A Fair Apostate

She stood flushed and quick-breathings when the door had shut, he bending toward her with dark inquiry in his eyes.  Before she spoke, he divined that under her nervousness some resolution lay stubbornly fixed.

“Let us speak alone,” she said, in a low voice.  Then, to the old people, “Joel and I will go into the garden awhile to talk.  Be patient.”

“Not for long, dear; our eyes are aching for him.”

“Only a little while,” and she smiled back at them.  She went ahead through the door by which they had first entered, and out into the garden at the back of the house.  He remembered, as he followed her, that since he had arrived that morning she had always been leading him, directing him as if to a certain end, with the air of meaning presently to say something of moment to him.

They went past the rose-bush near which she had stood when he first saw her, and down a walk through borders of marigolds.  She picked one of the flowers and fixed it in his coat.

“You are much too savage - you need a posy to soften you.  There!  Now come to this seat.”

She led him to a rustic double chair under the heavily fruited boughs of an apple-tree, and made him sit down.  She began with a vivacious playfulness, poorly assumed, to hide her real feeling.

“Now, sobersides, it must end - this foolishness of yours -

She stopped, waiting for some question of his to help her.  But he said nothing, though she could feel the burning of his eyes upon her.

“This superstitious folly, you know,” she blurted out, looking up at him in sudden desperation.

“Tell me what you mean - you must know I’m impatient.”

She essayed to be playful again, pouting her dimpled face near to his that he might kiss her.  But he did not seem to see.  He only waited.

“Well - this religion - this Mormonism -

She shot one swift look at him, then went on quickly.

“My people have left the church, and - I - too - they found things in Joseph Smith’s teachings that seemed bad to them.  They went to Springfield.  I would have gone, too, but I told them I wanted first to see you and - and see if you would not come with us - at least for awhile, not taking the poor old father and mother through all that wretchedness.  They consented to let me stay with your parents on condition that Captain Girnway would protect them and me.  He - he - is very kind - and had known us since last winter and had seen me - us - several times.  I hadn’t the heart to tell your father; he was so set on going to the new Zion, but you will come, won’t you?”

“Wait a moment!” He put a hand upon her arm as if to arrest her speech.  “You daze me.  Let me think.”  She looked up at him, wondering at his face, for it showed strength and bitterness and gentleness all in one look - and he was suffering.  She put her hand upon his, from an instinct of pity.  The touch recalled him.

“Now - for the beginning.”  He spoke with aroused energy, a little wistful smile softening the strain of his face.  “You were wise to give me food, else I couldn’t have solved this mystery.  To the beginning, then:  You, Prudence Corson, betrothed to me these three years and more; you have been buried in the waters of baptism and had your washings and anointings in the temple of the most high God.  Is it not so?  Your eyes were anointed that they might be quick to see, your ears that they might be apt at hearing, your mouth that you might with wisdom speak the words of eternal life, and your feet that they might be swift to run in the ways of the Lord.  You accepted thereby the truth that the angel of God had delivered to Joseph Smith the sealing keys of power.  You accepted the glorious articles of the new covenant.  You were about to be sealed up to me for time and eternity.  Now - I am lost - what is it? - your father and mother have left the church, and because of what?”

“Because of bad things, because of this doctrine they practise - this wickedness of spiritual wives, plural wives.  Think of it, Joel - that if I were your wife you might take another.”

“I need not think of it.  Surely you know my love.  You know I could not do that.  Indeed I have heard at last that this doctrine so long gossiped of is a true one.  But I have been away and am not yet learned in its mysteries.  But this much I do know - and it is the very corner-stone of my life:  Peter, James, and John ordained Joseph Smith here on this earth, and Joseph ordained the twelve.  All other churches have been established by the wisdom or folly of man.  Ours is the only one on earth established by direct revelation from God.  It has a priesthood, and that priesthood is a power we must reverence and obey, no matter what may be its commands.  When the truth is taught me of this doctrine you speak of, I shall see it to be right for those to whom it is ordained.  And meantime, outside of my own little life - my love for you, which would be always single - I can’t measure the revealed will of God with my little moral foot-rule.  Joseph was endowed with the open vision.  He saw God face to face and heard His voice.  Can the standards of society in its present corruption measure and pass upon the revelations of so white-souled a man?”

“I believe he was not white-souled,” she replied, in a kind, animated way, as one who was bent upon saving him from error.  “I told you I knew why you were sent away on mission.  It was because you were my accepted lover - and your white-souled Joseph Smith wanted me for himself.”

“I can’t believe it - you couldn’t know such a thing” - his faith made a brave rally - “but even so, if he sought you, why, the more honour to you - and to me, if you still clung to me.”

“Listen.  I was afraid to tell you before - ashamed - but I told my people.  It’s three years ago.  I was seventeen.  It was just after we had become engaged.  My people were then strong in the faith, as you know.  One morning after you had left for the East, Brigham Young and Heber Kimball came to our house for me.  They said the Prophet had long known me by sight, and wished to talk with me.  Would I go with them to visit him and he would bless and counsel me?  Of course I was flattered.  I put on my prettiest frock and fetchingest bonnet and set off with them, after mamma had said yes.  On the way they kept asking me if I was willing to do all the Prophet required.  I said I was sure of it, thinking they meant to be good and worshipful.  Then they would ask if I was ready to take counsel, and they said, ’Many things are revealed unto us in these last days that the world would scoff at,’ but that it had been given to them to know all the mysteries of the Kingdom.  Then they said, ’You will see Joseph and he will tell you what you are to do.’”

He was listening with a serious, confident eagerness, as if he knew she could say nothing to dim the Prophet’s lustre.

“When we reached the building where Joseph’s store was, they led me up-stairs to a small room and sent down to the store for the Prophet.  When he came up they introduced me and left me alone in the little room with him.  Their actions had seemed queer to me, but I remembered that this man had talked face to face with God, so I tried to feel better.  But all at once he stood before me and asked me to be his wife.  Think of it!  I was so frightened!  I dared not say no, he looked at me so - I can’t tell you how; but I said it would not be lawful.  He said, ’Yes, Prudence, I have had a revelation from God that it is lawful and right for a man to have as many wives as he wants - for as it was in the days of Abraham, so it shall be in these days.  Accept me and I shall take you straight to the celestial Kingdom.  Brother Brigham will marry us here, right now, and you can go home to-night and keep it secret from your parents if you like.’  Then I said, ’But I am betrothed to Joel Rae, the son of Giles Rae, who is away on mission.’  ‘I know that,’ he said - ’I sent him away, and anyway you will be safer to marry me.  You will then be absolutely sure of your celestial reward, for in the next world, you know, I am to have powers, thrones, and dominions, while Brother Joel is very young and has not been tried in the Kingdom.  He may fall away and then you would be lost.’”

The man in him now was struggling with his faith, and he seemed about to interrupt her, but she went on excitedly.

“I said I would not want to do anything of the kind without deliberation.  He urged me to have it over, trying to kiss me, and saying he knew it would be right before God; that if there was any sin in it he would take it upon himself.  He said, ’You know I have the keys of the Kingdom, and whatever I bind on earth is bound in heaven.  Come,’ he said, ’nothing ventured, nothing gained.  Let me call Brother Brigham to seal us, and you shall be a star in my crown for ever.’

“Then I broke down and cried, for I was so afraid, and he put his arms around me, but I pushed away, and after awhile I coaxed him to give me until the next Sabbath to think it over, promising on my life to say not one word to any person.  I never let him see me alone again, you may be sure, and at last when other awful tales were told about him here, of wickedness and his drunkenness - he told in the pulpit that he had been drunk, and that he did it to keep them from worshipping him as a God - I saw he was a bad, common man, and I told my people everything, and soon my father was denounced for an apostate.  Now, sir, what do you say?”

When she finished he was silent for a time.  Then he spoke, very gently, but with undaunted firmness.

“Prudence, dearest, I have told you that this doctrine is new to me.  I do not yet know its justification.  But that I shall see it to be sanctified after they have taught me, this I know as certainly as I know that Joseph Smith dug up the golden plates of Mormon and Moroni on the hill of Cumorah when the angel of the Lord moved him.  It will be sanctified for those who choose it, I mean.  You know I could never choose it for myself.  But as for others, I must not question.  I know only too well that eternal salvation for me depends upon my accepting manfully and unquestioningly the authority of the temple priesthood.”

“But I know Joseph was not a good man - and they tell such absurd stories about the miracles the Elders pretend to work.”

“I believe with all my heart Joseph was good; but even if not - we have never pretended that he was anything more than a prophet of God.  And was not Moses a murderer when God called him to be a prophet?  And as for miracles, all religions have them - why not ours?  Your people were Methodists before Joseph baptised them.  Didn’t Wesley work miracles?  Didn’t a cloud temper the sun in answer to his prayer?  Wasn’t his horse cured of a lameness by his faith?  Didn’t he lay hands upon the blind Catholic girl so that she saw plainly when her eyes rested upon the New Testament and became blind again when she took up the mass book?  Are those stories absurd?  My father himself saw Joseph cast a devil out of Newell Knight.”

“And this awful journey into a horrid desert.  Why must you go?  Surely there are other ways of salvation.”  She hesitated a moment.  “I have been told that going to heaven is like going to mill.  If your wheat is good, the miller will never ask which way you came.”

“Child, child, some one has tampered with you.”

She retorted quickly.

“He did not tamper, he has never sought to - he was all kindness.”

She stopped, her short upper lip holding its incautious mate a prisoner.  She blushed furiously under the sudden blaze of his eyes.

“So it’s true, what Seth Wright hinted at?  To think that you, of all people - my sweetheart - gone over - won over by a cursed mobocrat - a fiend with the blood of our people wet on his hands!  Listen, Prue; I’m going into the desert.  Even though you beg me to stay, you must have known - perhaps you hoped - that I would go.  There are many reasons why I must.  For one, there are six hundred and forty poor hunted wretches over there on the river bank, sick, cold, wet, starving, but enduring it all to the death for their faith in Joseph Smith.  They could have kept their comfortable homes here and their substance, simply by renouncing him - they are all voluntary exiles - they have only to say ’I do not believe Joseph Smith was a prophet of God,’ and these same Gentiles will receive them with open arms, give them clothing, food, and shelter, put them again in possession of their own.  But they are lying out over there, fever-stricken, starving, chilled, all because they will not deny their faith.  Shall I be a craven, then, who have scarcely ever wanted for food or shelter, and probably shall not?  Of course you don’t love me or you couldn’t ask me to do that.  Those faithful wretched ones are waiting over there for me to guide them on toward a spot that will probably be still more desolate.  They could find their way, almost, by the trail of graves we left last spring, but they need my strength and my spirit, and I am going.  I am going, too, for my own salvation.  I would suffer anything for you, but by going I may save us both.  Listen, child; God is going to make a short work on earth.  We shall both see the end of this reign of sin.  It is well if you take wheat to the mill, but what if you fetch the miller chaff instead?”

She made a little protesting move with her hands, and would have spoken, but he was not done.

“Now, listen further.  You heard my father tell how I have seen this people driven and persecuted since I was a boy.  That, if nothing else, would take me away from these accursed States and their mobs.  Hatred of them has been bred into my marrow.  I know them for the most part to be unregenerate and doomed, but even if it were otherwise - if they had the true light - none the less would I be glad to go, because of what they have done to us and to me and to mine.  Oh, in the night I hear such cries of butchered mothers with their babes, and see the flames of the little cabins - hear the shots and the ribaldry and the cursings.  My father spoke to you of Haun’s mill, - that massacre back in Missouri.  That was eight years ago.  I was a boy of sixteen and my sister was a year older.  She had been left in my care while father and mother went on to Far West.  You have seen the portrait of her that mother has.  You know how delicately flower-like her beauty was, how like a lily, with a purity and an innocence to disarm any villainy.  Thirty families had halted at the mill the day before, the mob checking their advance at that point.  All was quiet until about four in the afternoon.  We were camped on either side of Shoal Creek.  Children were playing freely about while their mothers and fathers worked at the little affairs of a pilgrimage like that.  Most of them had then been three months on the road, enduring incredible hardships for the sake of their religion - for him you believe to be a bad, common man.  But they felt secure now because one of the militia captains, officious like your captain here, had given them assurance the day before that they would be protected from all harm.  I was helping Brother Joseph Young to repair his wagon when I glanced up to the opposite side of Shoal Creek and saw a large company of armed and mounted men coming toward our peaceful group at full speed.  One of our number, seeing that they were many and that we were unarmed, ran out and cried, ‘Peace!’ but they came upon us and fired their volley.  Men, women, and little children fell under it.  Those surviving fled to the blacksmith’s shop for shelter - huddling inside like frightened sheep.  But there were wide cracks between the logs, and up to these the mob went, putting their guns through to do their work at leisure.  Then the plundering began - plundering and worse.”

He stopped, trembling, and she put out her hand to him in sympathy.  When he had regained control of himself, he continued.

“At the first volley I had hurried sister to a place of concealment in the underbrush, and she, hearing them search for the survivors after the shooting was over, thought we were discovered, and sprang up to run further.  One of them saw her and shot.  She fell half-fainting with a bullet through her arm, and then half a dozen of them gathered quickly about her.  I ran to them, screaming and striking out with my fists, but the devil was in them, and she, poor blossom, lay there helpless, calling ‘Boy, boy, boy!’ as she had always called me since we were babies together.  Must I tell you the rest? - must I tell you - how those devils -

“Don’t, don’t!  Oh, no!”

“I thought I must die!  They held me there -

He had gripped one of her wrists until she cried out in pain and he released it.

“But the sight must have given me a man’s strength, for my struggles became so troublesome that one of them - I have always been grateful for it - clubbed his musket and dealt me a blow that left me senseless.  It was dark when I came to, but I lay there until morning, unable to do more than crawl.  When the light came I found the poor little sister there near where they had dragged us both, and she was alive.  Can you realise how awful that was - that she had lived through it?  God be thanked, she died before the day was out.

“After that the other mutilated bodies, the plundered wagons, all seemed less horrible to me.  My heart had been seared over.  They had killed twenty of the Saints, and the most of them we hurried to throw into a well, fearful that the soldiers of Governor Boggs would come back at any moment to strip and hack them.  O God! and now you have gone over to one of them!”

“Joel, - dear, dear Joel! - indeed I pity and sympathise - and care for - but I cannot go - even after all you say.  And don’t you see it will always be so!  My father says the priesthood will always be in trouble if it sets itself above the United States.  Dear Joel, I can’t go, indeed I can’t go!”

He spoke more softly now.

“Thank God I don’t realise it yet - I mean, that we must part.  You tell me so and I hear you and my mind knows, but my heart hasn’t sensed it yet - I can feel it now going stupidly along singing its old happy song of hope and gladness, while all this is going on here outside.  But soon the big hurt will come.  Oh, Prue - Prue, girl! - can’t you think what it will mean to me?  Don’t you know how I shall sicken for the sight of you, and my ears will listen for you!  Prudence, Prue, darling - yet I must not be womanish!  I have a big work to do.  I have known it with a new clearness since that radiance rested above my head last night.  The truth burns in me like a fire.  Your going can’t take that from me.  It must be I was not meant to have you.  With you perhaps I could not have had a heart single to God’s work.  He permitted me to love you so I could be tried and proved.”

He looked at her fondly, and she could see striving and trembling in his eyes a great desire to crush her in his arms, yet he fought it down, and continued more calmly.

“But indeed I must be favoured more than common, to deserve that so great a hurt be put upon me, and I shall not be found wanting.  I shall never wed any woman but you, though, dear.  If not you, never any other.”

He stood up.

“I must go in to them now.  There must be work to do against the start to-morrow.”

“Joel!”

“May the Lord deafen my ears to you, darling!” and squaring his shoulders resolutely away from her, he left her on the seat and went in.

The old man looked up from his Bible as his son entered.

“It’s sore sad, laddie, we can’t have the temple for your sealing-vows.”

“Prudence will not be sealed to me, father.”  He spoke dazedly, as if another like the morning’s blow had been dealt him.  “I - I am already sealed to the Spirit for time and eternity.”

“Was it Prudence’s doings?” asked his mother, quickly.

“Yes; she has left the church with her people.”

The long-faced, narrow-browed old man raised one hand solemnly.

“Then let her be banished from Israel and not numbered in the books of the offspring of Abraham!  And let her be delivered over to the buffetings of Satan in the flesh!”