It was a good dream. And Thrower could see himself within it. The man who had the pulpit of the greatest church in the greatest city of the territory would become the spiritual leader of a whole people. For a few minutes he believed so intensely in his dream that when he thanked Armor kindly for the meal and stepped outside, it made him gasp to see that right now Vigor Township consisted entirely of Armor’s big store and its outbuildings, a fenced common with a dozen sheep grazing on it, and the raw wood shell of a big new church.

Still, the church was real enough. It was almost ready, the walls were there, the roof was on. He was a rational man. He had to see something solid before he could believe in a dream, but that church was solid enough now, and between him and Armor they could make the rest of the dream come true. Bring people to this place, make this the center of the territory. This church was big enough for town meetings, not just church meetings. And what about during the week? He’d be wasting his education if he didn’t start a school for the children hereabouts. Teach them to read, to write, to cipher, and, above all, to think, to expunge all superstition from their minds, and leave behind nothing but pure knowledge and faith in the Savior.

He was so caught up in these thoughts that he didn’t even realize he wasn’t heading for Peter McCoy’s farm downriver, where his bed would be waiting for him in the old log cabin. He was walking back up the slope to the meetinghouse. Not till he lit a couple of candles did he realize that he actually meant to spend the night here. It was his home, these bare wooden walls, as no other place in the world had ever been home to him. The sappish smell was like a madness in his nostrils, it made him want to sing hymns he’d never even heard before, and he sat there humming, thumbing through the pages of the Old Testament without so much as noticing that there were words on the paper.

He didn’t hear them until they stepped onto the wooden floor. Then he looked up and saw, to his surprise, Mistress Faith carrying a lantern, followed by the eighteen-year-old twins, Wastenot and Wantnot. They were carrying a large wooden box between them. It took a moment before he realized that the box was meant to be an altar. That in fact it was a rather fine altar, the wood was tightly fitted as any master cabinetmaker could manage, beautifully stained. And burnt into the boards surrounding the top of the altar were two rows of crosses.

“Where do you want it?” asked Wastenot.

“Father said we had to bring it down tonight, now that the roof and walls were done.”

“Father?” asked Thrower.