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.