Instead of Jesuit, Sizzum arrived. Sizzum was far abler than any of his Mormon compeers. He was proselyting about Clitheroe, where he found it not difficult to persuade the poor slaves up in the mill and down in the mine to accept a faith that offered at once a broad range on earth, and, in good time, a high seat in heaven.
Sizzum was the guest of the discontented and decayed gentleman. He saw the opportunity. There was an old name and a man of gentle birth to rally followers about. It would be a triumph for the Latter-Day Saints to march away from Clitheroe, a thousand strong, headed by the representative of the family who named the place, and had once been in Parliament for it. Here was a proselyte in a class which no Mormon had dreamed of approaching. Here too was some little property. And here was a beautiful daughter.
I could divine the astute Sizzum’s method and success with his victim, enfeebled in body and spirit. How, seeing his need of something final and authoritative in religion, Sizzum showed him the immanence of inspiration in his church. How he threatened him with wrath to come, unless he was gathered from among the Gentiles. How he persuaded him that a man of his education and station would be greater among the saints than ever in his best days in England. How he touched the old man’s enthusiasm with tales of caravan life, with the dust of the desert and the pork of the pan quite left out of view. How, with his national exaggeration run riot, he depicted the valley of the Great Salt Lake as a Paradise, and the City as an apocalyptic wonder, all jasper and sardonyx, all beryl and chrysoprase; and no mud and no adobe. How he suggested that in a new country, under his advice, the old man’s little capital would soon swell to a great inheritance for his daughter.
By the light of that afternoon’s scene, over the tea, I could comprehend the close of Mr. Clitheroe’s dreary story, and see how at last Sizzum had got him in his gripe, property, person, and soul.
Did he wish to escape?
No. On! on! he must go on. Only some force without himself, interposed, could turn him aside.
What was this force to be?
Nothing that I could say or do; that I saw clearly. His illusions might be nearly gone; but he would hate and distrust any one who ventured to pull the scales from his eyes, and show him his crazy folly. Indeed, I dreaded lest any attempt to enlighten him would drive him into actual madness by despair. If he had given me a shadow of encouragement, I was ready to follow out the hint I had dropped when I said to Brent, “What a night for a gallop!” My own risk I was willing to take. But escape for the lady, without him, was barbarous, and we could not treat him like a Sabine damsel, and lug him off by the hair.
What could his daughter do? Clearly nothing. He had evidently long ago revolted against her. If I did not mistake her faithful face, she would stand by her father to the last. Plead as he might, John Brent would never win her to save herself and lose her father; and indeed that was a desertion he could never recommend.
A dark look for all parties.