Chapter 38

Two years after that, Ephraim, returning one day from the field, brought with him a poor wayfarer whom he had met upon the road.

The stranger was of middle age, with hair already gray and face deeply furrowed. In ragged garments, resting his bandaged feet, he sat propped in the sitting-room. The warm air blowing from rich harvest fields came in at open door and windows. Attentive before him, Ephraim and Susannah sat.

"You are one of the Latter-Day Saints?" Susannah asked.

"I am, ma'am, and it's real strange to hear you say them words, for it's 'Mormons' the Gentiles calls us."

Then to her questioning he told the story of the downfall of Nauvoo.

"There was two causes for the persecution; we had got too powerful and too great for the folks in Illinois, just as we had done in Missouri; but there was another thing, and that was that wickedness crept in amongst us. 'Twasn't as bad as was reported, though, but 'twas there--I'm afraid 'twas there."

The man sighed.

"It's twelve years now since I joined the Saints in Missouri and when we were driven out there I went with them to Illinois; and I can never believe other but that the Latter-Day Saints has the truth, for the power of it is always to be seen among them; and now that I've lost everything a second time, and know that I have a sickness that I'll never get the better of, I have come east to see my folks once more and to testify to them of the truth."

He was going on into Vermont, passing by that way that he might refresh his eyes with a view of the sacred hill, and had only remained at Ephraim's request to relate his tidings to Susannah.

"After coming out of Missouri I never lived at Nauvoo. I had a farm midways, between Nauvoo and Quincy. As near as I can make out, the scandal they've got agen us, which they've always had agen us because of the wickedness of the Gentile mind, began to have some truth in it when Rigdon came out with his teaching concerning the nonsense of spiritual wives, which wasn't new with him, for I hear that it's held among all the folks as call themselves 'Perfectionists.' Well, our prophet made pretty quick work of that doctrine, and he rebuked Rigdon in public and private, and packed him out of the place, and no one can say that our prophet has ever done otherwise with any one as has had notions about marriage."

Susannah sighed. "I have heard that he has acted the same way in several other instances."

"You have, ma'am? Well, it's strange, too, to hear a Gentile say a good word for our prophet, but perhaps, as he came from here, ma'am, you may be some relation of his; and I ask you, is it likely, as he's always acted so severe in that matter, that he should have taught a false doctrine himself? But even some of the Saints do say nowadays that he was led away by some strange doctrines before he died; but, for my own part, I believe that the tales have arisen from the sinful natures of many of the men that he trusted; for he was too trustful, and there's apostles and bishops and elders amongst us that are servants of hell. There's been evil work since our prophet's martyrdom, for there's thousands of our people now deluded by them and going out after Mr. Brigham Young and his crew.

"You want to know how the prophet's death came about, and I can tell you; for when my disease came on, and the doctor told me 'twas fatal, I started to go up to Nauvoo to ask the prophet to lay his hands upon me and heal me. But when I got there the city was all in a buzz, for the cause that some of the elders had got out a paper accusing the prophet of having a lot of ladies for wives. Well now, I can tell you how that came about. When our prophet first got the charter for the Nauvoo Legion there was a man called Bennet, who had been general in the American army, and who was steeped in unbelief and ambition, and who came and offered his services to the prophet, and was allowed to build up the Nauvoo Legion. He was a most sinful man, and the prophet, he knew his sinfulness, but thought that he ought to take any help to build up an army to preserve his people from the fearful persecutions. Bennet got hold of the worst side of the worst men we had in the Church, among which was the new usurper." He paused here with ire in his eye. "I would be understood to mean Mr. Brigham Young, who has falsely usurped the prophet's place; but there are many of us who will not follow him, no, not one step. The Lord will requite him and his confederates, and will establish his true servants."

"I fear, my good friend," said Ephraim, "that although it is true that the Lord will establish his true servants, it is also true that their kingdom is not of this world."

"Well, sir, tramping along as I've done many a day, with no companion but the disease that's prevailing against me, I've thought that that may be true; but, whichever way it is, Bennet set himself to work iniquity, and they say that when the prophet could endure him no longer and gave him the sack, he had the vileness to dress himself up in the prophet's clothes and go about in disguise, talking Sydney Rigdon's rank spiritual-wife doctrine to the ladies and some of them were such fools that they thought it was the prophet, and that he disguised his voice and kept something over his face in order to work the iniquity in secret. That's what a gentleman who knew very well about it told me. But anyway, when Bennet was gone out he wrote awful things to the Gentile newspapers concerning the domestic iniquities of Nauvoo; and he had his own party in the sacred city, and they up and put their scandals in the public print in the prophet's own city.

"But the prophet he rose up and shook himself, like Samson when his arms were tied with the withes, and he denounced the wickedness, and went to the house where the paper was published, and kicked the printing press down himself, and burned the paper. And that day he preached most powerful in the Nauvoo Temple."

"We heard that it was on account of the illegality of his action in the printing office that the people of Illinois arrested him."

The stranger did not answer directly. His mind had passed on to scenes which had stirred him more personally.

"I was in the city all the time. The Government of Illinois sent to arrest Mr. Smith, but his people rallied round him, and said that in consequence of the lawless persecutions that had passed in Missouri they had a right to mistrust the justice of the State. They called out the Nauvoo Legion, and sent back the constables that had come from Carthage. That made the Gentiles terribly angry. The Illinois militiamen went about saying openly that they would burn down the town and kill every man, woman, and child in it. So then Governor Ford himself advised our prophet to keep the Legion under arms, for he said the Gentiles were so furious; but he asked the prophet to go to Carthage and pledge himself to appear for the trial when it came on, for it was a civil suit, and no harm could come to him and his. Governor Ford pledged his honour as the Governor of the State.

"I had been waiting about the town until the prophet should be less bothered before asking him to heal my sickness, but when I heard that he was going away, then I misdoubted that it would be long before he came back. I thought I'd make a push for it, so I went and hung round the door of the prophet's house. I was only a poor man and I did not like to go in, for the bishops and elders and all the grand folks were going in and out all that day. I heard the things they said, and most of them were saying that the prophet had had a vision, and that if he went to Carthage he would never come back alive. They said too that if he stayed, the town would be sacked, and I understood that they were asking him to run away. Towards evening I saw a buggy draw up at the back door of the hotel, and all the elders seemed to be holding a meeting, for they were singing hymns; so then it just come to me that they were going to get the prophet off, and I ran down the road to the ferry, for I knew he would have to go that way. I waited in the boat, and the same buggy came down to it, and a man with a cloak on and his hat over his eyes came out and sat in the corner of the boat, and we all knew that it was the prophet, and none of us durst speak to him. But I went over in the boat, for I hoped I'd get up courage to ask him when we came to the other side. When he stood on the shore he seemed like a man that didn't know what to do, although there was horses there for him to take, and he turned round and went off the road up on to a little hill; and I went after him a bit of the way behind, and I came and found him just standing looking at the city, for the river swept round two sides of it so noble like, and blue as the sky above, and the city stood all white, and the temple stood high in the middle, and all of it glistened in the sun. The prophet had taken off his hat, and he stood with his hands folded on the stick he carried, and he just looked and looked at the city. I had never seen a man look like that but once before, and then it was a man I knew whose wife died, and he looked at her face just steadfast like that. I couldn't think to speak to him about myself just then, although I'd got him alone, for my heart was just broke to see how sad he looked, and him just in the prime of life; for it was his own city, and the sound of all its work came over to us as we stood there, and the thousands and thousands of happy homes in it belonged to his own people.

"But when I moved a bit he saw me, and he started at first as if I'd been going to shoot him, thinking no doubt that I was an enemy spying on him. At that, because my disease had weakened me, and because I seemed to feel nothing all through me but the grief that he was bearing, I began to cry like a child.

"Then he stretched out his hands towards the city and I heard him say, 'My Lord, thou hast given me this people, and if I leave them without a shepherd they will be stricken and scattered and robbed by the destroyer.'

"So then in a few minutes he held out his hand to me, so gentlemanlike, as if I was as good as him, and he said, 'Come, my friend, let us go back, and let God determine what we shall do or suffer.' So we went and got on the ferry-boat and went back, and I never spoke to him; but I went with him all the way to his house.

"The next morning I heard that he and Mr. Hyrum were going to set off for Carthage to be tried. So I got a horse and went to Carthage before them, for I felt then that I cared for nothing but to see the prophet again. But I heard tell how, as they went along, their wives and their friends went with them part way, and they turned back two or three times as they were parting from them, for the prophet said that they would never see his face again.

"Governor Ford he met them at Carthage with a great to-do. He pledged the honour of the State that they should be safe, and he had the troops drawn upon either side, and he passed down between them with the prophet and Mr. Hyrum and showed them himself into the gaol. The prophet said that it was illegal to put them in the gaol, for it was a civil matter, and Governor Ford said, for I heard him, that it was because they would be safer there. I was standing just behind the line of soldiers jostling up with the crowd, and I heard the Governor say, 'I pledge you my honour, and the faith and honour of this State, that no harm shall come to you while undergoing this imprisonment.' So then they were shut in; but the crowd and the soldiers remained in the streets, and I heard enough to know that harm would come.

"The next morning the Governor went away from Carthage, to be out of it, and that day, in the afternoon, a mob of men with faces painted like Indians came out with guns, and we knew that their purpose was to murder the prophet. I went to the gaol and sat upon the steps, and the militia, which was called the Carthage Greys, came out, and halted, about eight rods from the gaol, and I thought at first that they would fire on the mob when they came, but they never moved, but stood and looked on. So the murder was done by them all in cold blood as well as by the mob."

"Did you see him die?" asked Susannah with white lips.

"If he was a relation of yours, ma'am, I can tell you that he died like a man. First I thought that I would spend what little strength I had left in fighting the mob at the door, and that they should not go in except over my body; but the gaoler opened the door in pretence of finding out what was the matter, for he was in the plot; so I thought that I would run up and give warning. But by the time I got to the door of the upper room where the prophet was, the mob was up behind me, so I never rightly knew what I did, for they knocked me down just within the room. There were four or five men with the prophet and Mr. Hyrum, and these kept the mob back for a few minutes at the door, but a bullet hit Mr. Hyrum in the head, and I saw the prophet leaning over him, and he said in a voice that was very sad, 'My dear, dear brother!'

"Then the prophet stood up quite calmly and pulled out a pistol and shot at the mob until all its barrels were discharged. His firing made the men hold back, for a good number of the mob were struck. Then they came on again until the door was literally full with muskets and rifles, but I was lying on the floor below the shots, so I saw them pass over my head. The very walls were riddled with them, and the prophet stood in the midst of the shots and threw up his hands towards heaven and cried, 'O Lord, my God.' Then, not knowing what he did, he staggered to the window, dying from his wounds, and he fell outside the window, and I heard that the mob out there propped up his body and used it for a target."

Susannah rose up with clenched hands and pitiful face, but she went out of the room, leaving the two men together. "Were you injured?" asked Ephraim of the stranger.

"Well, sir, I was bruised by being trampled on, but the gaoler got hold of me and dragged me into an iron cell and locked me in, and the next morning he came and let me out."

"That was a year ago," said Ephraim. "Have you been in Nauvoo since then?"

"Yes, I went back. I wanted to know, sir, what would come, and take my share of the suffering after seeing the prophet die so courageous; but, sir, the Church is sorely divided. I didn't like to say it before your lady, for I see that she's got some one she cares for amongst us, but there's a strong party among the apostles and elders that are worshippers of Baal, and are most evil in their conduct and practice, and are apostate, though they call themselves followers of the prophet. And Mr. Brigham Young is at the head of them. It's a bad thing that the Illinois militia is set out to fight against us and turn us out of the city without mercy, but it's a sorer thing that the greater part of our people, being ignorant, will follow Mr. Brigham Young; and he's bent on going west, sir, into the heart of the Rocky Mountains, where he can set up a kingdom of his own. His teaching is against good doctrine in two respects; he says that they will wax strong there until they can avenge the blood of their brethren who have been hunted and slain, and that the elders and apostles will live like the patriarchs of old, and have many wives, in order to build up the Church."

"And has the other party in your sect no strength to resist?"

"Very little strength, sir, except that God is on the side of the righteous; but Mrs. Smith, the prophet's widow, with his sons and many hundreds of us, will not give in to the evil, but will stay in Illinois and Missouri in face of the worst that persecution can do, for it was thereabouts that the prophet said that the Holy City should be, and he gave us no word to kill and destroy our fellow-men; and although perhaps he was led away and sinned sometimes as other men do, it is a scandalous lie to say that he thought to teach wickedness and falsehood to his Church."

"I wonder," asked Ephraim within himself, "if that is true, or what strange secret that troubled soul took with him to the other side of death?"

In the evening after the stranger was gone Susannah sat with Ephraim in the old doorway. Before them, mid the harvest fields, winding over hill and dale, lay the long white road which led to the hill of Smith's early visions--the road on which Susannah had set forth with Angel Halsey on her wedding journey.

"You are a-weary, wife, to-night," said Ephraim. He smoothed the hair upon her brow. "You have exhausted yourself with long weeping, and yet--"

He did not say, "Have you reason to bemoan this man's tragic end?" for he knew that more sacred memories had caused the tears; of these some faint jealousy rose in his breast and kindness sealed his lips.

She told him the truth in very simple words such as loving women use.

"To-day I seemed to see" (she laid her hand across her knit brows) "all the passion of it again, the wrong, the right, the misery--from the day that Angel and I went out with such young passionate desire to divide the right from the wrong. I could see Angel and my baby shot before my eyes as Joseph Smith was shot. It is terrible to see death come that way. But they are all three lying now in the perfect peace of death." She put her hand in his. "Then, dear, my mind came back, from the rage and terror of war. I thought of their peace and of you--how God has healed my life by your love, and given me such joy. Is he not able to provide for the healing of the nations?"

THE END.