20 лучших повестей на английском / 20 Best Short Novels

‘Brother Ferrier,’ he said, taking a seat, and eyeing the farmer keenly from under his light-coloured eyelashes, ‘the true believers have been good friends to you. We picked you up when you were starving in the desert, we shared our food with you, led you safe to the Chosen Valley, gave you a goodly share of land, and allowed you to wax rich under our protection. Is not this so?’

‘It is so,’ answered John Ferrier.

‘In return for all this we asked but one condition: that was, that you should embrace the true faith, and conform in every way to its usages. This you promised to do, and this, if common report says truly, you have neglected.’

‘And how have I neglected it?’ asked Ferrier, throwing out his hands in expostulation. ‘Have I not given to the common fund? Have I not attended at the Temple? Have I not—?’

‘Where are your wives?’ asked Young, looking round him. ‘Call them in that I may greet them.’

‘It is true that I have not married,’ Ferrier answered. ‘But women were few, and there were many who had better claims than I. I was not a lonely man; I had my daughter to attend to my wants.’

‘It is of that daughter that I would speak to you,’ said the leader of the Mormons. ‘She has grown to be the flower of Utah, and has found favour in the eyes of many who are high in the land.’

John Ferrier groaned internally.

‘There are stories of her which I would fain disbelieve – stories that she is sealed to some Gentile[133]. This must be the gossip of idle tongues. What is the thirteenth rule in the code of the sainted Joseph Smith? ‘Let every maiden of the true faith marry one of the elect; for if she wed a Gentile, she commits a grievous sin.’ This being so, it is impossible that you, who profess the holy creed, should suffer your daughter to violate it.’

John Ferrier made no answer, but he played nervously with his riding-whip.

‘Upon this one point your whole faith shall be tested – so it has been decided in the Sacred Council of Four. The girl is young, and we would not have her wed grey hairs, neither would we deprive her of all choice. We Elders have many heifers[134] but our children must also be provided. Stangerson has a son, and Drebber has a son, and either of them would gladly welcome your daughter to their house. Let her choose between them. They are young and rich, and of the true faith. What say you to that?’

Ferrier remained silent for some little time with his brows knitted.

‘You will give us time,’ he said at last. ‘My daughter is very young – she is scarce of an age to marry.’

‘She shall have a month to choose,’ said Young, rising from his seat. ‘At the end of that time she shall give her answer.’

He was passing through the door, when he turned, with flushed face and flashing eyes. ‘It were better for you, John Ferrier,’ he thundered, ‘that you and she were now lying blanched skeletons upon the Sierra Blanco, than that you should put your weak wills against the orders of the Holy Four!’

With a threatening gesture of his hand, he turned from the door, and Ferrier heard his heavy steps scrunching along the shingly path.

He was still sitting with his elbow upon his knee, considering how he should broach the matter to his daughter, when a soft hand was laid upon his, and looking up, he saw her standing beside him. One glance at her pale, frightened face showed him that she had heard what had passed.

‘I could not help it,’ she said, in answer to his look. ‘His voice rang through the house. Oh, father, father, what shall we do?’

‘Don’t you scare yourself,’ he answered, drawing her to him, and passing his broad, rough hand caressingly over her chestnut hair. ‘We’ll fix it up somehow or another. You don’t find your fancy kind o’ lessening for this chap, do you?’

A sob and a squeeze of his hand was her only answer.

‘No; of course not. I shouldn’t care to hear you say you did. He’s a likely lad, and he’s a Christian, which is more than these folk here, in spite o’ all their praying and preaching. There’s a party starting for Nevada to-morrow, and I’ll manage to send him a message letting him know the hole we are in. If I know anything o’ that young man, he’ll be back here with a speed that would whip electro-telegraphs.’

Lucy laughed through her tears at her father’s description.

‘When he comes, he will advise us for the best. But it is for you that I am frightened, dear. One hears – one hears such dreadful stories about those who oppose the Prophet: something terrible always happens to them.’

‘But we haven’t opposed him yet,’ her father answered. ‘It will be time to look out for squalls when we do. We have a clear month before us; at the end of that, I guess we had best shin out of Utah.’

‘Leave Utah!’

‘That’s about the size of it.’

‘But the farm?’