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Text File | 1992-04-25 | 11KB | 186 lines

                                Chapter 3

                    JOHN FERRIER TALKS WITH THE PROPHET

      Three weeks had passed since Jefferson Hope and his
comrades had departed fro Salt Lake City.  John Ferrier's heart
was sore within him when he thought of th young man's return, and
of the impending loss of his adopted child.  Yet he bright and
happy face reconciled him to the arrangement more than any
argument could have done.  He had always determined, deep down in
his resolute heart that nothing would ever induce him to allow
his daughter to wed a Mormon.  Such a marriage he regarded as no
marriage at all, but as a shame and a disgrace.  What ever he
might think of the Mormon doctrines, upon that one point he was
inflexible.  He had to seal his mouth on the subject, however,
for to express a unorthodox opinion was a dangerous matter in
those days in the Land of the Saints.
     Yes, a dangerous matter -- so dangerous that even the most
saintly dared only whisper their religious opinions with bated
breath, lest something which fell from their lips might be
misconstrued, and bring down a swift retribution upon them.  The
victims of persecution had now turned persecutors on their own
account, and persecutors of the most terrible description.  Not
the Inquisition of Seville, no the German Vehmgericht nor the
secret societies of Italy, were ever able to put a more
formidable machinery in motion than that which cast a cloud over
the state of Utah.
     Its invisibility, and the mystery which was attached to it,
made this organization doubly terrible.  It appeared to be
omniscient and omnipotent, and yet was neither seen nor heard.
The man who held out against the Church vanished away, and none
knew whither he had gone or what had befallen him.  His wife and
his children awaited him at home, but no father ever returned to
tell them how he had fared at the hands of his secret judges.  A
rash word or a hasty act was followed by annihilation, and yet
none knew what the nature might be of this terrible power which
was suspended over them.  No wonder that men went about in fear
and trembling, and that even in the heart of the wilderness they
dared not whisper the doubts which oppressed them.
     At first this vague and terrible power was exercised only
upon the recalcitrants who, having embraced the Mormon faith,
wished afterwards to pervert or to abandon it.  Soon, however, it
took a wider range.  The supply of adult women was running short,
and polygamy without a female population on which to draw was a
barren doctrine indeed.  Strange rumours began to be bandied
about -- rumours of murdered immigrants and rifled camps in
regions where Indians had never been seen.  Fresh women appeared
in the harems of the Elders -- women who pined and wept and bore
upon their faces the traces of an unextinguishable horror.
Belated wanderers upon the mountains spoke of gangs of armed men,
masked, stealthy, and noiseless, who flitted by them in the
darkness.  These tales and rumours took substance and shape, and
were corroborated and recorroborated, until they resolved
themselves into a definite name.  To this day, in the lonely
ranches of the West, the name of the Danite Band, or the Avenging
Angels, is a sinister and an ill-omened one.
     Fuller knowledge of the organization which produced such
terrible results served to increase rather than to lessen the
horror which it inspired in the minds of men.  None knew who
belonged to this ruthless society.  The names of the
participators in the deeds of blood and violence done under the
name of religion were kept profoundly secret.  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 gray hairs, neither would we
deprive her of all choice.  We Elders have many heifers,*  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 his  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 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 steps scrunching along the
shingly path.
     He was still sitting with his elbow upon his knee,
considering how he should broach the matter to his daughter, when
a soft hand was laid upon his, and lookin 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 were 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 folks 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 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 bears 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 shot-gun which hung
upon the wall of his bedroom.