pit. I have been buried
myself in one. I am not ashamed to say
it; I have made daily bread for myself and my
daughter with pick, shovel, and barrow, in a dark
coal-mine, in the same county where I was once
the head of the ancient gentry, and where I saw
the noblest in the land proud to break my bread
and drink my wine. I am not ashamed of it.
No, I glory that in that black cavern, where daylight
never looked, the brightness of the new
faith found me, and showed the better paths
where I now walk, and shall walk upward and
onward until I reach the earthly Sion first, and
then the heavenly.”
Again the old gentleman's eye kindled, and
his chest expanded. What a tragic life he was
hinting! My heart yearned toward him. I had
never known what it was to have the guidance
and protection of a father. Mine died when I
was a child. I longed to find a compensation
for my own want, — and a bitter one it had
sometimes been, — in being myself the guardian
of this errant wayfarer, launched upon lethal
currents.
“Your faith is as bright as ever, Brother
Hugh,” said a rasping voice behind me, as Mr.
Clitheroe was silent. “You are an example to
us all. The Church is highly blessed in such an
earnest disciple.”
Elder Sizzum was the speaker. He smiled in
a wolfish fashion over the group, and took his
seat beside the lady, like a privileged guest.
“Ah, Brother Sizzum!” said Mr. Clitheroe,
with a cheerless attempt at welcome, very different
from the frank courtesy he had showed toward
us, “we have been expecting you. Ellen
dear, a cup of tea for our friend.”
Miss Clitheroe rose to pour out tea for him.
Sheep's clothing instantly covered the apostle's
rather wolfish demeanor. He assumed a manner
of gamesome, sheepish devotion. When he
called her Sister Ellen, with a familiar, tender
air, I saw painful blushes redden the lady's
cheeks.
Brent noticed the pain and the blush. He
looked away from the group toward the blue
sierra far away to the south; a hard expression
came into his face, such as I had not seen there
since the old days of his battling with Swerger.
Trouble ahead!
Sizzum's presence quenched the party. And,
indeed, our late cheerfulness was untimely, at
the best. It was mockery, — as if the Marquis
should have sung merry chansons in the tumbril.
Miss Clitheroe at once grew cold and stern.
Nothing could be more distant than her manner
toward the saint. She treated him as a high-bred
woman can treat a scrub, — sounding with
every gesture, and measuring with every word,
the ineffaceable gulf between them. Yet she
was thoroughly civil as hostess. She even
seemed to fight against herself to be friendly.
But it was clear to a by-stander that she loathed
the apostle. That she was not charmed with his
society, even his coarse nature could not fail to
discover. Anywhere else the scene would have
been comic. Here he had the power. No escape;
no refuge. That thrust all comedy out of
the drama, and left only very hateful tragedy.
Still it was a cruel semblance of comedy over a
tragic under-plot, to see the Mormon's cringing
approaches, and that exquisite creature's calm
place, and writhed there, with an evil look, that
said he was noting all and treasuring all against
his day of vengeance.
And the poor, feeble old father, — how all his
geniality was blighted and withered away! He
was no more the master of revels at a festival,
but the ruined man, with a bailiff in disguise at
his dinner-table. Querulous tones murmured in
his voice. The decayed gentleman disappeared;
the hapless fanatic took his place. Phrases of
cant, and the peculiar Mormon slang and profanity,
gave the color to his conversation. He appealed
to Sizzum constantly. He was at once the
bigoted disciple and the cowed slave. Toward his
daughter his manner was sometimes timorously
pleading, sometimes almost surly. Why could
she not repress her disgust at the holy man, at
least in the presence of strangers? — that seemed
to be his feeling; and he strove to withdraw attention
from her by an eager, trepidating attempt
to please his master. In short, the vulgar, hard-headed
knave had this weak, lost gentleman thoroughly
in his power. Mr. Clitheroe was like a
lamb whom the shepherd intends first to shear
close, then to worry to death with curs, and at
last to cut up into keebaubs.
Brent and I kept aloof as much as we might.
We should only have insulted the chosen vessel,
seemed little welcome to Sizzum. He of
course knew that the Gentiles saw through him,
and despised him frankly. There is nothing
more uneasy than a scrub hard at work to please
a woman, while by-standers whom he feels to be
his betters observe without interference. But
we could not amuse ourselves with the scene; it
sickened us more and more.
Sunset came speedily, — the delicious, dreamy
sunset of October. In the tender regions of twilight,
where the sky, so mistily mellow, met the
blue horizon, the western world became a world
of happy hope. Could it be that wrong and sin
dwelt there in that valley far away among the
mountains! Baseness where that glory rested!
Foulness underneath that crescent moon! Could
it be that there was one unhappy, one impure
heart within the cleansing, baptismal flow of that
holy light of evening!
With sunset, Elder Sizzum, after some oily
vulgarisms of compliment to the lady, walked
off on camp duty.
We also rose to take our leave. We must look
after our horses.
Mr. Clitheroe's old manner returned the instant
his spiritual guide left us.
“Pray come and see us again this evening,
gentlemen,” said he.
“We will certainly,” said Brent, looking toward
Miss Clitheroe for her invitation.
It did not come. And I, from my position
as Chorus, thought, “She is wise not to encourage
in herself or my friend this brief intimacy.
Mormons will not seem any the better
company to-morrow for her relapse into the
society of gentlemen to-night.”
“O yes!” said Mr. Clitheroe, interpreting
Brent's look; “my daughter will be charmed
to see you. To tell you the truth, our brethren
in the camp are worthy people; we sympathize
deeply in the faith; but they are not
altogether in manners or education quite such
as we have been sometimes accustomed to. It
is one of the infamous wrongs of our English
system of caste that it separates brother men,
manners, language, thought, and life. We have
as yet been able to have little except religious
communion with our fellow-travellers toward
the Promised Land, — except, of course, with
Brother Sizzum, who is, as you see, quite a man
of society, as well as an elect apostle of a great
cause. We are quite selfish in asking you to repeat
your visit. Besides the welcome we should
give you for yourselves, we welcome you also
as a novelty.” And then he muttered, half
to himself, “God forgive me for speaking after
the flesh!”
“Come, Wade,” said my friend. And he
griped my arm almost savagely. “Until this
evening then, Mr. Clitheroe.”
As we moved away from the wagon, where
the lady stood, so worn and sad, and yet so
lovely, her poor father's only guard and friend,
we met Murker and Larrap. They were sauntering
about, prying into the wagons, inspecting
the groups, making observations — that were
perhaps only curiosity — with a base, guilty, burglarious
look.
“He, he!” laughed Larrap, leering at Brent.
“I 'll be switched ef you 're not sharp. You
know where to look for the pooty gals, blowed
ef yer don't!”
“Hold your tongue!” Brent made a spring
at the fellow.
“No offence! no offence!” muttered he, shrinking
back, with a cowardly, venomous look.
“Mind your business, and keep a civil tongue
in your head, or there will be offence!” Brent
turned and walked off in silence. Neither of
us was yet ready to begin our talk on this
evening's meeting.
Our horses, if not their masters, were quite
ready for joyous conversation. They had encountered
no pang in the region of Fort Bridger.
Grass in plenty was there, and they neighed
us good evening in their most dulcet tones.
informed us that, in their opinion, the world
was all right, — a perfectly jolly place, with abundance
to eat, little to do, and everybody a
friend. A capital world! according to Pumps
and Don Fulano. They felt no trouble, and
saw none in store. Who would not be an animal
and a horse, unless perchance an omnibus
horse sprawling on the Russ pavement, or a family
horse before a carryall, or in fact any horse
in slavish position, as most horses are.
We shifted our little caballada to fresh grazing-spots
sheltered by a brake. We meant to
camp there apart from the Mormon caravan. The
talk of our horses had not cheered us. We still
busied ourselves in silence. Presently, as I looked
toward the train, I observed two figures in the
distance lurking about Mr. Clitheroe's wagon.
“See,” said I; “there are those two gamblers
again. I don't like such foul vultures hanging
about that friendless dove. They look villains
enough for any outrage.”
“But they are powerless here.”
“In the presence of a steadier villany they
are. That foul Sizzum is quite sure of his prey.
John Brent, what can be done? I do not know
which I feel most bitterly for, the weary, deluded
old gentleman, doubting his error, or that noble
girl. Poor, friendless souls!”
“Friendless!” said Brent. “She has made
a friend in me. And in you too, if you are the
man I know.”
“But what can we do?”
“I will never say that we can do nothing until
she repels our aid. If she wants help, she
must have it.”
“Help! how?”
“Viam aut inveniam aut faciam. Sydney's
motto is always good. You and I can never die
in a better cause than this. And now, Dick, do
not let us perplex ourselves with baseless talk
and plans. We will see them again to-night,
when Sizzum is not by. It cannot be that she
is in sympathy with these wretches.”
“No; that horrible ogre, Sizzum, is evidently
disgusting to her; but here he has her in his
den. It is stronger than any four walls in the
world, — all this waste of desert.”
“Don't speak of it; you sicken me.”
Something more in earnest than the tenderest
pity here. I saw that the sudden doom of love
had befallen my friend. In fact, I have never
been quite sure but that the same would have
been my fate, if I had not seen him a step in
advance, and so checked myself. His time had
come. Mine had not. Will it ever?
But love here was next to despair. That consciousness
quickened the passion. A man must
was hopeless, — must act intensely, as only a
lover acts, or not at all.
I determined not to perplex myself yet with
schemes. I knew my friend's bold genius and
cool judgment. When he was ready to act, I
would back him.
| CHAPTER XII.
A GHOUL AT THE FEAST. John Brent | |