Chapter XXIX

The day before the stage left which was to carry the young apostate and his Gentile sweetheart beyond the mystic boundaries of the Mormon Kingdom, Spencer sought a final interview with Bishop Langley. Several suspicious circumstances had arisen within the last few days which caused him considerable uneasiness, and there was serious reason for him to fear that he would not be suffered to depart without trouble.

It was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for an apostate to get out of Zion in those days, and Spencer knew it well. He had seen the children throw stones at persons who dared to cast off the Church yoke, and the ghastly story of poor Robinson’s fate still recurred to him with sickening vividness.*

[Footnote *: The Robinson case is historical.]

“No.” said Langley, in reply to his question, “Brigham knows nothing about that or other murders. He might, I believe, discover the assassins if he saw fit, but it is contrary to his policy. He preaches blood- atonement, and believes in it: these crimes are the result. But while he wields absolute power as at present, and as he will continue to do for years to come, they will go unpunished, and there will be ten chances for a Mormon who kills an apostate to escape hanging, to one for a Gentile who is caught stealing a Mormon’s horse.”

“What do you think of our prospects, Bishop?”

“You will get away without further trouble, thanks to a lucky circumstance of which I have just learned: General Connor is sending a Cavalry Company to escort a supply train from Fort Bridger, and has consented to have them travel to that point with the stage. It will make the journey a few days longer, but your safety will be greatly increased. I have received a confirmation of the plot to ditch the stage at night in the Weber River, and I hope that the miscreants who have planned that job will just try to carry it out. But of course they will be warned of the picnic that has been prepared for them.”

After telling Spencer that he would give him such financial aid as he might need to make a start in life, and assuring him of the keen interest he should always feel in the success and happiness of himself and Hagar, the Bishop appeared greatly mollified by his reflections and said:—

“What I have lately passed through has been a cruel and bitter experience. But I feel that it was a direct punishment inflicted upon me by Providence for my fiendish wrong to Hagar’s mother. It smites me now like a lash of adder’s stings laid on by an avenging spirit! From the moment I met my daughter I felt a mysterious change stealing into my heart—into my very life’s blood, and ere long was ready to forsake everything else in this world for her. She was like a will-o’the-wisp leading me on to my ruin, and I pursued until literally hurled into the yawning gulf. It is a wonder I did not lose my mind—God has indeed been merciful. From that day I swore that I would either die or mend my life. The solution came at last. That sweet girl whom I abandoned, cursed, and counted among the dead, has come here, brought by you, to save me from damnation, and to snatch you from a life like mine! Oh, Charles! you will cherish her with all the tenderness and sensibility of which you are capable. Lavish on her the sweetest and truest attributes of your nature, and soothe and guard her ever as your better self. The good wife is the good man’s visible soul—the immortal part of him which dwells beside him day by day and keeps him in the right. Should you ever feel a pang because of the accident of her birth—”

Here the Bishop’s emotion choked him so that he could not proceed.

Spencer, laying his hand on his shoulder, replied:

“No, Bishop Langley, your contrition is the only atonement you can make for that, and Hagar’s nobility of character leaves no room to doubt that, to whatever extent you wronged her mother, she, at least, was true.”

“Yes, I alone am guilty, and must sometime bear the punishment for all the chain of evils that has resulted from my act.”

He dwelt upon the moral aspects of his history, but made no attempt to excuse himself except on the ground of ignorance, and even retreated from that by admitting that his conscience warned him. Reverting then to his Mormon experience, he continued:—

“I curse the day I went into polygamy even more than the day I pretended to accept Joe Smith as a prophet. To be entirely frank with you, I have regarded the whole thing as a fraud from the first. I was wild, self- willed, ignorant, and nothing less extravagantly grotesque than Parley P., as I met him in Ohio, or the Saints as I found them in Nauvoo, could have satisfied my notions at that time. I held nothing sacred, and regarded polygamy as a huge joke like many others who secretly accepted it at Nauvoo. It may prosper so long as we are isolated as at present, but cannot stand contact with the world. Utah will never be admitted to the Union until this practice is abandoned, and a majority of the population will soon prefer the solid advantages of statehood to this sickening privilege, which is practically the only inducement the Church now has to offer.”

“I sincerely hope your prediction will be fulfilled. But a state with Brigham Young as its chief magistrate would be, if possible, one step worse than the present regime. As matters stand the non-polygamous majority which might, and probably does, at heart, prefer statehood to the privilege of plural marriage, is placed at a disadvantage.”

“That is true,” replied Langley. “Those of the majority are cowed by the polygamous minority; and every time Brigham threatens them for failing to fulfil their obligations to the church, they hurry into polygamy as if afraid the lightning might strike them if they disobeyed. The European peasant element, which is necessarily ignorant and oblivious of American customs and ideas, is led or driven at will; and (luckily, perhaps), like the crowd everywhere, they ‘lack gall to make oppression bitter.’ Being under momentary obligations to the church fund for emigration or other favors, they shut their eyes to the injustice and tyranny of the priesthood, knowing that their present interests are best subserved by their silent obedience. Hypocrisy walks with bold and shameless front in high places. In my recent speculations one of my thoughts has been to raise a party for statehood and monogamy. In a covert way I hinted my plan to several of my intimates whom I know to be mere time-servers, taking care to egg them on without disclosing my secret. They could criticise in a whisper, oh! yes, and say plainly enough in the dark what they thought of this and that, and how they disapproved thus and so. But their eagerness for pickings outweighs their convictions. They prefer present ease and safety at the cost of self-respect, to an honest manhood at the expense of court favor. I shall, therefore, secede alone, and set my house to rights in my own way. I will provide honestly for my wives and children, but will no longer live in open defiance of my country’s laws to keep the favor of a despotic priesthood.”

This announcement was wholly unexpected, and for a moment Spencer gazed at the Bishop with mute surprise.

“This is a sudden resolution—one that you have formed since——”

“Since Hagar came! Ah! God knows I am penitent, and that I humbly pray for forgiveness! I told my daughter she was an angel sent to save me, though I could not then see in what lay my salvation. Polygamy has wrought nothing but misery. ‘The abomination of desolation,’ even King Solomon the wise was ruined by it. Its effect is to pamper the baseness of man’s nature, and at last damn him like any other great sin. It has chained me body and soul. But, as I was among the first to give my support to the error, I should not now complain if I reap a large share of the punishment. The sweet face of my wronged child is the mirror in which I see what a villain I have been.”

Edwin Langley’s remorse was genuine, and before the stage which bore the young couple over the plains had reached the Missouri river, Zion was shaken to its center by his public renunciation.

The night before they started he could not sleep, but paced his room goaded by unhappy reflections, and hatching plans for the future.

Next morning he went early to Ben Halliday’s office and arranged all details for the long and perilous journey. A crowd began to gather in the street hours before the stage was expected to start, and as the day advanced there were so many symptoms of disorder, that Bishop Langley and the young travellers were relieved when it was announced that a squadron of cavalry was coming. Not until then would the Bishop allow Hagar or Spencer to leave the house. There was a tearful scene of leave- taking at the Bishop’s, and while driving to Halliday’s Langley remarked to Hagar that he hoped she would not go away hating him or others she had seen in Zion.

“No, Bishop Langley,” replied Hagar, “I haven’t much capacity for hating; but I shall always think kindly and gratefully of you for your goodness to us. I am sorry for all who suffer, and your religion (I mean polygamy) seems to bring only misery to those who practice it. A state of wretchedness is bad enough when it comes as one of the accidents of life; but it seems to me not only a folly but a crime to make wretchedness the foundation of a system, and to call such a system divine. I pity the sorrowing women and the neglected children, and pray for misguided men not only here but everywhere, for my feeling towards them is that of sympathy rather than hate.”

“Yours is a rare and heavenly soul,” said Langley.

“No, I only strive to give others what I know that I require myself.”

“Then, in your benevolence, will you not sometimes think and pray for me?”

They were nearing the stage station and the loud blast of a bugle warned them that the stage was about to start. There was a weak attempt at cheering by the crowd as the Bishop’s carriage drew up, but at a gesture from Langley the mob gave way and the young people who were the object of so much vulgar curiosity, were enabled to gain their places in the coach. At a second blast from the bugle a portion of the Cavalry formed in the street ahead of the stage, the rest closed up the rear and the procession moved off at a good pace towards Emigration Canon, a narrow gorge leading through the mountains on the eastern side of the valley.

The fatigues and discomforts incident to that lonely and perilous journey through the American Wilderness are not to be equalled now. The old Concord jogged along both night and day, the horses or mules being changed at intervals of from twelve to twenty miles, and the stops and stations were usually brief. With few exceptions the stations consisted of a solitary stockade built of logs in the mountains, and of mud on the plains, and there were not more than half a dozen places between the Mormon Capital and the Missouri river where anything approaching a wholesome meal was to be obtained. For the most part, bacon, corn dodgers and coffee were the staple diet. But it takes an Argonaut of those good old days to appreciate the luxurious palace cars and the sumptuous refreshment stations which have long since superseded the swaying Concord, and the grizzly stockade.

In the course of those monotonous stretches over plains that were like the sea, and along mountain roads where the sensations of the traveller alternated between uphill and downhill weariness, Hagar first learned how delicate, thoughtful and kind Charles Spencer really was. She bore the hardships of the pilgrimage with becoming fortitude, and put the other passengers (all of whom were men,) on their metal by her unfailing good nature. It was undoubtedly due to this spirit of contentment that she reached her destination in such excellent condition after a task which severely tested the endurance of strong men.

One fine day in July the old coach was ferried over the broad Missouri, and drove up to the little town of Council Bluffs. The first news the passengers heard was that Vicksburg had been captured by General Grant, and that General Lee had been repulsed at Gettysburg; and as Hagar stepped out of the stage she found herself in the arms of a Union officer. It was James Taine.

Colonel Taine had become so familiar with Western life and character in his youth that he was not at all surprised to hear that all the passengers had vied with each other in the gallant deference of their demeanor towards Hagar. He had secured the best available accommodations at the hotel for her, and was so bright and lively that she soon forgot the chain of sad memories that was awakened by this unexpected meeting. Spencer grasped his hand warmly and said:—

“I ask you now for what I once refused you. The wall of icy bigotry which then held my heart has been melted away.”

“We shall be friends—nay, brothers, till death.”

James was determined that no reference to Hagar’s misfortune should be made if he could prevent it.

“So, like a true missionary,” he said to Hagar when they reached their apartments at the hotel, “you return bearing your sheaf with you?”

His good nature was contagious.

“I am not her only convert,” said Spencer. “She counts a Bishop and I do not know how many lesser magnates of the priesthood to whom she brought a light before unknown to them.”

“Well, I am delighted. Before your first telegram came in reply to my letter I was so depressed about Hagar’s fate that my wounds would not heal, and I was in danger of fatal consequences. From that day I began to mend, and this meeting has effected a complete cure. If it were not for my game arm I should not know I had been hit, and would feel called upon to hug you both.”

His left arm was still carried in a sling, a portion of the bone above the elbow having been removed.

During the evening plans were discussed, and Colonel Taine would not listen to anything which did not begin with a visit to Chestnut Grove.

“The place is desolate and wants cheering up. It is Hagar’s home, and will be always whether she is married or single.”

Spencer had serious scruples against anything which seemed like dependence, and would only consent to a temporary visit to the Colonel on the condition that he and his wife were to be left to their own resources as soon as the marriage ceremony was performed.

With this understanding they took the train for Cleveland.