The very friend to whom you communicated your misgivings as to the
Prophet and his mission, might be one of those who would come forth
at night with fire and sword to exact a terrible reparation. Hence
every man feared his neighbour, and none spoke of the things which
were nearest his heart.
One fine morning, John Ferrier was about to set out to his
wheatfields, when he heard the click of the latch, and, looking
through the window, saw a stout, sandy-haired, middle-aged man coming
up the pathway. His heart leapt to his mouth, for this was none other
than the great Brigham Young himself. Full of trepidation--for he
knew that such a visit boded him little good--Ferrier ran to the door
to greet the Mormon chief. The latter, however, received his
salutations coldly, and followed him with a stern face into the
sitting-room.
"Brother Ferrier," he said, taking a seat, and eyeing the farmer
keenly from under his light-coloured eyelashes, "the true believers
have been good friends to you. We picked you up when you were
starving in the desert, we shared our food with you, led you safe to
the Chosen Valley, gave you a goodly share of land, and allowed you
to wax rich under our protection. Is not this so?"
"It is so," answered John Ferrier.
"In return for all this we asked but one condition: that was, that
you should embrace the true faith, and conform in every way to its
usages. This you promised to do, and this, if common report says
truly, you have neglected."
"And how have I neglected it?" asked Ferrier, throwing out his hands
in expostulation. "Have I not given to the common fund? Have I not
attended at the Temple? Have I not--?"
"Where are your wives?" asked Young, looking round him. "Call them
in, that I may greet them."
"It is true that I have not married," Ferrier answered. "But women
were few, and there were many who had better claims than I. I was not
a lonely man: I had my daughter to attend to my wants."
"It is of that daughter that I would speak to you," said the leader
of the Mormons. "She has grown to be the flower of Utah, and has
found favour in the eyes of many who are high in the land."
John Ferrier groaned internally.
"There are stories of her which I would fain disbelieve--stories that
she is sealed to some Gentile. This must be the gossip of idle
tongues. What is the thirteenth rule in the code of the sainted
Joseph Smith? 'Let every maiden of the true faith marry one of the
elect; for if she wed a Gentile, she commits a grievous sin.' This
being so, it is impossible that you, who profess the holy creed,
should suffer your daughter to violate it."
John Ferrier made no answer, but he played nervously with his
riding-whip.
"Upon this one point your whole faith shall be tested--so it has been
decided in the Sacred Council of Four. The girl is young, and we
would not have her wed grey hairs, neither would we deprive her of
all choice. We Elders have many heifers, *1 but our children must
also be provided. Stangerson has a son, and Drebber has a son, and
either of them would gladly welcome your daughter to their house. Let
her choose between them. They are young and rich, and of the true
faith. What say you to that?"
Ferrier remained silent for some little time with his brows knitted.
"You will give us time," he said at last. "My daughter is very
young--she is scarce of an age to marry."
"She shall have a month to choose," said Young, rising from his seat.
"At the end of that time she shall give her answer."
He was passing through the door, when he turned, with flushed face
and flashing eyes. "It were better for you, John Ferrier," he
thundered, "that you and she were now lying blanched skeletons upon
the Sierra Blanco, than that you should put your weak wills against
the orders of the Holy Four!"
With a threatening gesture of his hand, he turned from the door, and
Ferrier heard his heavy step scrunching along the shingly path.
He was still sitting with his elbows upon his knees, considering how
he should broach the matter to his daughter when a soft hand was laid
upon his, and looking up, he saw her standing beside him. One glance
at her pale, frightened face showed him that she had heard what had
passed.
"I could not help it," she said, in answer to his look. "His voice
rang through the house. Oh, father, father, what shall we do?"
"Don't you scare yourself," he answered, drawing her to him, and
passing his broad, rough hand caressingly over her chestnut hair.
"We'll fix it up somehow or another. You don't find your fancy kind
o' lessening for this chap, do you?"
A sob and a squeeze of his hand was her only answer.
"No; of course not. I shouldn't care to hear you say you did. He's a
likely lad, and he's a Christian, which is more than these folk here,
in spite o' all their praying and preaching. There's a party starting
for Nevada to-morrow, and I'll manage to send him a message letting
him know the hole we are in. If I know anything o' that young man,
he'll be back here with a speed that would whip electro-telegraphs."
Lucy laughed through her tears at her father's description.
"When he comes, he will advise us for the best. But it is for you
that I am frightened, dear. One hears--one hears such dreadful
stories about those who oppose the Prophet: something terrible always
happens to them."
"But we haven't opposed him yet," her father answered. "It will be
time to look out for squalls when we do. We have a clear month before
us; at the end of that, I guess we had best shin out of Utah."
"Leave Utah!"
"That's about the size of it."
"But the farm?"
"We will raise as much as we can in money, and let the rest go. To
tell the truth, Lucy, it isn't the first time I have thought of doing
it. I don't care about knuckling under to any man, as these folk do
to their darned prophet. I'm a free-born American, and it's all new
to me. Guess I'm too old to learn. If he comes browsing about this
farm, he might chance to run up against a charge of buckshot
travelling in the opposite direction."
"But they won't let us leave," his daughter objected.
"Wait till Jefferson comes, and we'll soon manage that. In the
meantime, don't you fret yourself, my dearie, and don't get your eyes
swelled up, else he'll be walking into me when he sees you. There's
nothing to be afeared about, and there's no danger at all."
John Ferrier uttered these consoling remarks in a very confident
tone, but she could not help observing that he paid unusual care to
the fastening of the doors that night, and that he carefully cleaned
and loaded the rusty old shotgun which hung upon the wall of his
bedroom.
-----
*1: Heber C Kemball, in one of his sermons, alludes to his hundred
wives under this endearing epithet.
CHAPTER IV
A Flight For Life
On the morning which followed his interview with the Mormon Prophet,
John Ferrier went in to Salt Lake City, and having found his
acquaintance, who was bound for the Nevada Mountains, he entrusted
him with his message to Jefferson Hope. In it he told the young man
of the imminent danger which threatened them, and how necessary it
was that he should return. Having done thus he felt easier in his
mind, and returned home with a lighter heart.
As he approached his farm, he was surprised to see a horse hitched to
each of the posts of the gate. Still more surprised was he on
entering to find two young men in possession of his sitting-room.
One, with a long pale face, was leaning back in the rocking-chair,
with his feet cocked up upon the stove. The other, a bull-necked
youth with coarse bloated features, was standing in front of the
window with his hands in his pocket, whistling a popular hymn. Both
of them nodded to Ferrier as he entered, and the one in the
rocking-chair commenced the conversation.
"Maybe you don't know us," he said. "This here is the son of Elder
Drebber, and I'm Joseph Stangerson, who travelled with you in the
desert when the Lord stretched out His hand and gathered you into the
true fold."
"As He will all the nations in His own good time," said the other in
a nasal voice; "He grindeth slowly but exceeding small."
John Ferrier bowed coldly. He had guessed who his visitors were.
"We have come," continued Stangerson, "at the advice of our fathers
to solicit the hand of your daughter for whichever of us may seem
good to you and to her. As I have but four wives and Brother Drebber
here has seven, it appears to me that my claim is the stronger one."
"Nay, nay, Brother Stangerson," cried the other; "the question is not
how many wives we have, but how many we can keep. My father has now
given over his mills to me, and I am the richer man."
"But my prospects are better," said the other, warmly. "When the Lord
removes my father, I shall have his tanning yard and his leather
factory. Then I am your elder, and am higher in the Church."
"It will be for the maiden to decide," rejoined young Drebber,
smirking at his own reflection in the glass. "We will leave it all to
her decision."
During this dialogue, John Ferrier had stood fuming in the doorway,
hardly able to keep his riding-whip from the backs of his two
visitors.
"Look here," he said at last, striding up to them, "when my daughter
summons you, you can come, but until then I don't want to see your
faces again."
The two young Mormons stared at him in amazement. In their eyes this
competition between them for the maiden's hand was the highest of
honours both to her and her father.
"There are two ways out of the room," cried Ferrier; "there is the
door, and there is the window. Which do you care to use?"
His brown face looked so savage, and his gaunt hands so threatening,
that his visitors sprang to their feet and beat a hurried retreat.
The old farmer followed them to the door.
"Let me know when you have settled which it is to be," he said,
sardonically.
"You shall smart for this!" Stangerson cried, white with rage. "You
have defied the Prophet and the Council of Four. You shall rue it to
the end of your days."
"The hand of the Lord shall be heavy upon you," cried young Drebber;
"He will arise and smite you!"
"Then I'll start the smiting," exclaimed Ferrier furiously, and would
have rushed upstairs for his gun had not Lucy seized him by the arm
and restrained him. Before he could escape from her, the clatter of
horses' hoofs told him that they were beyond his reach.
"The young canting rascals!" he exclaimed, wiping the perspiration
from his forehead; "I would sooner see you in your grave, my girl,
than the wife of either of them."
"And so should I, father," she answered, with spirit; "but Jefferson
will soon be here."
"Yes. It will not be long before he comes. The sooner the better, for
we do not know what their next move may be."
It was, indeed, high time that someone capable of giving advice and
help should come to the aid of the sturdy old farmer and his adopted
daughter. In the whole history of the settlement there had never been
such a case of rank disobedience to the authority of the Elders. If
minor errors were punished so sternly, what would be the fate of this
arch rebel. Ferrier knew that his wealth and position would be of no
avail to him. Others as well known and as rich as himself had been
spirited away before now, and their goods given over to the Church.
He was a brave man, but he trembled at the vague, shadowy terrors
which hung over him. Any known danger he could face with a firm lip,
but this suspense was unnerving. He concealed his fears from his
daughter, however, and affected to make light of the whole matter,
though she, with the keen eye of love, saw plainly that he was ill at
ease.
He expected that he would receive some message or remonstrance from
Young as to his conduct, and he was not mistaken, though it came in
an unlooked-for manner. Upon rising next morning he found, to his
surprise, a small square of paper pinned on to the coverlet of his
bed just over his chest. On it was printed, in bold straggling
letters:--
"Twenty-nine days are given you for amendment, and then--"
The dash was more fear-inspiring than any threat could have been. How
this warning came into his room puzzled John Ferrier sorely, for his
servants slept in an outhouse, and the doors and windows had all been
secured. He crumpled the paper up and said nothing to his daughter,
