Kabanata Kabanata 10 · Part II - John Ferrier Talks With The Prophet.

. Part II - John Ferrier Talks With The Prophet.

Three weeks had passed since Jefferson Hope and his comrades had

departed from Salt Lake City. John Ferrier’s heart was sore within him

when he thought of the young man’s return, and of the impending loss of

his adopted child. Yet her 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. Whatever

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 an 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, nor 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

re-corroborated, 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 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?”

[1] Heber C. Kemball, in one of his sermons, alludes to his hundred

wives under this endearing epithet.

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.