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Updated: May 7, 2025
Surely the reader, no matter how removed in sympathy from that line of argument, must be able now at least to sympathize, to perceive that Bennington de Laney had some reason for thought, some excuse for the tardiness of his steps as they carried him to a meeting with the girl he loved. For he did love her, perhaps the more tenderly that doubts must, perforce, arise.
Up the gulch cow bells tinkled, up the hill birds sang, and through the little hollows twilight flowed like a vapour. The wild roses on the hillside were blooming late in this high altitude. The pines were singing their endless song. But Bennington de Laney was looking upon none of these softer beauties of the Hills.
The upper part of his body, thus deprived of support, fell backward on the mattress. He then clasped his hands behind his head, and stared at the ceiling. "Listen, ye multitude," he began; "I'm an artist. So are you. I'm also a philosopher. You are not. Therefore, I'll deign to instruct you. Ben de Laney has a father and a mother. The father is pompous, conceited, and a bore.
All these considerations affected not at all his thought of her. But now, for the first time, Bennington de Laney was weighing the relative claims of duty and happiness. His happiness depended upon his love. That his duty to his race, his parents, his caste had some reality in fact, and a very solid reality in his own estimation, the author hopes he has shown.
Not only all his early education, but the life lessons of many generations of ancestors had taught him to set a fictitious value on social position. He was a de Laney on both sides. He had never been allowed to forget it. A long line of forefathers, proud-eyed in their gilded frames, mutely gazed their sense of the obligations they had bequeathed to this last representative of their race.
"Important, if true, as the newspapers say," remarked the other young man on the window ledge. "What constitutes a de Laney?" "Hereditary lack of humour, Beck, my boy. Well, the result is that poor Bennie is a sort of " the speaker hesitated for his word. "'Willy boy," suggested Beck, mildly. "Something of the sort, but not exactly. A 'willy boy' never has ideas. Bennie has." "Such as?"
Well, during the first days, progress was very slow, the ice being rough and laney, and the dogs behaving most badly, stopping dead at every difficulty, and leaping over the traces.
Three song sparrows dashed almost to his very feet, so busily fighting that they hardly escaped the pony's hoofs. Everywhere love songs trilled from the underbrush; and Bennington de Laney, as young, as full of life, as unmated as they, rode slowly along thinking of his lady love, and "Hullo! Where are you going?" cried she.
A few nights after that the Destroying Angels, doing the bidding of Bishop Dame, were ordered to kill Brother Laney to save him from his sins, he having violated his endowment oath and furnished food to a man who had been declared an outlaw by the Mormon Church. The Angels were commanded by Barney Carter, a son-in-law of Bishop Dame.
He drew back and surveyed his work with satisfaction. "Come on, boys, let's turn in. To-morrow we slave." Although he had retired so early, and in so exhausted a condition, Bennington de Laney could not sleep. He had taken a slight fever, and the wound in his shoulder was stiff and painful.
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