Chapter XXVIII

Hagar’s removal from the harem of the Mormon dictator to the cottage of Dr. Robinson was quietly effected. It would be difficult to say whither her late host had expected her to go, but he was very angry when word was brought that she had taken refuge with that “miserable apostate.” He heard that all the other apostates, and all the Gentiles and outsiders who were wintering within the walls of Zion, were chuckling triumphantly over the circumstance, and reports of the actual language used by some of these scoffing critics reached his ears, borne by sycophantic gossips who had no talent except their tattling malice. It fell out that the Prophet waxed exceeding wroth over this matter and employed some decidedly strong language in the way of prophesying the summary vengeance the Lord was about to wreak upon all his enemies. He and other magnates of the Church invoked an early and terrible visitation of the Divine rage, not only in private confab, but from the rostrum of the Tabernacle.

Charles Spencer was only too well aware that he was to blame for this agitated state of the Apostolic mind. The effect of his example was dreaded. He knew that disaffection was terribly contagious, and took care not to discuss his views with any of his former friends and colleagues, though they often came to him for that purpose. He did not suspect that any of these came as spies, but such was the case, and the trouble they took to draw him out might have warned him of the truth. His apostasy was now as much the theme among the saints as his missionary achievements had been a few short months before. Many spoke with pity or commiseration, but others discussed him with hatred and malice, the birth of envy or fanaticism. The Saint who had been most industrious in spying out his relations with Dr. Robinson was now installed in his former post at the tithing office. Many of the boys and girls who had been his school-mates, and even the people he had converted during his labors amongst the heathen of Ohio, passed him on the street without recognition.

But he had reached that point where he could feel sorrow for these offenders more keenly than the wrong to himself; and, after all, he sometimes thought, human nature was the same in Zion as elsewhere. He had seen the members of different sects treat each other exactly as the Mormons treated Gentiles, and heard them denounce infidels or free thinkers just as the Mormons did apostates.

The steady ray of hope and confidence which dwelt in his fine dark eyes was the outward expression of the fervent heart-prayer—the ever-burning altar-lamp of his soul. He was cheerful. The mutterings of fanatics and hypocrites disturbed him not. The United States troops on the hill above the town were a safe-guard against any high-handed act of tyranny that could injure him or the one he loved more dearly, and he believed that God would save him from the assassin, who had already done much bloody work in Zion. The snow was beginning to disappear from the valleys, and the time was fast approaching when he and his betrothed might exchange the narrowness of the Mormon Kingdom for a free place in the broad world.

“It was a sad day for the Mormon people when they allowed themselves to be fettered by polygamy,” he said one day when musing with tender regret on the prospect of severing himself from his people.

“The glory of having settled a wilderness and established therein a thrifty population is overshadowed by the approved crime they have planted with it. And this terrible mistake will work irreparable harm before it can be corrected. Used as the thumb-screw of the priesthood, it is the ball and chain of Satan by which progress is clogged, hope delayed, growth retarded, and disgrace made manifest. Always a failure and a curse, it cannot be perpetuated here. The worst evil will be that the generation of men and women who spring from polygamous stock, will supply a mass of blind advocates of the system, who will naturally think it must be good since it has produced them. Were it not for this source of life, of which it cannot now be deprived, it would soon die out and leave the people to accomplish their destiny with their natural pluck and enterprise untrammeled. But still, as God has suffered it, there must have been a cause, and it will take a far-seeing prophet to predict the outcome.”

After long days of uncongenial labor at the store, labor which he performed cheerfully only because he knew it was but a temporary expedient, his evenings were usually passed at Dr. Robinson’s, where they read, conversed, or listened to Hagar’s music, and singing by the doctor’s wife.

It was a bleak night in March. The afternoon had been so cold and stormy that nothing was doing at the store, and the Waller Brothers put up their shutters at sundown. Spencer went early to the Doctor’s house where he and Hagar talked over their plans until supper was announced. Then the regular programme followed. There was much sickness in the town and Dr. Robinson was called to see a child across the way. They had been reading Scott’s Quentin Durward, and the Doctor laid the book aside in the middle of a chapter to go at once, though the patient was the child of a poor Mormon, who could pay him nothing. When he returned and resumed the story, Hagar said:—

“If Sir Walter Scott had been acquainted with Brigham Young I should think he drew the character of Louis XI, from him.”

Spencer and the Doctor laughed.

“Are you not a little severe, Miss Taine?” said the Doctor.

“There certainly is a strong resemblance in some particulars, but Brigham is a more kindly man. He is crafty, rugged, and tyrannical, but I should be sorry to think him quite the counterpart of grim old Louis.”

The reading was continued until nearly midnight so interested had they become in the romance. Then Spencer withdrew. Hagar went with him to the door where they parted with kisses and blessings, never to meet again in peace and joy under that hospitable roof. It was a night for assassins to ply their trade in safety. The inky blackness blended earth and sky into a barrier as dense as that which stands beyond the portals of death. It was a few seconds before Spencer could find his way to the gate that shut in the small door-yard from the side-walk; but after his eyes became a little accustomed to the heavy gloom, the dim outlines of trees and fences enabled him to proceed, and he disappeared in the darkness.

At two o’clock there was a gentle knock at Dr. Robinson’s door. The Danish servant girl who had her room down stairs heard the noise and opened the window to ask who was there. A small boy with a lantern, who was shivering with the cold, stammered out:

“My sister is dying, and mother wants to know if the Doctor will please come to her.”

“Who are you? be you Johnny Reed?”

“Yes, and won’t you ask him to come quick?”

The girl assured him that the Doctor would soon be there, and the boy trotted away, the wind whistling through his scanty raiment.

Dr. Robinson had heard the boy’s voice and got up at once. He had already done his best to save the sick child, but it was one of those frail creatures not made to live, and he knew the previous day that the end was near. Still to comfort the poor widowed mother in her sorrow he made haste to get ready. His wife warned him to be careful of his own health, and insisted on placing a heavy muffler around his neck before she would let him go. As was his habit on leaving the house at night, he leant over and kissed her fondly, then went to the trundle-bed where his little boy and girl slept peacefully, to kiss their angel foreheads. He seemed to linger more than usual to-night, and his wife, noticing it, said softly:

“Don’t wake them, dear.”

Coming back to the bedside the Doctor replied:

“No, they are sleeping soundly. I was only making the covers snug around them, and thinking how heaven has blessed us.” There was a pathetic note in his voice that she never forgot.

The boy had gone home with his lantern, and as the Doctor opened the door the darkness seemed like an impassable barrier. He felt his way slowly to the gate, his foot-fall on the black frozen ground making a hollow ringing noise. Not a star was in sight, and the weird whistling of the wind made a sinister accompaniment to the night-gloom.

What means that sudden motion of feet just outside the gate! A crushing blow on a man’s head, a thrust with a sharp dagger, a faint moan, a gurgling sound, the stealthy fall of receding footsteps,—and then a deadly calm, broken only by the sighing wind...!

*

Spencer had reached his boarding house in safety, but instead of retiring, sat down moodily and was soon lost in reflection. For some unknown reason he felt ill at ease, and haunted by a vague sense of danger. It was a strange and uncomfortable state of mind such as he had never before experienced, and he tried in vain to convince himself that it did not forbode evil. Involuntarily he laid a loaded revolver under the pillow on his bed where he could reach it readily in case of need, and then continued to brood and worry over his unwonted apprehensions.

For Hagar he was ready to do and dare anything, but suppose the enemy should strike at her! The thought was like to drive him mad. Langley’s power and resources he knew to be irresistible but he believed that somehow Providence would shield him and his darling from the craft of the priesthood, and deliver them out of their present situation of danger and doubt.

Growing more calm, at length, he pictured to himself the varied phases of his acquaintance with Hagar. Now as the gentle girl he had saved near Cleveland; again, as the fainting victim of a villain at Castle Adamant; as the working girl plying her needle in a factory, or as the earnest woman he had just left (far more beautiful and attractive than ever, he thought), tried and proved by adversity—tested to the fullest extent in the white heat of affliction and bitter experience. And by some mysterious agency her heart had been given to him at a time when he was looking forward with grim satisfaction to the visit of death. It seemed that by a strange fatality their lives were knit together.

“I wonder what is to be the next act in this drama?” As he spoke he threw himself upon the bed, and burying his face in his hands, wept as only a young and ardent man can weep. In the midst of his sobbing he thought he heard a knock at his chamber door. He listened. The knock was repeated a little louder. The clock had just struck three. What could mean a visit at that hour? Seizing his revolver he went to the door.

“Who’s there?”

“Don’t be alarmed, it is I—Langley—I come as a friend.”

Spencer’s heart stood still. Here, he thought, was the explanation of his fearful apprehensions.

“Langley as a friend! I warn you bishop that I am prepared to sell my life dearly. Begone, or by the Lord I’ll kill you.”

“I am alone and unarmed, and I swear that I come as your friend, perhaps as the only one who can save you. I bring you terrible news and a warning. Kill me if you will.”

At this Spencer threw the door open and stepped back assuming an attitude of defense.

Langley strode in wearing a large cloak, a slouched hat, and top boots, and looking like a bandit chief. It was his usual habit, but Spencer saw at once that he lacked the overbearing and impertinent manner which he generally assumed before those he considered his inferiors.

“You may be sure that no common errand has brought me here at this hour—”

“I am—you have come to murder me—”

“No—you wrong me. As I said before, I come to save you.”

“From what—or whom?”

“From a terrible danger. Assassins are abroad, as you shall hear. You may think me their confederate unless you wait to hear me out.”

“And who has been assailed?”

Spencer’s mind was filled with dreadful images. His eyes glared, and Langley feared from the nervous manner with which he clutched his weapon that he might shoot him the instant he told his story.

“It is not Hagar. She is safe. But it is a damnable piece of business which I deplore as much as you do, and of which I am as innocent. I have never shared the priesthood’s ardor for ‘blood atonement,’ and have never countenanced it by word or deed.”

“It is Robinson then—they have murdered him——”

“Be calm one moment. If in your frenzy you should kill me, you would have on your hands the blood of an innocent man, and bring sudden destruction on yourself and others.”

Spencer, livid with a vague horror, sat down. A despairing sigh escaped him as he said,

“Go on.”

“Let me tell you first, Charles, that I have the strongest reason for wishing to serve you and the woman you love. The mystery of my conduct when you made known her name, will disappear when I tell you that she is my own daughter.”

“What’s that you say?” gasped Spencer, looking up suddenly into the Bishop’s face. He was so absorbed that he scarcely heard Langley’s words. “Your daughter!”

“Yes, my daughter. I will tell you more of this at another time. Now nerve yourself for to-night’s tragedy, and resolve at once to be ruled by me, or you will imperil your own life. Half an hour ago I was in my bed fast asleep. I was startled by the raising of a window, and heard a paper parcel fall on the floor. Procuring a light I dressed, armed myself, and then picked up the parcel which contained this letter:

“Bishop Langley, the prophets are fulfilled. The apostate bites the
dust. It is beautiful to see how the Lord works out his decrees.
Spencer, jealous of the seductive doctor’s attentions to the pretty
widow, picks a quarrel with him, and sticks him under the fifth rib.
But we won’t have these cussed apostates mussing up the streets of
Zion with each other’s gore. The case against C. S. is perfectly
clear, and as soon as the police carry Robinson’s carcass away in the
morning, a committee of citizens will wait on C. S. and string him up
to the nearest telegraph pole.”

“There is no need of reading more of this. You see the purpose of these cutthroats....”

“Oh! this is too horrible! I could not believe that such demons existed here.”

For a time he was entirely overcome. His nerves were still weak from the effects of recent sickness, and the appalling suddenness and atrocity of this crime in which he was marked for a victim, filled him with unutterable grief and dismay.

After a while Langley prevailed on him to come to his house, and as they went along the Bishop tried to draw his thoughts from the tragedy by telling him the story of Hagar.

Leaving Spencer to himself the Bishop roused one of his sons and sent him post haste to Camp Douglas with a message to General Connor. The General and Langley were good friends, and as the message reached the former at daylight, telling him of Robinson’s murder and the threats of mob violence to Spencer, he made a point of having a Company of Cavalry in the town by sun-rise. The day passed quietly though the mob gathered at the City Hall and Spencer’s name was coupled with the murder.

Hagar, terrified as she was, forgot herself in ministering to the stricken wife and mother. Spencer came early to help and cheer them as best he could.

The civil power was entirely in the hands of the Mormon authorities, and the assassins were never punished. When Langley mentioned the matter to Brigham Young some weeks later the prophet merely said:

“If it is the Lord’s will that his enemies are taken off, why let them rest in peace. When the wrath of the saints is kindled against the ungodly, there must be some reason for it, and my idea is to let it work itself out according to the Lord’s will. That’s always been my doctrine, and it’s worked first rate.”

Langley took both Hagar and Spencer under his protection and had it clearly understood that they were to be allowed to depart in peace from the Territory. As soon as the roads were open by the southern route, to California, Mrs. Robinson and her children went to her parents at Los Angeles, and a few days later the delayed mails arrived from the East.

The truth about Hagar’s identity was kept sacred by her father and Spencer. The ideal affection for her which had taken possession of Langley before he knew who she was, lingered yet in his heart, chastened, and eloquent with good promptings to his mind. In her he saw the innocence and trust as well as the beauty of the Hope Vincent whom he had so cruelly wronged, and he thought he detected also in her features a clear resemblance to himself. He was painfully conscious that the children of his other wives were not like her in any respect, and felt a singular pride and satisfaction in the reflection that despite all her misfortune and sorrow she was a true woman with courage to die if need be rather than suffer dishonor.

“Poor Hope is gone,” he would say to himself when musing as to what course he should pursue, “and I can best atone for my injustice to her by dealing kindly and fairly with her child. Spencer loves her, and nothing could tempt him to give her up. Brigham shall know nothing he does not know already, and she shall be spared any further knowledge about herself. They shall go and settle wherever they like, and I will help them.”

Hagar’s friendship with Amelia, the Bishop’s youngest wife, was renewed, and her last days among the saints were passed in comparative peace and contentment. The Bishop treated her with every mark of respect and consideration, and one day, in Spencer’s presence said to her:—

“Though you would not accept me as a lover I shall always love you as if you were my own child; and if ever I can serve you in any way, you have only to command me.”

The day after Ben Halliday’s stage arrived with the Eastern mail, which had been delayed some time by the impassable snows in the mountains, one of Spencer’s employers came into the store with letters and parcels.

“Here is something for you, Spencer,” said he, handing him a letter and a small express package.

Spencer was surprised on opening them to find that they were both from James Taine. As soon as he could get away he hurried to Hagar with the good news. First he exhibited a superb gold watch. In looking over his father’s papers, James said, he had found a draft of a letter intended for the young hero who saved him from the fire, and fulfilled his wish by forwarding the small memento of his admiration and esteem. The letter also contained an account of the writer being severely wounded at Murfreesboro on New Years day; of his promotion to the rank of colonel; his enforced retirement from active service; of Mrs. Taine’s death abroad, and his own return to Chestnut Grove where he expected to pass the rest of his life as an invalid. In closing Col. Taine said:

“In your reply, my dear Spencer, please tell me what was the last you saw and heard of my dear foster-sister? I have no doubt you felt a sympathetic interest in her sad misfortune, and perchance, in your rambling something may have transpired concerning her of a later date than anything we have. All trace of her from the time of Lamont’s arrest at Cincinnati is as completely lost as if the waves of the sea had closed over her. And yet I cling to the hope that she still lives, and that I shall sometime find her.”

“Dear good brother,” exclaimed Hagar. “And to think that he was wounded.” She was silent for a moment, and her half restrained emotion brought the tears to Spencer’s eyes. It was so sweet to know that loving hearts were beating yet with hope for her, but so bitter to realize how she had wronged the brother who loved her so tenderly.

“To relieve Colonel Taine’s suspense dear Hagar, and to cheer him in his sadness, I will telegraph at once that you are here and safe. Have you not some special message you would like to send him?”

“Yes, love; tell him that you are no longer a Mormon who cannot share his friendship; that we shall soon leave Utah, and—”

“I know the rest. Yes, I will go at once so that he may hear before this day passes, that you are safe.”

“Wait a moment—let me help you write the dispatch, and we can send it to the office by one of the boys.”

The answer which came from Colonel Taine next day was a great surprise to the lovers, and caused Spencer no little uneasiness. In his own dispatch he had modestly abstained from any reference to Hagar’s relations to himself, merely stating that she was in Salt Lake City and that he would write full particulars by the first stage. Colonel Taine telegraphed a credit for $500, and directed Spencer to help Hagar in her preparations for the long journey, and have her start for Ohio as soon as the weather was sufficiently settled. He wished her to return to the old home at Chestnut Grove.

“Colonel Taine loved you, Hagar, and I believe he will want to marry you,” said Spencer while they were talking over the dispatch.

Hagar was deeply touched by what she deemed the extraordinary magnanimity of her foster-brother, but said:

“No, James loves me only as a sister. His good heart is ready to forgive me for my shameful act; but it cannot be: I could not go back to Chestnut Grove, nor in any way accept his help.”

As soon as Bishop Langley was informed of the communications which had passed between his proteges and Colonel Taine he went to Brigham Young.

“Brother Brigham,” he said, “you did well to deal gently with Sister Miles, and there’s nothing left for us now but to send her back with good grace to her friends.”

“Why so? What has happened, Brother Edwin?” asked the prophet quietly.

Langley told him about the present to Spencer, the money and the dispatches.

“Very well; let them be off at once then. Their presence here is contaminating to the young. I have nothing special against the girl, but that miserable rebel, Spencer, is a stench in my nostrils.”

“I admit that it is too bad; but we cannot force them to start before the season is farther advanced and travel becomes more comfortable and safe.”

“What do you care for their comfort or safety? I have permitted your interference far enough in this case, but it can go no farther. They must leave here by the first stage or I will not be responsible for the consequences.”

“Oh, very well—by the first stage on which they can get a passage;—that will be towards the end of June, an excellent season for travel.”

The President did not like Bishop Langley’s demeanor but was well-nigh defenceless. Langley’s shrewd and self-willed personality was too potent a factor in the affairs of Zion to be ignored; even the President himself had no wish to antagonize him, and ended by telling him to do as he liked. Langley then said:

“Spencer wants to be set right about that bake-kettle incident. He says when he heard it mentioned in the tabernacle as a miracle, he blushed to the roots of his hair. The delusion was very useful for the purposes of the train, but I think myself that the true explanation might now be given with advantage.”

“What next will you wish to do for our fallow Judas, Edwin? You are suddenly become as mild as buttermilk, whereas you were wont to be more like a draught of wormwood. No. It makes no difference how that miracle was performed. It was seen and believed of the people, and has become so deeply rooted in their minds that it would require even a greater miracle to dispel it. When the people believe let them alone. They are as likely to be right in thinking it a thunderbolt from Heaven as you are in imagining that it was an explosive bake-kettle. Leave such quibbles to lawyers, and let the saints have faith.”