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.
Chapter XL.
A Procession, a Pursuit, and a Capture
Follett awoke to find himself superfluous. The women were rushing excitedly through their housework in order to be at hand when the procession of Brigham and his suite should march in. Of Joel Rae he caught but a glimpse through the door of his little room, the face flushed that had a long time been sallow and bloodless. When the door had closed he could hear the voice, now strong again. He seemed to be, as during the night, rehearsing something he meant to say. And later it was plain that he prayed, though he heard nothing more than the high pleading of the voice.
Follett would not have minded these things, but Prudence was gone and no one could tell him where. From Christina of the rock-bound speech he blasted the items that she was wearing “a dress all new” and “a red-ribbon hat.” Lorena, too, with all her willingness of speech, knew nothing definite.
“All I know is she fixed herself up like she was going to an evening ball or party. I wish to the lands I’d kep’ my complexion the way she does hern. And she had on her best lawn that her pa got her in Salt Lake, the one with the little blue figures in it. She does look sweeter than honey on a rag in a store dress, and that Leghorn hat with the red bow, though what she wanted to start so early for I don’t know. The procession can’t be along yet, but she might have gone down to march with them, or to help decorate the bowery. I know when I was her age I was always a great hand for getting ready long before any one come, when my mother was making a company for me, putting up my waterfall and curling my beau-catchers on a hot pipe-stem. But, land! I ain’t no time to talk with you.”
Down at the main road he hesitated. To the right he could see where the green mouth of the cañon invited; but to the left lay the village where Prudence doubtless was. He would find her and bring her away. For Follett had determined to toe the mark himself now.
In the one street of Amalon there was the usual Sabbath hush; but above this was an air of dignified festivity. The village in its Sunday best homespun, with here and there a suit of store goods, was holding its breath. In the bowery a few workers, under the supervision of Bishop Wright, were adding the last touches of decoration. It was a spot of pleasant green in the dusty square—a roof of spruce boughs, with evergreens and flowers garnishing the posts, and a bank of flowers and fruit back of the speaker’s stand.
But Prudence was not there, and he wondered with dismay if she had joined the rest of the village and gone out to meet the Prophet. He had seen the last of them going along the dusty road to the north, men and women and little children, hot, excited, and eager. It did not seem like her to be among them, and yet except for those before him working about the bowery, and a few mothers with children in arms, the town was apparently deserted.