The Lions of the Lord: A Tale of the Old WestWilson, Harry Leon
General
The Lions of the Lord: A Tale of the Old West
Wilson, Harry Leon
Historical fiction; Latter Day Saint pioneers -- Fiction; Western stories
It was commonly a dream of a youth in doublet and hose, a plumed cap,
and a cloak of purple satin, who came in the moonlight to the balcony
of his love, and sighed his passion in tones so moving that she thought
an angel must have yielded—as did the girl in the balcony who had let
down the scarf to him. She already knew how that girl’s heart must have
fluttered at the moment,—how she must have felt that the hands were
mad, wicked, uncontrollable hands, no longer her own.
There was one place in the dream that she managed not without some
ingenuity. It had to be made plain that the lover under the window did
not come from a long, six-doored house, with a wife behind each door;
that this girl, pale in the moonlight, with quickening heart and
rebellious hands on the scarf, and arms that should open to him, was to
be not only his first wife but his last; that he was never even to
consider so much as the possibility of another, but was to cleave unto
her, and to love her with a single heart for all the days of her life
and his own.
There were various ways of bringing this circumstance forward. Usually
she had Brigham march on at the head of his great family and counsel
the youth to take more wives, in order that he should be exalted in the
Kingdom. Whereupon the young man would fold his love in his arms and
speak words of scorn, in the same thrilling manner that he spoke his
other words, for any exaltation which they two could not share alone.
Brigham, at the head of his wives, would then slink off, much abashed.
She had come naturally to see her own face as the face of this happily
loved girl in the dream. She knew no face for the youth. There was none
in Amalon; not Jarom Tanner, six feet three, who became a helpless,
grinning child in her presence; nor Moroni Peterson, who became a
solemn and ghastly imbecile; nor Ammaron Wright, son of the Bishop, who
had opened the dance of the Young People’s Auxiliary with prayer, and
later tried to kiss her in a dark corner of the room. So the face of
the other person in her dream remained of an unknown heavenly beauty.
And then one afternoon in early May a strange youth came singing down
the cañon; came while she mused by the brook-side in her best-loved
dream. Long before she saw him, she heard his music, a young, clear,
care-free voice ringing down from the trail that went over the
mountains to Kanab and into Kimball Valley; one of the ways that led
out to the world that she wondered about so much. It was a voice new to
her, and the words of his ballad were also new. At first she heard them
from afar:—
“There was a young lady came a-tripping along,
And at each side a servant-O,
And in each hand a glass of wine
To drink with the Gypsy Davy-O.
“And will you fancy me, my dear,
And will you be my Honey-O?
I swear by the sword that hangs by my side
You shall never want for money-O.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account