Chapter XXV

Charles Spencer’s views concerning the glories of Zion had undergone a remarkable evolution in the few months since his return. The ideal of a boy’s ignorance was giving place to the real of a man’s experience. Contact with the outer world, while it had taxed his endurance, had also clarified his vision. Upon subjects of which he had formerly thought nothing he now became severely critical, and the ‘Kingdom of God’ began to assume the aspect of a small trading mart. He perceived that the apostles and elders had secured to themselves the time-honored privileges that belonged to the priests of Baal and a long line of their successors; that Brigham Young had become a nabob and a despot, and that on the little scene of Mormondom was being played a new version of what a scoffer in Ohio had called the Gospel game.

Despite Bishop Langley’s open antagonism and secret enmity, Spencer succeeded in meeting Hagar from time to time, and he thought he was more benefited and impressed by his brief communion with her than by the canny wisdom of the prophets as delivered in the Tabernacle. If he had been of the kind to be flattered into submission the spirit of revolt that was rising in him would surely have been checked, for, even after he had given unmistakable evidence of defection of which Brigham Young was fully informed, the President entrusted him with weighty confidences, and even invited him to ‘bear testimony’ before the assembled people. He was willing to parley with the young malcontent while a hope of retaining him in the church harness remained; for he saw that Spencer’s course was undefined, while he miscalculated the force of his character and the depth of his discontent. It was the prophet’s custom to condone symptoms of rebellion so long as they were not made visibly manifest; and thus a practiced hypocrite might count upon his favor, while an honest man who dared to differ and to tell him so, was quickly consigned to the rack of his scorn.

Haunted by the image of Hagar, goaded by his sense of poverty and dependence, and conscious that he was growing more and more out of touch with the priesthood and his church, Spencer was far from happy. He was pathetically warned by his mother to beware of the deceit and craft of the devil, but the gloomy, vacillating and meditative mood which now became habitual to him, enabled him to discern only the craft and deceit of the priesthood. He saw the tithing of the people pouring in. It was marvellous in volume and in the regularity of its current. Into the great maw of Bel went the produce of the land and the priests were there with their baskets to catch all that the Dragon could not dispose of. The magnates built great houses, surrounded themselves with high walls, and lived in luxury, waited upon by foreign menials. They drew a bounteous sustenance from the busy hive they held under tribute, while the toilers themselves dwelt patiently in the small log cabin or the adobe cottage, and won their daily bread by rugged conflict with the earth.

Before he went away and during his absence, if he had thought at all about these things, it was merely to regard them in the common way, as essential conditions to the building up of “the Kingdom.” But he now said:

“Alas! The Kingdom is a despotism. We take the name of ‘Israel’ and go to work to realize the picture; set up a Solomon without his wisdom, and the temples, palaces, concubines and oppression naturally follow. What is common to all systems, the aggrandizement of the few at the cost of the many, was the condition we were to escape, but is the one most vital here.”

He regarded with keen distaste the hereditary possibilities he knew to be his own: high Sacerdotal rank, and a hand at the money bags of Israel. He had seen sons and grandsons succeed their sires in civil and religious offices, and knew that the hierarchy of Church and State which was one and inseparable, had adopted this effete principle solely for the promotion of its own ends whether good or bad. He deliberately made up his mind never to become a pensioner on such a system.

But, for the present, whatever might be his ultimate decision, he must play the part of time server. His sympathy was still with the cause of his people, but his reason said that their lot could not be his.

He had not been able to approach Hagar as to the subject that outweighed all others in his reflections; but his attentions to her had already excited gossip, and he knew that if he openly declared his discontent she would be branded as a cause of it and placed in great peril. It was for her sake and not his own that he chose the prudent course, though, as a matter of fact, the enmity of Langley alone was sufficient to make him cautious of being placed under the ban of Apostacy while winter held its impenetrable barriers between Utah and the world. He worked on patiently and with the consciousness that he was not free from suspicion and espionage. He listened to plausible priestly lies without betraying by look or word that he knew the truth; pretended to believe prophecies that were framed after the fact, and revelations that he had seen compounded by designing men.

It was some time since he had seen Hagar alone. His falling out with Langley prevented his visiting the Bishop’s house, and the brooding and unsettled state of his mind made him indifferent to social intercourse. After the long office hours of the tithing department where he was engaged, he would go home and pace his room, or make an effort to read. Sometimes he would mount an old nag that a relative in the country had given his father, and ride slowly past Hagar’s school, in the hope of getting a chance to salute her, but she was always out of sight.

Langley was among the first to suspect and circulate the story of the young man’s growing scepticism. One day after an interview on very mundane affairs with Brigham Young, he said to the prophet, in his officious way:

“Young Charles Spencer seems to be a good deal of a favorite with you, Brother Brigham?”

“Yes, so long as he lives his religion and obeys counsel. But why did you ask that? By your tone I judge there is something back of the question.”

“You have noticed nothing?”

“Well,” said the President, raising his eye brows and taking off his spectacles to rub them with a cotton bandanna, “Well, may be I have—but what have you noticed?”

“For one thing, that he is associating with the vile apostate, Doctor Robinson.”

“What? You don’t mean that, do you? He has not gone so far as that!”

“Yes, he has. They were always fast friends as you know, but Spencer went back on him when he apostatized. The change in his own heart now makes the apostate congenial to him, and they have been seen walking together at night on the hill by the arsenal, and along the road to the Hot Springs. I told you long ago that Robinson ought to be dealt with, and offered to take the matter in hand. He never was really devoted to the church. The pretence served to gain him a foothold, and he has lived in open defiance of authority for nearly four years. Many of the women are going to him for his nostrums, and his influence for evil is increasing every day.”

“I will see about this at once. You might have an eye kept on Spencer and also on the pill-maker. I have noticed Brother Charles’ uneasiness, but thought it grew out of his sickly infatuation over the pretty widow. But if he thinks he can hoodwink me, and loll into apostasy under my very nose, he shall have plenty of rope I can promise him.”

The prophet made no effort to conceal his irritation, and the Bishop, seeing that he had achieved his purpose, soon after withdrew. Directly he had gone a boy was summoned to tell Spencer that President Young wished to see him. The answer came that he was out and would not be back before five o’clock.

President Young struck a small gong on the desk in front of him, and a tall straight man with broad shoulders and a generally raw-boned appearance, entered by a small side-door. He looked, at first glance, like an American Indian, but was a proselyte from the Sandwich Islands. He was a messenger and assistant body-guard to the President. Having received his orders in a few words he backed out through the narrow door with a deferential salute. The president awaited his return. He was not absent more than twenty minutes, and came back quite out of breath.

“Well?” demanded President Young.

“He was there, sir. When I was block away I see the old pinto mare tie to post in front of Robinson house, but ’fore I git there I seen him come out, git on horse, and go down road like he goin’ to Jordan bridge.”

The Kanaka made a faithful report: from Dr. Robinson’s Spencer went direct to Hagar’s school, driven on by a wild desire to tell her of the heavy woes that were oppressing him.

“I know not what to say to her, but it will out if I can but find her alone. I will tell her my misery, and lay my heart at her feet.”

The small one-roomed building in which the school was held, was located in an orchard near the Langley mansion. The snow was trampled down by the children around the house, and huge balls had been rolled up from among the trees where it lay deepest, and formed into high banks for breastworks from behind which the urchins pelted each other in mimic warfare. They were engaged in this diversion when Spencer rode up, and he knew it was within a minute of the time to call them in. Tying his horse to the gate post he knocked at the school-house door, and was admitted by Hagar. As he entered, a tow-headed boy of about fifteen years might have been seen to quit his play and go post-haste towards the Bishop’s house. There was a standing reward of a quarter of a dollar in silver, for the bearer of news of Spencer’s appearance at the school, and the Bishop’s son Tobias, though not over quick at his studies, was alert to win the spy’s reward on the first opportunity.

Hagar extended her hand in a friendly manner, saying with singular earnestness:

“I am very glad to see you, Mr. Spencer, but I am sorry you have come here.”

“I will go away at once, then,” he replied, a little hurt.

“It will be best for us both. We are watched, and I do not think you are free from danger. I was foolish to have come here, but I must now submit, as there is no escape.”

To his imagination her words meant more than she intended.

“Submit! you surely will not submit to this Blue Beard? You can leave here in the spring and return to your people.”

“We are in danger, I tell you. I must consult my present safety. Consult yours by going at once. I must call in the school.” She already had the small bell in her hand when he came in, and she now threw the door open that he might depart before she rang. He was stepping back from the door, raising his hat in salute, when he was seized by the shoulders and hurled to the ground. The Bishop had come through the garden, and darted around the corner of the school-house like a lion that had been crouching for his prey. Spencer sprang to his feet in an instant, and leveled his revolver, one of heavy calibre he had that day borrowed from Dr. Robinson, at the Bishop’s head. The children had run in screaming with fright, and Hagar shut the door in dread of an impending tragedy. Hearing the voices of the men outside, she listened.

“The only reason I don’t put day-light through you, Bishop Langley,” said Spencer, with dangerous composure, “is because I know that it would bring harm to that helpless woman in there—worse harm than you can do her if I let you live. I know that if I killed you here now as you intended to kill me had you found me unprepared, I should be lynched as if I had been an assassin. I’ll spare you, but you shall make me a promise, and further, you shall swear to it; you are not famous for veracity. It’s a wonder to me that a hypocrite like you doesn’t make apostates of half the community. Raise your right hand and repeat after me: “In the name of Almighty God, I swear that I will not harm or permit others to harm by word or act the woman known as Sister Miles; and that I will use my influence to prevent the cut-throats of Zion from doing bodily injury to the man known as Charles Spencer.”

The Bishop paused and looked around to see if help was not near before he would comply. But as there was no relief at hand, and Spencer made his weapon click impatiently, the redoubtable ecclesiastic swallowed his resentment, or rather choked it down, and repeated the oath with sonorous though unwilling accents. The young man then compelled him to turn his face to the wall, and leisurely resumed his journey towards home.