The Mormon Prophet. L. Dougall
deep for any word), but with intent to run after the wounded man and nurse his wound.
"It can be but a slight flesh wound," said Ephraim mechanically.
She looked first where he was gazing, and saw that some distance down the road Halsey was stepping into a chaise. Another man took the seat beside him and they drove away.
Then she looked at Ephraim. He did not appear as though he felt his guilt; he had the mien rather of one who was striving bravely to endure hardship. Then indeed she felt that the gulf of thought must yawn wide between them; she could even yet have pitied Ephraim's contrition, but he was not contrite. In indignation she retired, sitting in the privacy of her little bedroom.
It was a strange letter, not alone because the ink was blurred by blood that, still warm, soaked it through in parts, but because, coming from a young man to a maid, in the first flush of her strength and beauty, it offered love and marriage, giving only as his reason, urging only as her motive, the service of God.
"If," the letter read, "thou canst see thy way, dear friend, to hold fast that thou hast in the house of thy friends, if thou canst see thy way, by steadfast confession and by the grace of thy demeanour, to strive among them for their conversion, it would be well while thou art still so young to remain with them for a time—at least so I think. But our prophet thinks, and I also greatly desire to think, that the strain upon thy faith would be too great, that thou mightst fail; and remembering that it has been revealed to him that our union has been sealed in heaven, he thinks that thou wouldst do well to commit thy tender life now to my keeping."
The phrase "and I greatly desire to think" was almost as strong as any in a long letter to tell which way his delight would lie, and Susannah's was not a mind upon which this indication of reserve force was thrown away. She trusted, vaguely in thought but implicitly in heart, to that which lay behind—something which did not alarm her, which in her inner vision wore no warm nor obtrusive colouring, but which she knew to be intense and of enduring quality. And she saw herself alone, beaten by adverse winds and without other shelter.
Halsey touched upon the fact that Smith and his disciples (he did not say himself) had suffered greatly from yesterday's ill-usage, and said that, having given their message to the people, they were that day leaving for a place called Fayette, in Seneca county, where it had previously been determined that the new church should be organised. He himself would wait either until Susannah saw her way to come with him, or until he knew that she was at peace, having chosen of her own accord to remain. He would bring a chaise, in which she could travel if she would, near her uncle's house at dawn upon the next morning. He would take her, he said, to the house where the Smiths were in Fayette, but it was implied through all the letter that the mystic marriage which Smith had solemnised was considered by Halsey as valid, and that if she joined her material fortunes now to those of the persecuted sect, it would be as his wife.
In speaking of the future he did not gloss over the persecution; he did not even promise, as Smith had done, a sure and material reward. The mind of the young Quaker convert was fixed upon the things that are unseen. This was not hidden from the girl. The thought of being with him in his faith and resignation gave her peace. Poverty and persecution seemed as nothing compared with the torture of being surrounded by people whose thought and actions aroused in her young heart whirlwinds of passionate opposition. Even Ephraim, instead of rising in his strength to condemn the outrage of yesterday, had attempted to-day to wound or kill. Her amazement and dismay at this drove her out as it were with a scourge.
Halsey had told her to pray, and she had tried to pray. Halsey had told her to search the Scriptures for guidance, and she read. Text after text came home to her heart, bidding her leave her kindred to share the fortunes of the persecuted children of faith.
CHAPTER VIII.
At break of day Halsey was waiting upon the road with a fairly good horse and a comfortable chaise. Susannah never forgot the light that came to his eyes when he saw her approach; it was like dawn in paradise.
Angel Halsey was not without shrewd worldly wisdom. He turned into a cross corduroy road that led through the woods, passing only some small clearings to the west of Palmyra, and thus by a detour avoiding that village, he returned again to the highroad between Canandaigua and Geneva. The pursuers, upon failing to hear that the chaise had passed through Palmyra, might turn back, or if they had gone on they might have outstripped them on the road, and be in front rather than behind. This danger peopled the long lonely road with possible enemies both before and behind. The strain upon the imagination was very great. The road was heavy and rough.
Susannah perceived that Halsey's apprehension of being overtaken was almost solely on her account. He was so upborne by his religious enthusiasm as to be oblivious to the pain which his wound of yesterday gave him, and was perfectly willing to encounter the violence of her kindred again if need be, yet, seeing her terror with a quickness of sympathy which roused her gratitude, he took every possible precaution that could allay her fears. All through the weary, weary day she hardly spoke to him, never addressed him by name.
They reached the new town of Geneva at sundown. When they had set forth again, it was a great comfort to Susannah that grayness had succeeded to sunshine. She was weary of the yellow light, of the dull glare from the stubble fields, of the obtrusive colours of the autumn foliage, of the blueness of the sky, of everything, indeed, that she had seen and heard during the wretched hours of the day. They now travelled through a very flat tract; little of the land was cleared; the road was straight. It is hard to explain the mental weariness produced by a straight level road. The hope and interest inspired by undulations or curves are lost. The distance ever gives a farther reach of the weary way to the view, as if by a parable it would impress on the traveller the knowledge that the future was to be barren of delight.
About two miles from Geneva, before the daylight was quite gone, they were both startled by hearing a rushing, crashing sound coming toward them in the woods. Were their pursuers upon them after all? Had they chosen this, the most lonely part of their road, to fall upon them?
They did not speak their thoughts to one another. Angel struck the horse, and it galloped forward perhaps about a hundred yards, and then, of its own accord, stopped suddenly.
Upon the side of the road, pushing itself backward among the bushes, the better to gain space for its run, was a bull. Its eyes were bloodshot, its head lowered for a long moment to measure its distance ere it made the attack. The horse seemed palsied with terror. It moved backward with tottering steps, trembling all over, heedless of whip or rein.
The backward movement prolonged the hesitation of the bull, which turned itself to take another aim. The horse uttered an almost human cry. In the moment of hearing that cry Susannah felt that she had already gone through some shocking form of death. Halsey brought down his whip, striking the horse with all his might; it leaped forward, lifting the chaise almost into the air; then it was rushing madly on, dragging the wheels behind it with terrible velocity.
They had caught sight of the rush of the bull. They felt the animal's heavy side just graze the back of the chaise, and they heard behind them a bellow of rage that seemed to fill all the solitary place with diabolical echoes.
The body of the chaise was bounding upon its leather bands, jolting cruelly against the axle. Susannah cried out that she should be thrown from her seat. The swift-falling darkness encompassed their path. Their hope lay in the straightness of the road, and their chief fear was that by some greater roughness of the way the chaise, which was now swaying fearfully, might be overturned.
Gradually the sound of the bull's galloping became less distinct. The chaise was still upright. The horse, beginning to falter in his pace, took more kindly to the accustomed control of the rein. It was then Susannah found that she had been clinging to Halsey for support, and that he, by bracing himself with one arm to the side of the chaise and holding her with the other, had prevented her from being thrown out.
In gathering her shawl about her she