Chapter XXI

Spencer had given up all hope of seeing Hagar again since his plans for her rescue were knocked in the head by the sudden death of Madame Adamanti and the breaking up of her house. The fact that Dr. Bruce became Hope Vincent’s executor had been made public through the press, but every other detail was rigidly concealed by the doctor, to shield the young girl he was endeavoring to save and benefit. Spencer had therefore very naturally concluded that Hagar had either gone back to her home at Cleveland, or followed the fortunes of the denizens of Castle Adamant. In either case she had passed out of his life, as he supposed, and only recurred to him now as a sad memory.

What was his astonishment one Sunday, after a meeting at the factory, on going with Miss Dayton to call on her sister, to meet Hagar face to face on the threshold of Mrs. Johnson’s house! She was going out for a walk, and would doubtless have passed on without noticing him had he not raised his hat, and exclaimed in a tone of wonder:

“Miss Taine!”

Hagar bowed her head and hesitated, uncertain what to do or say.

“Mrs. Miles, Mr. Spencer,” said Miss Dayton, promptly introducing them. She had not understood his exclamation, and he accepted the introduction with as good grace as he could, to save Hagar from embarrassment. The latter continued on her way after a few words with Miss Dayton, and, as soon as she was in the street, Spencer said hastily to his companion:—

“I have met that young lady before, Miss Dayton, and must speak with her now before I lose sight of her.”

“She lives here with my sister. She’s a hand at the factory, and you can see her whenever you like,” interrupted Miss Dayton. She was about to tell him there was a mystery in connection with the stranger, but Spencer, saying he had something of great importance to communicate, begged her to excuse him for a moment, and rushed out to overtake Hagar. The impulse was irresistible, for he felt that if he lost track of her then, she would somehow vanish from his sight forever.

“I humbly beg your pardon, Miss Taine,” he said as he approached her, “I must venture to speak to you even though you refuse to answer.”

Hagar stopped and turning her pale and grief-marked face towards him, said sadly:

“Why have you hunted me out, Mr. Spencer? Can I not be left alone with my sorrow?”

“Won’t you shake hands, and let me talk to you like a friend; am I such a stranger?”

“You would remind me that you saved my life. Yes! but I had been happier dead,” she said, with a bitter smile and a quiver of her lips. “But there’s my hand, Mr. Spencer: it was not pride but shame that prevented me from extending it before.” Tears came as she said this, and even the Elder was obliged to bring his handkerchief into requisition to prevent the beady drops that started from his eyes, from trickling down over his manly beard. They walked on together.

“I thought you had returned home,” said Spencer, after a pause and with a touch of emotion he was struggling to conceal.

“I have no home,” replied Hagar. “But, no matter,” she continued in a tone of assumed courage, “I can work on here and earn my living. All I ask is to be let alone by the people I have met in this city. You were there, at the house they called the Castle. Were those people maniacs?”

“Yes, I fear they were;” said Spencer, noting that she mentioned them with alarm—“but you need not dread them now. Madame Adamanti is dead, and I think the others must have left Cincinnati, for I have not seen one of them since.”

“Oh! I do not fear them,” she replied. After some hesitation she continued: “You seem to be acquainted with Miss Dayton, and I hear that she has become a convert to your religion?”

“Yes, Miss Taine; she is the niece of one of our Bishops, and the Lord has mercifully brought her to the knowledge of the truth,” he replied, reverently.

“I must ask a favor of you, Mr. Spencer.”

“I should be happy to serve you,” he replied.

“It is only that you will call me when speaking either of or to me, Mrs. ‘Miles,’ and not Miss ‘Taine;’ you forget that I am a married woman,” said Hagar, with evident embarrassment.

“Mrs. Miles?” he asked, as if speaking to himself.

“I do not wonder that you are surprised—but I came by this name by accident, and adopted it the better to conceal myself—”

“By accident?” said the Elder, still perplexed.

“Yes. I gave my name as ‘Mrs. Smiles,’ but Miss Dayton thought I said Miles—I don’t know if I did wrong in letting it pass; but I do not wish to create curiosity and suspicion by correcting it now, and must ask you to help me. Heaven only knows what I shall do!” She had spoken quite naturally until her final exclamation, which was uttered with poignant apprehension and concern. Spencer was about to venture some words of encouragement, when she suddenly stopped and said with coldness that sent a chill through him:

“Please leave me, Mr. Spencer—I want to be alone.”

“As you wish,” he said, raising his hat. “But will you not let me be a friend? May I not have the privilege of seeing you sometimes?” he paused, but, as she made no reply, went on. “Your request concerning your name, I shall comply with faithfully. I do not think you did wrong in permitting the misunderstanding, for the right name being only a fictitious one could never be of any use to you—”

“You ask me to let you be my friend—but you know you cannot be a friend to anybody who is not one with you in religious belief. So you told my brother James,” said Hagar, as if she had been reflecting on this point and had not noticed what he was saying.

“I submit that you misquote me, but whatever I said then has nothing to do with my proffer to you.”

“Then leave me,” she replied, with her former coldness, “and if you are in earnest, let me have a few words with you at Mrs. Johnson’s this evening.” With a slight inclination of her head she walked on. The elder turned back.

It was a fine bracing afternoon, and the street Hagar had taken led to a suburban quarter where the sweet breath of returning spring fanned her cheeks, and the silence seemed propitious to her musings. But few persons passed her during her walk. The pretty cottages on either side of the street, surrounded by trees and shrubs that were beginning to put forth their leaves, and garden plots in which the gardener had begun his work, looked so homelike that she sighed involuntarily when she contrasted the lot of their happy inmates with her own. Presently she was startled from her reverie by the measured beat of muffled drums, and on reaching the next corner, saw it was a funeral cortege on its way to the cemetery. It was evidently a soldier who was going to his last rest, for officers in uniform occupied the carriages, troops were marching with reversed muskets beside the hearse, a squadron of cavalry closed up behind it as a funeral guard, and a military band was in attendance. It was one of Ohio’s gallant sons who had fallen in a recent battle. Hagar thought of James Taine, of Will Sanders, of Mark Kilbourne.... Obliged to wait for the cortege to pass before she could proceed, she turned towards her lodgings and walked gloomily along, the only wish in her heart being that she might also die. She would do nothing wilfully to bring her to that solemn goal, but if God would somehow relieve her of the burden of what seemed her most hopeless life, she would think it the kindest blessing He could give.

On her return home she found the Elder awaiting her. They conversed for some time in Mrs. Johnson’s parlor, and Spencer felt a re-awakening of his old interest, while Hagar seemed not averse to his confidence in her misfortune. He told her the published facts about Lamont, and she gave him an outline of her experience. Though much cast down in spirits, she had never looked so beautiful. With her head bowed in abject humility, and wringing her dainty hands in cruel self-torture, she said at the close of her story:

“And thus I sank deeper and deeper into the abyss he had made for me, and into which I plunged the night I madly left my home!”

All was now plain to the Elder, and as Hagar wept, he sat pitying her, and wondering what he could say that would be most likely to win her to his faith; for it was evident, he thought, that she had been contemplating his Zion as a possible retreat, and it only remained for him to paint the scene in attractive colors, and he might have the pleasure of guiding her thither himself.

Other fancies accompanied these in the young missionary’s mind. He felt a genuine compassion towards the unfortunate creature, but perhaps that was not a sufficient motive for all the trouble he subsequently took to serve her. When in reply to his queries she gave him to understand that she would not under any circumstance make her whereabouts known to her former friends, or to the members of Doctor Taine’s congregation, he told her frankly that he could assure her a kind reception among “the saints” and invited her to prayerfully reconsider the opinion she had expressed of them on a former occasion.

“There is no reason,” said Spencer, in his most gracious tone, “why your misfortune should be known, for many young widows have been converted to the gospel; but if it were, our people would receive you with the deepest sympathy as a victim of the systems we oppose and denounce.”

When the interview had reached a very interesting stage, and the Elder was satisfied he had sown seed that would be likely to yield a fair return, he was reminded by the striking of the clock that it was nearly time for him to repair to the hall at the factory for his evening meeting. After tea Hagar consented to attend with Miss Dayton, and was for the first time introduced to other converts who were going in the Elder’s company to Utah.

Dazzled by the sublime picture the Elder had drawn of the Mormon Zion, most of his converts were eager to set out for that new “Land of Promise.” It was arranged that the faithful should go by rail to Council Bluffs in time to join the regular autumn Emigrant train of the church. From that point they would require from two to three months, with the creeping ox-teams, to make the journey of more than a thousand miles across plains, mountains and deserts that lay between the Missouri River and the Mormon Capital.

Up to the moment when Miss Dayton, and several other persons with whom Hagar had become acquainted at the factory, were starting for Council Bluffs with Spencer and his lieutenants, Hagar labored on at the factory without deciding to join the Mormons. In spite of the friendly sentiments and enthusiasm of those about her, and a restless desire to seek some distant refuge, she could not overcome her earlier impressions, caused by the frightful details of the Mountain Meadow Massacre, and other crimes she had heard imputed to the Mormons. But an event occurred at this time which quickly determined her to at least quit Cincinnati with them.

One day news was brought that the Union armies in Kentucky had been overthrown by the Rebels, and that the Rebel General Heth, was marching on Covington with an enormous force of hungry and victorious troops. Covington, the report said, would surely fall into the hands of the Rebels next day, and Cincinnati would then be given the alternative of unconditional surrender or immediate bombardment. The entire city was thrown into a panic by this startling report, and at every hour fresh details were circulated which made the alarm still greater. The Governor of Ohio had sent for General Lew Wallace, a gallant officer, who had been displaced in the field by a blunder on the part of his superiors, to organize the Militia of Ohio to assist in repelling the threatened invasion. With 40,000 raw recruits he had thrown up fortifications around Covington, which were sufficient, added to the rapid approach of Buell’s army, to convince the audacious Heth that the game could not be bagged so easily as he anticipated. But the “Peace Democrats” declared that the resistance of the militia would be useless; and Spencer, in speaking of the prospects among his Mormon friends, ridiculed the idea of their confronting the Rebel army, and predicted that the city merchants, dry-goods clerks, and laborers who composed Wallace’s force would run away like a flock of sheep before a band of wolves, the moment they saw the grim veterans of Shiloh and Donelson coming down upon them like an avalanche of fire.

Hagar, though more indifferent to the approaching danger than any of the others, was not proof against the alarm which was visible in every direction. Armed men were hurrying through the streets; in the squares squads of volunteers of as motley appearance as old Falstaff’s army were being put through the drill by loud-mouthed Sergeants, some of whom assumed the swagger they thought indicative of military prowess, while ignorant as cattle of all but the merest rudiments. Several regiments in new uniforms with their bright accoutrements flashing in the sunlight, their star-decked banners floating gayly, and their bands playing the merriest tunes, arrived by rail and marched past the window of Hagar’s lodging. All day long she could hear the sound of martial music, the loud huzzas of young recruits, the roar of distant cannon, and the nearer rattle of musketry at the drill-grounds, until she thought that the vague cant of Spencer to the effect that “The prophets were now to be fulfilled,” really had a tangible significance. In this state of mind Miss Dayton found her a few days before the company were to set out for the Missouri, and it required but little persuasion to determine Hagar to cast her lot with them. Before it became generally known that Heth had been obliged to beat a hasty retreat, and that Cincinnati was safe, for the present, from sack and pillage, the little band of “Saints” were on their way, Hagar appearing like the only penitent among them. The others were gay and boisterous as if engaged in a picnic; she was sad and quiet as if going to her doom.

It was a strange, if not an imposing sight; that greeted them on their arrival at the Mormon rendezvous: A picture of human experience which has, apparently, passed away to be seen no more forever. Assembled on the plain near the outskirts of a small rambling village was a motley crowd of between 500 and 600 men, women and children, with their meagre effects, and with the wagons, oxen, horses and mules which their co- religionists had sent a thousand miles for them, all ready to plunge into the wilderness.

By the arrival of Elder Spencer’s party the last cause of delay was removed and the order was issued for a start at break of day on the morrow.

The emigrants were a polyglot and heterogeneous assemblage, consisting of a few Swiss, and a good many English, Welsh, and Scandinavian peasants, besides a sprinkling of American and partially Americanized converts, similar to those brought on by Elder Spencer.

The English “saints” spoke a diversity of dialects almost as irreconcilable as the language of the Swiss and the Welshmen, and Hagar could not believe at first that they all hailed from “Merry England.” The sexes were about equally divided, and she did not hear a word among them about polygamy. They were all anxious to be en route towards the Zion they had come so far to find, but a healthy state of discipline was maintained by the Elders in charge, and their movements were characterized by almost military order.

Spencer showed Hagar and Miss Dayton over the encampment and explained that the company was called a traveling “Stake of Zion” and divided into sections of ten, each of which was under the immediate charge of some reliable “Brother;” that ten of these sections composed another subdivision, subject to the direction of the Elder placed in command, and that the whole was under the guidance of the Captain or President. Thus every man, woman and child in the train had his allotted place and duty, both in camp and on the march. Hagar felt despondent, but was carried on by the novelty of the scene, the mirth and rural jollity of the people, and the busy preparations for the start. She realized fully that she now had either to share the journey of the emigrants, or go penniless and alone to one of the neighboring towns: and when they told her she had been placed with Miss Dayton in Elder Spencer’s hundred, she silently acquiesced. Those to whom she had been introduced addressed her as “Sister Miles,” and one old saint who had occupied the honorable post of “assistant working gardener” on the estate of an Earl not far from Coventry, expressed the opinion of several who had met her in the camp, when he said that “she looked like a bird of Paradise among a lot of barn-yard fowl.” There was an appearance of refinement and gentility about her in spite of her poor attire and the ravages made on her beauty by months of grief and anxiety. Many of the coarse but good-hearted emigrants had noticed her, and as she was made a subject of gossip among them, a statement, winked at by Elder Spencer, soon gained currency to the effect that she was the widow of a young officer who had been killed in one of the combats near Corinth in May. This was sufficiently vague, but answered every purpose, as it set at rest the tongues of mischief- makers who were already inventing scandal to account for the fact that she was soon to become a mother. It nipped their curiosity in the bud and Hagar was secretly grateful for the deception when told of it by Miss Dayton, though she dreaded the mystery which she felt to be enveloping her.