The Lions of the Lord: A Tale of the Old West Page 5

  CHAPTER III.

  _The Lute of the Holy Ghost Breaks His Fast_

  In his cautious approach to the Daggin house, he came upon herunawares--a slight, slender, shapely thing of pink and golden flame, asshe poised where the sun came full upon her. One hand clutched herflowing blue skirts snugly about her ankles; the other opened coaxinglyto a kitten crouched to spring on the limb of an apple-tree above her.The head was thrown back, the vivid lips were parted, and he heard herlaugh low to herself. Near by was a towering rose-bush, from which shehad broken the last red rose, large, full, and lush, its petals alreadyloosened. Now she wrenched away a handful of these, and flung themupward at the watchful kitten. The scarlet flecks drifted back aroundher and upon her. Like little red butterflies hovering in goldensunlight, they lodged in her many-braided yellow hair, or fluttered downthe long curls that hung in front of her ears. She laughed again underthe caressing shower. Then she tore away the remaining petals and tossedthem up with an elf-like daintiness, not at the crouched and expectantkitten this time, but so that the whole red rain floated tenderly downupon her upturned face and into the folds of the white kerchief crossedupon her breast. She waited for the last feathery petal. Her hiddenlover saw it lodge in the little hollow at the base of her bare, curvedthroat. He could hold no longer.

  Stepping from the covert that had shielded him, he called softly to her.

  "Prudence--Prue!"

  She had reached again for the kitten, but at the sound of his low,vigorous note, she turned quickly toward him, colouring with a glow thatspread from the corner of the crossed kerchief up to the yellow hairabove her brow. She answered with quick breaths.

  "Joel--Joel--Joel!"

  She laughed aloud, clapping her small hands, and he ran to her--overbeds of marigolds, heartsease, and lady's-slippers, through a row ofdrowsy-looking, heavy-headed dahlias, and past other withering flowers,all but choked out by the rank garden growths of late summer. Then hisarms opened and seemed to swallow the leaping little figure, though hiskisses fell with hardly more weight upon the yielded face than had therose-petals a moment since, so tenderly mindful was his ardour. Shesubmitted, a little as the pampered kitten had before submitted to herown pettings.

  "You dear old sobersides, you--how gaunt and careworn you look, and howhungry, and what wild eyes you have to frighten one with! At first Ithought you were a crazy man."

  He held her face up to his eager eyes, having no words to say, overcomeby the joy that surged through him like a mighty rush of waters. In themoment's glorious certainty he rested until she stirred nervously underhis devouring look, and spoke.

  "Come, kiss me now and let me go."

  He kissed her eyes so that she shut them; then he kissed herlips--long--letting her go at last, grudgingly, fearfully, unsatisfied.

  "You scare me when you look that way. You mustn't be so fierce."

  "I told him he didn't know you."

  "Who didn't know me, sir?"

  "A man who said I wasn't sure of you."

  "So you _are_ sure of me, are you, Mr. Preacherman? Is it because we'vebeen sweethearts since so long? But remember you've been much away. I'veseen you--let me count--but one little time of two weeks in three years.You _would_ go on that horrid mission."

  "Is not religion made up of obedience, let life or death come?"

  "Is there no room for loving one's sweetheart in it?"

  "One must obey, and I am a better man for having denied myself and gone.I can love you better. I have been taught to think of others. I was sentto open up the gospel in the Eastern States because I had been endowedwith almost the open vision. It was my call to help in the setting up ofthe Messiah's latter-day kingdom. Besides, we may never question thecommands of the holy priesthood, even if our wicked hearts rebel insecret."

  "If you had questioned the right person sharply enough, you might havehad an answer as to why you were sent."

  "What do you mean? How could I have questioned? How could I haverebelled against the stepping-stone of my exaltation?"

  His face relaxed a little, and he concluded almost quizzically:

  "Was not Satan hurled from high heaven for resisting authority?"

  She pouted, caught him by the lapels of his coat and prettily tried toshake him.

  "There--horrid!--you're preaching again. Please remember you're not onmission now. Indeed, sir, you were called back for being too--too--why,do you know, even old Elder Munsel, 'Fire-brand Munsel,' they call him,said you were too fanatical."

  His face grew serious.

  "I'm glad to be called back to you, at any rate,--and yet, think of allthose poor benighted infidels who believe there are no longerrevelations nor prophecies nor gifts nor healings nor speaking withtongues,--this miserable generation so blind in these last days when thetime of God's wrath is at hand. Oh, I burn in my heart for them, nightafter night, suffering for the tortures that must come uponthem--thrice direful because they have rejected the message of Moroniand trampled upon the priesthood of high heaven, butchering the Saintsof the Most High, and hunting the prophets of God like Ahab of old."

  "Oh, dear, please stop it! You sound like swearing!" Her two hands wereclosing her ears in a pretty pretense.

  He seemed hardly to hear her, but went on excitedly:

  "Yet I have done what man could do. I am never done doing. I wouldgladly give my body to be burned a thousand times if it would avail tosave them into the Kingdom. I have preached the word tirelessly--fanatically, they say--but only as it burned in my bones. I have toldthem of visions, dreams, revelations, miracles, and all the mercies ofthis last dispensation. And I have prayed and fasted. Just now comingfrom winter quarters, when I could not preach, I held twelve fasts andtwelve vigils. You will say it has weakened me, but it has weakened onlythe bonds that the flesh puts upon the spirit. Even so, I fell short ofmy vision--my tabernacle of flesh must have been too much profaned,though how I cannot dream--believe me, I have kept myself as high andclean as I knew. Yet there was promise. For only last night at the riverbank, the spirit came partially upon me. I was taken with a faintness,and I heard above my head a sound like the rustling of silken robes,and the spirit of God hovered over me, so that I could feel itsradiance. All in good time, then, it shall dwell within me, so that Imay know a way to save the worthy."

  He grasped her wrist and bent eagerly forward, with the same wild lookin his eyes that had before disquieted her.

  "Mark what I say now--I shall do great works for this generation; I amstrangely favoured of God; I have felt the spirit quicken wondrouslywithin me, and I know the Lord works not in vain; what great wonder ofgrace I shall do, what miracle of salvation, I know not, but remember,it shall be transcendent; tell it to no one, but I know in my innersecret heart it shall be a greater work than man hath yet done."

  He stopped and drew himself up, shaking his head, as if to shrug off thespell of his own feeling.

  "Now, now! stop it at once, and come to the house. I've been tendingyour father and mother, and I'm going to tend you. What you needdirectly is food. Your look may be holy, but I prefer full cheeks. Notanother word until you have eaten every crumb I put before you."

  With an air of captor, daintily fierce, she led him toward the house andup to the door, which she pushed open before him.

  "Come softly, your mother may be still asleep--no, your father istalking--listen!"

  A querulous voice, rough with strong feeling, came from the inner room.

  "Here, I tell you, is the prophecy of Joseph to prove it, away back in1832: 'Verily thus saith the Lord concerning the wars that will shortlycome to pass, beginning at the rebellion of South Carolina, which willterminate in the death and misery of many souls. The days will come thatwar will be poured out upon all nations, beginning at that place; forbehold, the Southern States shall be divided against the NorthernStates, and the Southern States will call on other nations, even thenation of Great Britain, as it is called.' Now will you doubt again,mother? For persecuting the Saints of the
most high God, this republicshall be dashed to pieces like a potter's vessel. But we shall be safe.The Lord will gather Israel home to the chambers of the mountainsagainst the day of wrath that is coming on the Gentile world. For allflesh hath corrupted itself on the face of the earth, but the Saintsshall possess a purified land, upon which there shall be no curse whenthe Lord cometh. Then shall the heavens open--"

  He broke off, for the girl came leading in the son, who, as soon as hesaw the white-haired old man with his open book, sitting beside thewasted woman on the bed, flew to them with a glad cry.

  They embraced him and smoothed and patted him, tremulously, feebly, withbroken thanks for his safe return. The mother at last fell back upon herpillow, her eyes shining with the joy of a great relief, while thefather was seized with a fit of coughing that cruelly racked his gauntframe and left him weak but smiling.

  The girl had been placing food upon the table.

  "Come, Joel," she urged, "you must eat--we have all breakfasted, so youmust sit alone, but we shall watch you."

  She pushed him into the chair and filled his plate, in spite of hisprotests.

  "Not another word until you have eaten it all."

  "The very sight of it is enough. I am not hungry."

  But she coaxed and commanded, with her hands upon his shoulders, and helet himself be persuaded to taste the bread and meat. After a fewmouthfuls, taken with obvious disrelish, she detected the awakeningfervour of a famished man, and knew she would have to urge no more.

  As the son ate, the girl busied herself at the mother's pillow, whilethe father talked and ruminated by intervals,--a text, a word of cheerto the wasted mother, incidents of old days, memories of early revivals.In 1828, he had hailed Dylkes, the "Leatherwood God," as the realMessiah. Then he had been successively a Freewill Baptist, aWinebrennerian, a Universalist, a Disciple, and finally an eloquent andmoving preacher in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Nowhe was a wild-eyed old dreamer with a high, narrow forehead depressed atthe temples, enfeebled, living much in the past. Once his voice would below, as if he spoke only to himself; again it would rise in warning toan evil generation.

  "The end of the world is at hand, laddie," he began, after lookingfondly at his son for a time. "Joseph said there are those now livingwho shall not taste of death till Jesus comes. And then, oh, then--thegreat white day! There is strong delusion among the wicked in the day inwhich we live, but the seed of Abraham, the royal seed, the blessed seedof the Lord, shall be told off to its separate glory. The Lord willspread the curtains of Zion and gather it out to the fat valleys ofEphraim, and there, with resurrected bodies it shall possess thepurified earth. I shall be away for a time before then, laddie--and thedear mother here. Our crowns have been earned and will not long bewithheld. But you will be there for the glory of it, and who moredeserves it?"

  "I pray to be made worthy of the exaltation, Father."

  "You are, laddie. The word and the light came to me when I preachedanother faith--for the spirit of Thomas Campbell had aforetime movedme--but you, laddie, you have been bred in the word and the truth. TheLord, as a mark of his favour, has kept you from the contamination ofdoubters, infidels, heretics, and apostates. You have been educatedunder the care of the priesthood, close here in Nauvoo the Beautiful,and who could more deserve the fulness of thrones, dominions, and ofpower--who of all those whose number the after-time shall unfold?"

  He turned appealingly to the mother, whose fevered eyes rested fondlyupon her boy as she nodded confirmation of the words.

  "Did he not march all the way from Kirtland to Missouri with us in'34--the youngest soldier in the whole army of Zion? How old,laddie?--twelve, was it?--so he marched a hundred miles for every one ofhis little years--and so valiant--none more so--begging us to hasten andgive battle so he could fight upon the Lord's side. Twelve hundred mileshe walked to put back in their homes the persecuted Saints of JacksonCounty. But, ah! There he saw liberty strangled in her sanctuary. Do youmind, laddie, how in '38 we were driven by the mob from Jackson acrossthe river into Clay County? how they ran off our cattle, stole ourgrain? how your poor old mother's mother died from exposure that nightin the rain and sleet? how we lived on mast and corn, the winter, intents and a few dugouts and rickety huts--we who had the keys of St.Peter and the gifts of the apostolic age? Do you mind the sackings andburnings at Adam-Ondi-Ahman? Do you mind the wife of Joseph's brother,Don Carlos, she that was made by the soldiers to wade Grand River withtwo helpless babes in her arms? They would not even let her warmherself, before she started, at the flames of her own hut they hadfired. And, laddie, you mind Haun's mill. Ah, the bloody day!--you werethere, and one other, the sister, happy, beautiful as her in the Song ofSongs, when the brutes came--"

  "Don't, father--stop there--you are making my throat shut against thefood."

  "Then you came to Far West in time to see Joseph and his brethren soldto the mobocrats by that devil's traitor, Hinkle,--you saw the fleeingSaints forced to leave their all, hunted out of Missouri intoIllinois--their houses burned, the cattle stolen, their wives anddaughters--"

  "Don't, father! Be quiet again. You and mother must be fit for ourjourney, as fit as we younger folk."

  He glanced fondly across the table, where the girl had leaned her chinin her hands to watch him, speculatively. She avoided his eyes.

  "Yes, yes," assented the old man, "and you know of our persecutionshere--how we had to finish the temple with our arms by our sides, evenas the faithful finished the walls of Jerusalem--and how we were drivenout by night--"

  "Quiet, father!"

  "Yes, yes. Ah, this gathering out! How far shall we go, laddie?"

  "Four hundred miles to winter quarters. From there no one yet knows,--athousand, maybe two thousand."

  "Aye, to the Rockies or beyond, even to the Pacific. Joseph prophesiedit--where we shall be left in peace until the great day."

  The young man glanced quickly up.

  "Or have time to grow mighty, if we should not be let alone. Surely thisis the last time the Lord would have us meek under the mob."

  "Ho, ho! As you were twelve years ago, trudging by my side, valiant tofight if the Lord but wills it! But have no fear, boy. This time we gofar beyond all that may tempt the spoiler. We go into the desert, whereno humans are but the wretched red Lamanites; no beasts but the wildones of four feet to hunger for our flesh; no verdure, no nourishment tosustain us save the manna from on high,--a region of unknown perils andunnamed deserts. Truly we make the supreme test. I do not overcolour it.Prudence, hand me yonder scrap-book, there on the secretary. Here Ishall read you the words of no less a one than Senator Daniel Webster onthe floor of the Senate but a few months agone. He spoke on the proposalto fix a mail-route from Missouri to the mouth of the Columbia River inthat far-off land. Hear this great man who knows whereof he speaks. Heis very bitter. 'What do we want with this vast, worthless area--thisregion of savages and wild beasts, of deserts, of shifting sands andwhirlwinds of dust, of cactus and prairie-dogs? To what use could weever hope to put these great deserts or those endless mountain ranges,impenetrable and covered to their very base with eternal snows? What canwe ever hope to do with that Western coast, a coast of three thousandmiles, rock-bound, cheerless, uninviting, and not a harbour on it. Mr.President, I will never vote one cent from the public treasury to placethe Pacific Coast one inch nearer to Boston than it now is!'"

  The girl had been making little impatient flights about the room, as ifawaiting an opportunity to interrupt the old man's harangue, but even asshe paused to speak, he began again:

  "There, laddie, do you hear him?--arid deserts, shifting sand, snow andice, wild beasts and wilder men--that is where Israel of the last daysshall be hidden to wait for the second coming of God's Christ. There,having received our washings and anointings in the temple of God onearth, we shall wait unmolested, and spread the curtains of Zion in duecircumspection. And what a migration to be recorded in another sacredhistory ages hence! Surely the blood of
our martyred Prophet hath notsmoked to heaven in vain. Where is there a parallel to this hegira? Theyfrom Egypt went from a heathen land, a land of idolatry, to a fertilehome chosen for them by the Lord. But we go from a fair, smiling land ofplenty and pretended Christianity into the burning desert. They havedriven us to the edge; now they drive us in. But God works his way amongthe peoples of earth, and we are strong. Who knows but that we shall inour march throw up a highway of holiness to the rising generation? Solet us round up our backs to the burden!"

  "Amen!" replied the young man fervently, as he rose from the table.

  "And now we must be about our preparations for the journey. The time isshort--who is that?"

  He sprang to the door. Outside, quick steps were heard approaching. Thegirl, who had risen in some confusion, stood blushing and embarrassedbefore him. The mother rose feebly on her elbow to reassure him.

  "'Tis Captain Girnway, laddie. Have no alarm--he has befriended us. Butfor him we should have been put out two days ago, without shelter andwithout care. He let us be housed here until you should come."

  There was a knock at the door, but Joel stood with his back to it. Thewords of Seth Wright were running roughshod through his mind. He lookedsharply at Prudence.

  "A mobocrat--our enemy--and you have taken favours from him--a minion ofthe devil?--shame!"

  The girl looked up.

  "He was kind; you don't realise that he has probably saved their lives.Indeed, you must let him in and thank him."

  "Not I!"

  The mother interposed hurriedly.

  "Yes, yes, laddie! You know not how high-handed they have been. Theyexpelled all but us, and some they have maltreated shamefully. This onehas been kind to us. Open the door."

  "I dare not face him--I may not contain myself!"

  The knock was repeated more loudly. The girl went up to him and put herhands on his shoulders to draw him away.

  "Be reasonable," she pleaded, in low tones, "and above all, be polite tohim."

  She put him gently aside and drew back the door. On the threshold smiledthe young captain he had watched from the window that morning, marchingat the head of his company. His cap was doffed, and his left hand restedeasily on the hilt of his sword. He stepped inside as one sure of hiswelcome.

  "Good morning, Miss Prudence, good morning, Mr. Rae, good morning,madam--good morning--"

  He looked questioningly at the stranger. Prudence stepped forward.

  "This is Joel Rae, Captain Girnway."

  They bowed, somewhat stiffly. Each was dark. Each had a face to attractwomen. But the captain was at peace with the world, neatly uniformed,well-fed, clean-shaven, smiling, pleasant to look upon, while the otherwas unshaven, hollow-cheeked, gaunt, roughly dressed, a thing that hadbeen hunted and was now under ban. Each was at once sensible of thecontrast between them, and each was at once affected by it: the captainto a greater jauntiness, a more effusive affability; the other to astonier sternness.

  "I am glad to know you have come, Mr. Rae. Your people have worried alittle, owing to the unfortunate circumstances in which they have beenplaced."

  "I--I am obliged to you, sir, in their behalf, for your kindness to myfather and mother and to Miss Corson here."

  "You are a thousand times welcome, sir. Can you tell me when you willwish to cross the river?"

  "At the very earliest moment that God and the mob will let us. To-morrowmorning, I hope."

  "This has not been agreeable to me, believe me--"

  "Far less so to us, you may be sure; but we shall be content again whenwe can get away from all your whiggery, democratism, devilism, mobism!"

  He spoke with rising tones, and the other flushed noticeably about thetemples.

  "Have your wagons ready to-morrow morning, then, Mr. Rae--at eight? Verywell, I shall see that you are protected to the ferry. There has been somuch of that tone of talk, sir, that some of our men have resented it."

  He turned pleasantly to Prudence.

  "And you, Miss Prudence, you will be leaving Nauvoo for Springfield, Isuppose. As you go by Carthage, I shall wish to escort you that farmyself, to make sure of your safety."

  The lover turned fiercely, seizing the girl's wrist and drawing hertoward him before she could answer.

  "Her goal is Zion, not Babylon, sir--remember _that_!"

  She stepped hastily between them.

  "We will talk of that to-morrow, Captain," she said, quickly, and added,"You may leave us now for we have much to do here in making ready forthe start."

  "Until to-morrow morning, then, at eight."

  He bowed low over the hand she gave him, gracefully saluted the others,and was gone.

  "HER GOAL IS ZION, NOT BABYLON, SIR--REMEMBER _THAT_!"]