When she finished he was silent for a time. Then he spoke, very gently, but with undaunted firmness.
"Prudence, dearest, I have told you that this doctrine is new to me. I do not yet know its justification. But that I shall see it to be sanctified after they have taught me, this I know as certainly as I know that Joseph Smith dug up the golden plates of Mormon and Moroni on the hill of c.u.morah when the angel of the Lord moved him. It will be sanctified for those who choose it, I mean. You know I could never choose it for myself. But as for others, I must not question. I know only too well that eternal salvation for me depends upon my accepting manfully and unquestioningly the authority of the temple priesthood."
"But I know Joseph was not a good man--and they tell such absurd stories about the miracles the Elders pretend to work."
"I believe with all my heart Joseph was good; but even if not--we have never pretended that he was anything more than a prophet of G.o.d. And was not Moses a murderer when G.o.d called him to be a prophet? And as for miracles, all religions have them--why not ours? Your people were Methodists before Joseph baptised them. Didn"t Wesley work miracles?
Didn"t a cloud temper the sun in answer to his prayer? Wasn"t his horse cured of a lameness by his faith? Didn"t he lay hands upon the blind Catholic girl so that she saw plainly when her eyes rested upon the New Testament and became blind again when she took up the ma.s.s book? Are those stories absurd? My father himself saw Joseph cast a devil out of Newell Knight."
"And this awful journey into a horrid desert. Why must you go? Surely there are other ways of salvation." She hesitated a moment. "I have been told that going to heaven is like going to mill. If your wheat is good, the miller will never ask which way you came."
"Child, child, some one has tampered with you."
She retorted quickly.
"He did not tamper, he has never sought to--he was all kindness."
She stopped, her short upper lip holding its incautious mate a prisoner.
She blushed furiously under the sudden blaze of his eyes.
"So it"s true, what Seth Wright hinted at? To think that you, of all people--my sweetheart--gone over--won over by a cursed mobocrat--a fiend with the blood of our people wet on his hands! Listen, Prue; I"m going into the desert. Even though you beg me to stay, you must have known--perhaps you hoped--that I would go. There are many reasons why I must. For one, there are six hundred and forty poor hunted wretches over there on the river bank, sick, cold, wet, starving, but enduring it all to the death for their faith in Joseph Smith. They could have kept their comfortable homes here and their substance, simply by renouncing him--they are all voluntary exiles--they have only to say "I do not believe Joseph Smith was a prophet of G.o.d," and these same Gentiles will receive them with open arms, give them clothing, food, and shelter, put them again in possession of their own. But they are lying out over there, fever-stricken, starving, chilled, all because they will not deny their faith. Shall I be a craven, then, who have scarcely ever wanted for food or shelter, and probably shall not? Of course you don"t love me or you couldn"t ask me to do that. Those faithful wretched ones are waiting over there for me to guide them on toward a spot that will probably be still more desolate. They could find their way, almost, by the trail of graves we left last spring, but they need my strength and my spirit, and I am going. I am going, too, for my own salvation. I would suffer anything for you, but by going I may save us both. Listen, child; G.o.d is going to make a short work on earth. We shall both see the end of this reign of sin. It is well if you take wheat to the mill, but what if you fetch the miller chaff instead?"
She made a little protesting move with her hands, and would have spoken, but he was not done.
"Now, listen further. You heard my father tell how I have seen this people driven and persecuted since I was a boy. That, if nothing else, would take me away from these accursed States and their mobs. Hatred of them has been bred into my marrow. I know them for the most part to be unregenerate and doomed, but even if it were otherwise--if they had the true light--none the less would I be glad to go, because of what they have done to us and to me and to mine. Oh, in the night I hear such cries of butchered mothers with their babes, and see the flames of the little cabins--hear the shots and the ribaldry and the cursings. My father spoke to you of Haun"s mill,--that ma.s.sacre back in Missouri.
That was eight years ago. I was a boy of sixteen and my sister was a year older. She had been left in my care while father and mother went on to Far West. You have seen the portrait of her that mother has. You know how delicately flower-like her beauty was, how like a lily, with a purity and an innocence to disarm any villainy. Thirty families had halted at the mill the day before, the mob checking their advance at that point. All was quiet until about four in the afternoon. We were camped on either side of Shoal Creek. Children were playing freely about while their mothers and fathers worked at the little affairs of a pilgrimage like that. Most of them had then been three months on the road, enduring incredible hardships for the sake of their religion--for him you believe to be a bad, common man. But they felt secure now because one of the militia captains, officious like your captain here, had given them a.s.surance the day before that they would be protected from all harm. I was helping Brother Joseph Young to repair his wagon when I glanced up to the opposite side of Shoal Creek and saw a large company of armed and mounted men coming toward our peaceful group at full speed. One of our number, seeing that they were many and that we were unarmed, ran out and cried, "Peace!" but they came upon us and fired their volley. Men, women, and little children fell under it. Those surviving fled to the blacksmith"s shop for shelter--huddling inside like frightened sheep. But there were wide cracks between the logs, and up to these the mob went, putting their guns through to do their work at leisure. Then the plundering began--plundering and worse."
He stopped, trembling, and she put out her hand to him in sympathy. When he had regained control of himself, he continued.
"At the first volley I had hurried sister to a place of concealment in the underbrush, and she, hearing them search for the survivors after the shooting was over, thought we were discovered, and sprang up to run further. One of them saw her and shot. She fell half-fainting with a bullet through her arm, and then half a dozen of them gathered quickly about her. I ran to them, screaming and striking out with my fists, but the devil was in them, and she, poor blossom, lay there helpless, calling "Boy, boy, boy!" as she had always called me since we were babies together. Must I tell you the rest?--must I tell you--how those devils--"
"Don"t, don"t! Oh, _no_!"
"I thought I must die! They held me there--"
He had gripped one of her wrists until she cried out in pain and he released it.
"But the sight must have given me a man"s strength, for my struggles became so troublesome that one of them--I have always been grateful for it--clubbed his musket and dealt me a blow that left me senseless. It was dark when I came to, but I lay there until morning, unable to do more than crawl. When the light came I found the poor little sister there near where they had dragged us both, and she was _alive_. Can you realise how awful that was--that she had lived through it? G.o.d be thanked, she died before the day was out.
"After that the other mutilated bodies, the plundered wagons, all seemed less horrible to me. My heart had been seared over. They had killed twenty of the Saints, and the most of them we hurried to throw into a well, fearful that the soldiers of Governor Boggs would come back at any moment to strip and hack them. O G.o.d! and now you have gone over to one of them!"
"Joel,--dear, _dear_ Joel!--indeed I pity and sympathise--and care for--but I cannot go--even after all you say. And don"t you see it will always be so! My father says the priesthood will always be in trouble if it sets itself above the United States. Dear Joel, I can"t go, indeed I _can"t_ go!"
He spoke more softly now.
"Thank G.o.d I don"t realise it yet--I mean, that we must part. You tell me so and I hear you and my mind knows, but my heart hasn"t sensed it yet--I can feel it now going stupidly along singing its old happy song of hope and gladness, while all this is going on here outside. But soon the big hurt will come. Oh, Prue--Prue, girl!--can"t you think what it will mean to me? Don"t you know how I shall sicken for the sight of you, and my ears will listen for you! Prudence, Prue, darling--yet I must not be womanish! I have a big work to do. I have known it with a new clearness since that radiance rested above my head last night. The truth burns in me like a fire. Your going can"t take that from me. It must be I was not meant to have you. With you perhaps I could not have had a heart single to G.o.d"s work. He permitted me to love you so I could be tried and proved."
He looked at her fondly, and she could see striving and trembling in his eyes a great desire to crush her in his arms, yet he fought it down, and continued more calmly.
"But indeed I must be favoured more than common, to deserve that so great a hurt be put upon me, and I shall not be found wanting. I shall never wed any woman but you, though, dear. If not you, never any other."
He stood up.
"I must go in to them now. There must be work to do against the start to-morrow."
"Joel!"
"May the Lord deafen my ears to you, darling!" and squaring his shoulders resolutely away from her, he left her on the seat and went in.
The old man looked up from his Bible as his son entered.
"It"s sore sad, laddie, we can"t have the temple for your sealing-vows."
"Prudence will not be sealed to me, father." He spoke dazedly, as if another like the morning"s blow had been dealt him. "I--I am already sealed to the Spirit for time and eternity."
"Was it Prudence"s doings?" asked his mother, quickly.
"Yes; she has left the church with her people."
The long-faced, narrow-browed old man raised one hand solemnly.
"Then let her be banished from Israel and not numbered in the books of the offspring of Abraham! And let her be delivered over to the buffetings of Satan in the flesh!"
CHAPTER V.
_Giles Rae Beautifies His Inheritance_
By eight o"clock the next morning, out under a cloudy sky, the Raes were ready and eager for their start to the new Jerusalem. Even the sick woman"s face wore a kind of soft and faded radiance in the excitement of going. On her mattress, she had been tenderly installed in one of the two covered wagons that carried their household goods. The wagon in which she lay was to be taken across the river by Seth Wright,--for the moment no Wild Ram of the Mountains, but a soft-cooing dove of peace.
Permission had been granted him by Brockman to recross the river on some needful errands; and, having once proved the extreme sensitiveness, not to say irritability, of those in temporary command, he was now resolved to give as little eclat as possible to certain superior aspects of his own sanct.i.ty. He spoke low and deferentially, and his mien was that of a modest, retiring man who secretly thought ill of himself.
He mounted the wagon in which the sick woman lay, sat well back under the bowed cover, clucked low to the horses, and drove off toward the ferry. If discreet behaviour on his part could ensure it there would be no conflict provoked with superior numbers; with numbers, moreover, composed of violent-tempered and unprincipled persecutors who were already acting with but the merest shadow of legal authority.
On the seat of the second wagon, whip in hand, was perched Giles Rae, his coat b.u.t.toned warmly to the chin. He was slight and feeble to the eye, yet he had been fired to new life by the certainty that now they were to leave the territory of the persecuting Gentiles for a land to be the Saints" very own. His son stood at the wheel, giving him final directions. At the gate was Prudence Corson, gowned for travel, reticule in hand, her prettiness shadowed, under the scoop of her bonnet, the toe of one trim little boot meditatively rolling a pebble over the ground.
"Drive slowly, Daddy. Likely I shall overtake you before you reach the ferry. I want but a word yet with Prudence; though"--he glanced over at the bowed head of the girl--"no matter if I linger a little, since Brother Seth will cross first and we must wait until the boat comes back. Some of our people will be at the ferry to look after you,--and be careful to have no words with any of the mob--no matter what insult they may offer. You"re feeling strong, aren"t you?"
"Ay, laddie, that I am! Strong as an ox! The very thought of being free out of this Babylon has exalted me in spirit and body. Think of it, boy!
Soon we shall be even beyond the limits of the United States--in a foreign land out there to the west, where these bloodthirsty ones can no longer reach us. Thank G.o.d they"re like all snakes--they can"t jump beyond their own length!"
He leaned out of the wagon to shake a bloodless, trembling fist toward the temple where the soldiers had made their barracks.
"Now let great and grievous judgments, desolations, by famine, sword, and pestilence come upon you, generation of vipers!"
He cracked the whip, the horses took their load at his cheery call, and as the wagon rolled away they heard him singing:--
"Lo, the Gentile chain is broken!