Читать книгу Все приключения Шерлока Холмса / All adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Артур Конан Дойл, Исмаил Шихлы - Страница 11

Three weeks passed. John Ferrier was sad when he thought of the young man’s return, and of the loss of his child. He did not want to allow his daughter to wed a Mormon. Such a marriage he regarded as no marriage at all, but as a shame and a disgrace. But he was silent: to express an unorthodox opinion was dangerous in those days in the Land of the Saints.

Its invisibility, and the mystery made this religious organization terrible. It was omniscient and omnipotent. The man who said something against the Church vanished away. A rash word or a hasty act led to annihilation.

The Mormons needed women. Polygamy without a female population was a barren doctrine. Strange rumours came-rumours of murdered immigrants. Fresh women appeared in the harems of the Elders-women with the traces of an unextinguishable horror upon their faces. None knew who belonged to this ruthless society. The names of the participators in the deeds of blood and

violence were secret. Hence every man feared his neighbour.

One fine morning, John Ferrier heard the click of the latch. He looked through the window and saw a stout, sandy-haired, middle-aged man. It was Brigham Young himself.

Ferrier ran to the door to greet the Mormon chief. Young, however, received his salutations coldly, and followed him with a stern face into the sitting-room.

“Brother Ferrier,” he said, “the true believers are good friends to you. We picked you up when you were starving in the desert, we shared our food with you, led you to the Chosen Valley, gave you a goodly share of land, and allowed you to become rich under our protection. Is not this so?”

“It is so,” answered John Ferrier.

“In return for this, you promised to embrace the true faith. This you promised to do, and this you neglected.”

“And how did I neglect it?” asked Ferrier. “I give to the common fund, I visit the Temple. I…”

“Where are your wives?” asked Young.

“It is true that I am not married,” Ferrier answered. “But women are few, and there are many men who are better husbands than myself. I am not a lonely man: I have my daughter.”

“Yes, I want to talk to you about your daughter,” said the leader of the Mormons. “She is the flower of Utah.”

John Ferrier groaned internally.

“They say that she is engaged to some Gentile. 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 weds a Gentile, she commits a grievous sin’.”

John Ferrier did not answer, but he played nervously with his riding-whip.

“The girl is young, and we don’t want to deprive her of all choice. We Elders have many heifers, but our children must also have decent wives. Stangerson has a son, and Drebber has a son, and they will gladly welcome your daughter to their house. Let her choose between them. They are young and rich, and of the true faith. What will say you to that?”

Ferrier remained silent for some time.

“Give us time,” he said at last. “My daughter is very young-she is too young to marry.”

“She will have a month to choose,” said Young. “At the end of that time she will give her answer.”

He was passing through the door, when he turned, with flushed face and flashing eyes.

“John Ferrier,” he thundered, “do not put your weak wills[51] against the orders of the Holy Four!”

And he went away. Ferrier heard his heavy step along the path.

Ferrier was still sitting with his elbows upon his knees, when he saw his daughter. She was standing beside him. She heard everything.

“Oh, father, father, what shall we do?” she said.

“Don’t be afraid,” he answered. “We’ll fix it up somehow or another[52]. You still like that chap, do you?”

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

“He’s a good lad, and he’s a Christian. Some people will go to Nevada tomorrow, and I’ll send him a message. If I know anything of that young man, he’ll be back here soon.”

Lucy laughed through her tears.

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

“But we don’t oppose him,” her father answered. “We have time. We have a clear month before us; at the end of that, I guess we will leave Utah.”

“Leave Utah!”

“Yes.”

“But the farm?”

“We will sell as much as we can. I don’t want to knuckle under to any man, under to this darned prophet. I’m a free-born American.”

“But they won’t let us leave,” his daughter objected.

“Wait till Jefferson comes, and we’ll soon manage that. There’s no danger at all.”

John Ferrier uttered these consoling remarks in a very confident tone, but she observed that he fastened the doors that night, and carefully cleaned and loaded the old shotgun.