Lily Dougall - The Mormon Prophet

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About two miles from Geneva, before the daylight was quite gone, they
were both startled by hearing a rushing, crashing sound coming toward
them in the woods. Were their pursuers upon them after all? Had they
chosen this, the most lonely part of their road, to fall upon them?

They did not speak their thoughts to one another. Angel struck the
horse, and it galloped forward perhaps about a hundred yards, and then,
of its own accord, stopped suddenly.

Upon the side of the road, pushing itself backward among the bushes, the
better to gain space for its run, was a bull. Its eyes were bloodshot,
its head lowered for a long moment to measure its distance ere it made
the attack. The horse seemed palsied with terror. It moved backward with
tottering steps, trembling all over, heedless of whip or rein.

The backward movement prolonged the hesitation of the bull, which turned
itself to take another aim. The horse uttered an almost human cry. In
the moment of hearing that cry Susannah felt that she had already gone
through some shocking form of death. Halsey brought down his whip,
striking the horse with all his might; it leaped forward, lifting the
chaise almost into the air; then it was rushing madly on, dragging the
wheels behind it with terrible velocity.

They had caught sight of the rush of the bull. They felt the animal's
heavy side just graze the back of the chaise, and they heard behind them
a bellow of rage that seemed to fill all the solitary place with
diabolical echoes.

The body of the chaise was bounding upon its leather bands, jolting
cruelly against the axle. Susannah cried out that she should be thrown
from her seat. The swift-falling darkness encompassed their path. Their
hope lay in the straightness of the road, and their chief fear was that
by some greater roughness of the way the chaise, which was now swaying
fearfully, might be overturned.

Gradually the sound of the bull's galloping became less distinct. The
chaise was still upright. The horse, beginning to falter in his pace,
took more kindly to the accustomed control of the rein. It was then
Susannah found that she had been clinging to Halsey for support, and
that he, by bracing himself with one arm to the side of the chaise and
holding her with the other, had prevented her from being thrown out.

In gathering her shawl about her she wrapped herself again in a certain
amount of her former reserve, but the excitement that she had been
through made her former silence impossible.

Halsey at first received her remarks in silence, then as he essayed to
answer, his voice grew low and faint, and a sudden suspicion of the
cause pierced through her mind.

In another moment he sank, leaning against her. Putting her hand beneath
his coat, she found to her dismay that the strain of holding her had
opened his wound; his clothes were again wet with blood.

The reins slipped from his hands. Susannah tied them loose to the front
of the chaise and, putting her arms round the fainting man, drew the
bandages tightly but with unskilful hands; she lessened the bleeding and
caused him such acute pain that he lifted his head and spoke.

"What shall I do?" she asked piteously. The blood, diverted from the
brain, had left it without healthy circulation, but she did not know yet
that this was affecting his mind.

"Friend," he whispered, "that was in truth no bull; it was the devil
himself."

"The devil?" she asked faintly.

"He almost succeeded in his cruel attempt to cause us to be discouraged
from the way."

"It seems to me he only succeeded in causing us to take the way with
greater vehemence," she replied in some scorn.

In the next minute she heard him whisper eagerly, "Look up; look between
the branches; quick! Do you not see the face looking at us?"

The branches of the overhanging tree were black with night. She looked
up in the direction that his feeble hand indicated, and with
indescribable terror scanned the blank spaces in which no human face
could possibly be.

"Look!" he whispered again impatiently. "Don't you see it? It is the
face of a man. A white face! It is the face of thy cousin as I saw it
yesterday when I was counted worthy to suffer. Look! look! does thou
not see him?"

His words had the effect of producing in her that maddening fear of the
dark which ghostly tales induce, and now he fainted again. She was
afraid to cry for help, afraid even of the rustle of her own garments.
She did not know how far she was from any house. And it seemed to her
that this lover, who was almost a stranger, was dying in her arms. The
misery of this hour governed her action in the next.

Halsey in the bottom of the chaise lay with his head against her knee,
and soon, holding the bandages of his wound close upon it with one hand,
she took the reins with the other and urged the horse forward. She had
had no thought all that day but to go, as Halsey had said, to Emma
Smith's protection. She hoped now that there was but one road; that when
she came to the first settlement she would be with the Smiths. This was
not the case. She travelled an hour, obliged to pass more than one
cross-road because she dared not turn down it. At length she found
herself in front of a large house with lighted windows, which was
evidently an inn.

The door opened, letting out a stream of candlelight. A man stood in the
doorway. "What place is this?" cried Susannah's voice from the darkness.

"It's John Biery's hotel."

"Will you have the kindness to tell me if you know of any one called
Mr. Joseph Smith?"

There was some talking within. "No, we never heard of Mr. Joseph Smith."

"Or Mr. Oliver Cowdery?" Again there was talking.

"No, it don't seem that we've any of us heard o' those names before. Be
you alone?" The deep bass voice of John Biery was becoming more
insistent in its rising inflection.

For some half-minute Susannah did not answer, and then fear of being
compelled to retake the road made irresolution impossible.

"Indeed, sir, I am not alone. I have in the chaise with me a sick man,
and I fear that he may be dying. I thought to find friends, but it seems
in the darkness I have missed my way. I must beg of you to assist me to
lift him into the house and give us shelter for the night."

The men had remained perfectly still, drinking in her every syllable
with that fierce thirst for news which is a first passion of dwellers in
such desolate places; then, aroused by what they heard, they came
forward across a rough bit of ground to the road. The burly form of John
Biery came first, and he called for a lantern, which was instantly
produced by one of those who followed. They held it up over Angel's
crouching form and death-like face. Then they held it higher and stared
at Susannah. Her shawl had fallen from off her shoulders. The
handkerchief upon her neck was loose, and underneath the pink border of
her bonnet the ringlets had begun to stray. Her resolute face, so young
and beautiful, startled them almost as an apparition might have done.

"I'm dead beat," said the hotel-keeper under his breath, "if I ever seed
anything like that!" But with the ready suspicion of a prudent
householder he questioned her. Where had the man come by the wound? For
they saw the blood-stained bandages she clasped.

Yesterday, she explained, he had received a slight bullet-wound by
accident, and to-day, in their long travel, the loss of blood had
disabled him.

"Does he belong to you, young lady?"

Susannah busied herself with the bandages for a moment, but terror had
carried her far. She replied with gentle decision, "He is my husband."

CHAPTER IX.

"It is our fault."

That evening Ephraim Croom stood in his father's sitting-room, near the
door of the dark stair that led up to his own rooms. His shoulders were
drooping. His face was gray and haggard. Even his hair and beard, damp,
unkempt, seemed to express remorse in their outline. He stood doggedly
facing his father and mother, repeating the thing that he saw to be
true, but with no further words to interpret his insight.

To his parents his opinions, his attitude, appeared as an outrage upon
reason. His father looked at him with greater severity than he had ever
before exercised upon his only child. "I reckon, Ephraim, that you speak
without using the sense that the Almighty has been mercifully pleased to
give you. You know, Ephraim, the girl has been as a daughter in this
house. When has it been said to her that her father, dying in his
worldly follies, left her destitute, the pittance she gets needing to go
for his debts? She's had about as good a home as any girl should want,
and your mother and the ministers have dealt faithfully with her
concerning her soul."

Ephraim made a movement of the head as if for a moment he could have
stood upright, feeling in one respect innocent; then again there was
nothing but the droop of shame visible.

His mother looked at him with eyes that were red with weeping. She had
been wiping them with fierce furtive rubs of her handkerchief; now she
was rubbing the handkerchief, a hard ball, in the palm of one hand.
Perhaps grief at Susannah's loss had been dominant until Ephraim's
accusation had fanned her anger. "She'd better have gone with him openly
from the baptising. I never thought then that it was love-making she was
after." Deep scorn was here expressed. "Religion! 'Twasn't much religion
she had in her mind. And we treated her real kindly, Ephraim, thinking
'twas the hold of delusion they had upon her. 'Twould be very small use
to bring her back even if you or your father could have found out which
way they'd gone. 'Tisn't likely she'd stay long if you fetched her,
seeing she's that sort of a girl, with a hankering for the man. There
isn't a place in this house to lock her into unless it is the cellar."

It was perhaps the thought of the unspeakable degradation it would be to
the worthy house to hold a girl as prisoner in the cellar, perhaps the
dismal knowledge that that which had already befallen them and her was
not much better than this, that caused his mother here to lose her
self-control entirely and weep bitterly. Ephraim shrank under her words
as if they had been the strokes of a whip striking him. When she had
ended he went on heavily up the dark stair.

Both the men were in riding-dress. The elder man, when he had comforted
his wife as best he might, laid aside his boots and whip determinedly,
believing that the use for them, as far as concerned the search for his
niece, was at an end. Upstairs, sitting between the three windows that
looked east and north and south, Ephraim sat as long as exhaustion made
rest necessary. He was still equipped for the road, thinking only which
way it behoved him to travel, and when.

CHAPTER X.

The next day, toward afternoon, Joseph Smith stood by the bedside of
Angel Halsey. Susannah, wan and weary with a long night's nursing, was
sitting beside the pillow. Smith looked upon them both benevolently. It
was some minutes before he spoke. Susannah was too much in awe of him to
say much, but his presence was welcome. Since Halsey's rational self had
been lost in his delirium, loneliness like darkness that could be felt
had pressed upon her.

"Our brother will be healed," said Smith at length. "It is given to me
to know that he will be healed." He then spread his hands over the sick
man and made a short prayer. There was much fervour in his words and his
voice was loud.

"Give him to drink," said Smith.

"Biery's wife told me as long as he was in fever not to give him water."

Smith looked down upon her kindly, but he spoke in a tone of absolute
authority. "My sister, I say unto thee give him water. It is given to me
to know that he must have water and that he will do well."

"It is never done in such cases," said Susannah. "I remember when my
father--" She had not the faith that Smith required of her.

Without a frown, with perfect gentleness, Smith fetched the water and,
lifting the sick man's head, allowed him to drink eagerly. Halsey was
obviously comforted.

Smith had something else to say. If he had not been who he was Susannah
might have perceived that he was somewhat perplexed, even embarrassed.
Just as a child does not easily attribute to the adult such hindering
emotions, so she supposed him to be upon a plane above them.

He lingered by the bedside, apparently watching the sufferer. At length
he said, "You set out with this young man--yesterday morning?"

"Yes, very early."

There was another pause, then he said, "Did you go before a justice of
the peace?"

"A justice of the peace?" Then she added inconsequently, "My uncle is a
justice of the peace." She had never heard of a civil marriage; she did
not know in the least what he meant.

"Or--or a minister?"

She began to understand now.

"I married you myself, sister, and it was sealed in heaven, but I
haven't got a license to marry, so that the Gentiles would say--that the
knot wasn't tied, ye know." The last words were a lapse into common
parlance. She had grown accustomed to the hybrid nature of his
mannerism.

He had expected and feared to see her white face flame into excitement,
but to Susannah it seemed a small thing now what the Gentiles might say.
If the marriage was indeed sealed in heaven, then all was well. And if
it was not, worse could not be. She was too weary now to respond to the
prophet's worldly solicitude for her. Looking at the still unconscious
Halsey, she felt that there was time enough for further action.

Smith said, "Emma would have come, but the child has spasms."

"We meant to go to you," said Susannah. "We lost our way. I only heard
to-day where you were."

After a while he said, "I might stop here with our sick brother and send
you to Emma, but there is a congregation called for to-night. Mr.
Cowdery would have come, but he was at the baptising."

"Did you leave the baptising just to come and see us?" It occurred to
her that from his point of view two stray disciples such as herself and
Halsey could be of little importance compared with his appearance at the
solemn function.

Smith busied himself giving Halsey more water. That done, he went away
without further words. Susannah heard his horse gallop from the door.
She knew that he had travelled some five miles to pay this visit, and
she supposed that he desired to return if possible before the converts
had come up from the water. His visit had undoubtedly brought her
comfort. His response to her message had been prompt and kind. She knew
now that his thoughts and Emma's were busy concerning her. And then,
too, the sick man was better. He had gone quietly to sleep.

The woman of the house brought her for food an unusual delicacy. Smith
had ordered this. Mrs. Biery made some remarks concerning him. She said
that his coat seemed very old, but that he had given her money and bid
her attend diligently upon the sick man and his wife. Susannah, who knew
how little money the Smiths had hitherto possessed, how many things they
must want for themselves, was touched.

As her spirits revived, her faith and hope in the new sect revived also.
She looked among the few possessions Halsey had brought with him for the
precious copy of the Book of Mormon, and sat reading it by Angel's
bedside while the autumn sun was sinking.

Sometimes she heard a traveller stop at the inn door and pass on again.
At dusk there was a sounds of horses coming with speed. To her surprise
Joseph Smith came into the room again. He looked as if he had been
riding hard, but he spoke as quietly as though he had gone only from
that room to the next.

"I have brought a gentleman who can marry you according to the law of
the State." Susannah had gone forward to greet him, but now she looked
suddenly back toward the unconscious man, whose form was almost
indistinguishable in the dusk.

Smith brought candles and set them at the foot of the bed. He took
Halsey by the hand and lifted him to a sitting posture, telling him in
clear strong tones what was required of him. Halsey understood. He
became completely conscious under Smith's influence, and for the hour
almost strong. He would know where he was and how he came there, who the
minister was that had come. He even required that this stranger should
show his license to marry.

The minister was a common-looking man, small, shaggy as to the beard,
business-like. He knew nothing of Joseph Smith's prophetical claims, and
cared only to know that Susannah was over eighteen years of age.
Marriage was a thing easily accomplished in that day and region. A few
minutes more and Susannah was a wife.

In after years, when she used to think of Angel Halsey as having gone
before her into the unseen, Susannah held the belief that the part of
him which she would meet there would be that which shone out in the rare
half-playful smiles he gave, in the glance which, at the moment of
smiling, he bent on her. He was a very grave man, shrewd, in many ways,
in others as simple as a child, but above all greatly religious. His
religion, however deep might be its root, was also always upon the
surface. Only now and then, when, as at their first meeting, he
recognised in his serious way that something else was required if he
would truly hold communion with Susannah, the smile would come as from
some inward part of his spirit, like a dawning light slowly breaking
through the surface, soon withdrawn again by the power of custom. When
he thus smiled, Susannah in those days trusted him absolutely, avowed
herself entirely to his service, and felt within her heart a large
measure of affection.

Halsey's was the first case of illness in the newly-formed sect that
called itself already "_The_ Church of Christ." Joseph Smith and Cowdery
and a man named Whitmer, with whom the Smiths were now housed, having
consulted upon it, decided that they must begin at once to carry out the
commands of Scripture. They came together, therefore, and anointed
Halsey with oil, laying their hands upon him and praying fervently.
Halsey, believing himself to be healed, got up from his sick-bed, and
his recovery progressed rapidly.

Full of excitement, fervour, superstition, and faith, the apostles of
the new doctrine were fully persuaded that they might expect a literal
fulfilment of the promise that signs and wonders should follow them that
believe. The fierce opposition and hatred which were roused by the
reports of their doings are easily accounted for when we consider that
their opinions had to encounter that curious distortion of reason which
has caused religious warfare in all times and places to become the worst
sort of warfare, and the fact which Smith himself had acknowledged when
he first saw Susannah, that many evil reports about him had formerly
been true; then also the new sect produced vehement psychical
disturbance wherever it touched the surrounding population, and many
things occurred which might, or might not, be termed miracles, according
to the interpretation of the observer. It was no longer possible for
Joseph Smith to ride, as he had done on the day of Susannah's marriage,
with a minister of one of the older sects. He became very notorious, and
to every one except those who were interested enough in his doctrine to
give him a fair hearing, his name became a synonym for all evil.

Halsey remained with Susannah at John Biery's hotel. Halsey was one of
the few converts who could afford to live in comparative comfort and to
pay something for the entertainment of destitute disciples. For that
reason the landlord, John Biery, held himself from the religious quarrel
that was shaking the region.

Even before Halsey had regained his strength he drove Susannah to swell
the congregation at the preachings which were daily taking place in
different places within the township, for such converts as had already
professed themselves were gathered now in the neighbourhood of Fayette.

Experiences came to Susannah in such quick succession that this was not
a time of reflection. Such part of her husband's religion as she could
appropriate she endeavoured very sincerely to embrace. After the manner
of the thought, of the time she supposed that the sect was either right
or wrong--if right, all right; if wrong, all wrong. Sometimes the
ghastly fear that her growing belief was false would arise with hideous
menace.

CHAPTER XI.

All the doings of the infant sect were directed by those utterances of
Joseph Smith which he held to be revelations. These were confided
sometimes to the elders, sometimes to the converts at large. Susannah
frequently heard of them first through Emma Smith, whose pious heart was
constantly filled with wonder and thankfulness at the thought of the
great honour vouchsafed to her husband. These revelations, sometimes
illimitable in their sweep, and sometimes having reference only to the
most minute practical details, were at this time all in accordance
either with the dictates of common sense or with the severely literal
meaning of some Scripture text. They were therefore easily justified
either to reason or to the eye of faith, but the results of their
application were often startling, and it was facts, not theories, that
chiefly caused Susannah to stagger.

At length the growing excitement among the congregation seemed to gather
toward some climax. It was then that Joseph Smith was said for the first
time to cast out devils.

Near to John Biery's hotel lived a family of the name of Knight. The
worthy farmer became a convert, and so also, in appearance, did his son.
Susannah first saw them at their baptism, which took place one cold
bleak day in the margin of Seneca Lake. The horses which had brought the
little company to the edge of the water, having been tied among the
trees, made a constant rustling and trampling among the fallen leaves.
The sharp rustle, the thud of the hoofs upon the ground, were sounds
long connected in her mind with the crisis of her doubt, which then
began. The maples stood above them, tall and leafless; the waters of the
lake were leaden in hue and cold. Looking southward on either side of
its long flood, the snores with their many points and headlands lay
cold, almost hueless, near by, and in the distance blue as tarnished
steel.

It was a bitter day for baptist and for the immersed. Joseph Smith went
out alone into the water, commanding the other elders to remain upon the
shore. Whatever else the man had or had not, he had splendid courage in
facing physical ills. There were but few candidates. Susannah, standing
apart near the shore, chanced to be in the path by which the younger
Knight descended to the water. He was a young man with strong features
and a thick, unhealthy skin. He was dressed in the wet garments which
another candidate had taken off. Cold he might have been, but as he
passed she heard his teeth chatter so loudly that it almost seemed to
her that his very bones rattled. She drew back with the impression that
some horrible thing had passed by. Before she had time to wonder that
the chill should have had such an effect upon the hardy fellow, his feet
were in the water, and he turned and caught her eye. The look he gave
her became suddenly one of terrified entreaty.

Susannah did not move; she was spell-bound. He began to wade toward
Smith, who stood in the deeper water. She wondered why he allowed
himself to be immersed. She was certain that he did not desire it, was
certain also that no motives of interest, no physical force, could have
operated to compel, when suddenly she asked herself sharply, what force
had taken her into the waters of this extraordinary baptism?

To her astonishment, when Newell Knight came up from the water he was
shouting aloud. She thought that his accents were a horrible simulation
of merriment, but by the others they were accepted as an evidence of
holy joy.

Two days after, when Susannah and her husband were returning from
Smith's preaching through the autumn night, they were met as they were
approaching Biery's hotel by a messenger from Knight's house. The
messenger had been sent to fetch Halsey. He reported that Newell Knight
was in "an awful way." Susannah alighted at once and walked to the
tavern, in order that her husband might drive with all speed to the
afflicted man.

The lights as they shone from John Biery's windows reminded her vividly
of the first time, a month since, when she had driven to that house at
night. She had grown much older since then, stronger in many ways,
weaker in some, but she was not conscious of this; it was not her way to
give even so much as a passing glance at herself as one of the actors in
life's drama. The road on which she trod was heavy with mud. The
night-winds cried around and through the empty branches of two or three
neglected trees in the clearing. The square wooden tavern stood at the
cross-roads. The light from the door made a pathway through the
darkness, up which Susannah walked.

When she entered, the heat and fumes from fire, candles, tobacco-pipes,
and steaming mugs met her. She was accustomed to walking through John
Biery's main room to gain the stair that led to her own; on the whole it
was not disorderly, or Susannah had but to appear on the threshold to
reduce it to order. To-night the men did not let her pass with their
usual civil "Good evening"; they assumed that she had an interest in
their talk.

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