“No,” said Emeline.
“I have grown to be a better man since you said you hated me. The
miracle cannot be forced. Next time?” He spoke wistfully.
“No,” Emeline answered, holding to the bush. She kept her eyes on the
ground while he talked, and glanced up when she replied. He stood with
his hat off. The flakes of sun touched his head and the fair skin of
his forehead.
He moved towards Emeline, and she retreated around the bush. Without
hesitating he passed, making a salutation, and went on by himself to
St. James. She watched his rapid military walk furtively, her eyebrows
crouching, her lips rippling with passionate tremors. Then she took
to flight homeward, her skirts swishing through the woods with a rush
like the wind. The rebound was as violent as the tension had been.
There were few festivities on Beaver Island, the Mormon families
living a pastoral life, many of them yet taxed by the struggle for
existence. Crops shot up rank and strong in the short Northern summer.
Soft cloud masses sailed over the island, and rain-storms marched
across it with drums of thunder which sent reverberations along the
water world. Or fogs rolled in, muffling and obliterating homesteads.
Emeline stayed in the house, busying herself with the monotonous
duties of the family three days. She was determined never to go into
the woods path again without Roxy. The fourth day a gray fog gave her
no choice but imprisonment. It had the acrid tang of smoke from fires
burning on the mainland. About nightfall the west wind rose and blew
it back, revealing a land mantled with condensed drops.
Emeline put on her hat and shawl to walk around in the twilight. The
other young creatures of the house were glad to be out also, and Roxy
and Roxy's lover talked across the fence. Emeline felt fortified
against the path through the woods at night; yet her feet turned in
that direction, and as certainly as water seeks its level she found
herself on the moist elastic track. Cow-bells on the farm sounded
fainter and farther. A gloom of trees massed around her, and the
forest gave up all its perfume to the dampness.
At every step she meant to turn back, though a recklessness of night
and of meeting the King of Beaver grew upon her. Thus, without any
reasonable excuse for her presence there, she met Mary French.
“Is that you, Miss Cheeseman?” panted the Prophet's youngest wife.
Emeline confessed her identity.
“I was coming for you, but it is fortunate you are so far on the
way. There is a steamboat at the dock, and it will go out in half an
hour. I could not get away sooner to tell you.” Mary French breathed
heavily from running. “When the steamboat came in the captain sent
for my husband, as the captains always do. I went with him: he knows
how I dread to have him go alone upon a boat since an attempt was
made last year to kidnap him. But this time there was another reason,
for I have been watching. And sure enough, a young man was on the
steamboat inquiring where he could find you. His name is James Arnold.
The captain asked my husband to direct him to you. You will readily
understand why he did not find you. Come at once!”
“I will not,” said Emeline.
“But you wanted me to help you, and I have been trying to do it. We
easily learned by letter from our friends in Detroit who your lover
was. My husband had me do that: he wanted to know. Then without his
knowledge I stooped to write an anonymous letter.”
“To James Arnold?”
“Yes.”
“About me?”
“About you.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I said you were exposed to great danger on Beaver Island, among the
Mormons, and if you had any interested friend it was time for him to
interfere.”
“And that brought him here?”
“I am sure it did. He was keenly disappointed at not finding you.”
“But why didn't he come to the farm?”
“My husband prevented that. He said you were on Beaver Island three
or four weeks ago, but you were now in the Fairy Isle. It was no lie.
He spoke in parables, but the other heard him literally. We let him
inquire of people in St. James. But no one had seen you since the
Saturday you came to the Tabernacle. So he is going back to Mackinac
to seek you. Your life will be decided in a quarter of an hour. Will
you go on that steamboat?”
“Throw myself on the mercy of a man who dared—_dared_ to break his
engagement, and who ought to be punished and put on probation, and
then refused! No, I cannot!”
“The minutes are slipping away.”
“Besides, I have nothing with me but the clothes I have on. And my
uncle's family—think of my uncle's family!”
“You can write to your uncle and have him send your baggage. I dare
not carry any messages. But I thought of what you would need to-night,
and put some things and some money in this satchel. They were mine.
Keep them all.”
Emeline took hold of the bag which Mary French shoved in her hand.
Their faces were indistinct to each other.
“For the first time in my life I have deceived my husband!”
“Oh, what shall I do—what shall I do?” cried the girl.
A steamer whistle at St. James dock sent its bellow rebounding from
tree to tree in the woods. Emeline seized Mary French and kissed her
violently on both cheeks. She snatched the bag and flew towards St.
James.
“Stop!” commanded the Prophet's wife.
She ran in pursuit, catching Emeline by the shoulders.
“You sha'n't go! What am I doing? Maybe robbing him of what is
necessary to his highest success! I am a fool—to think he might turn
back to me for consolation when you are gone—God forgive me such silly
fondness! I can't have a secret between him and myself—I will tell
him! You shall not go—and cause him a mortal hurt! Wait!—stop!—the
boat is gone! It's too late!”
“Let me loose!” struggled Emeline, wrenching herself away.
[Illustration: “‘LET ME LOOSE!’ STRUGGLED EMELINE”]
She ran on through the woods, and Mary French, snatching at garments
which eluded her, stumbled and fell on the damp path, gathering dead
leaves under her palms. The steamer's prolonged bellow covered her
voice.
Candles were lighted in St. James. The Tabernacle spread itself like
a great circular web dark with moisture. Emeline was conscious of
running across the gang-plank as a sailor stooped to draw it in. The
bell was ringing and the boat was already in motion. It sidled and
backed away from its moorings.
Emeline knelt panting at the rail on the forward deck. A flambeau
fastened to the wharf bowed its light to the wind as the boat swung
about, showing the King of Beaver smiling and waving his hand in
farewell. He did not see Emeline. His farewell was for the man whom
he had sent away without her. His golden hair and beard and blue eyes
floated into Emeline's past as the steamer receded, the powerful face
and lithe figure first losing their identity, and then merging into
night. What if it was true that she was robbing both him and herself
of the best life, as Mary French was smitten to believe at the last
moment? Her Gentile gorge rose against him, and the traditions of a
thousand years warred in her with nature; yet she stretched her hands
towards him in the darkness.
Then she heard a familiar voice, and knew that the old order of things
was returning, while Beaver Island, like a dream, went silently down
upon the waters.
Some years later, in the '50's, Emeline, sitting opposite her husband
at the breakfast-table, heard him announce from the morning paper:
“Murder of King Strang, the Mormon Prophet of Beaver Island.” All the
details of the affair, even the track of the bullets which crashed
into that golden head, were mercilessly printed. The reader, surprised
by a sob, dropped his paper.
“What! Are you crying, Mrs. Arnold?”
“It was so cruel!” sobbed Emeline. “And Billy Wentworth, like a
savage, helped to do it!”
“He had provocation, no doubt, though it is a horrid deed. Perhaps
I owe the King of Beaver the tribute of a tear. He befogged me
considerably the only time I ever met him.”
“You see only his evil. But I see what he was to Mary French and the
others.”
“His bereaved widows?”
“The ones who believed in his best.”
BEAVER LIGHTS
A magnificent fountain of flame, visible far out on the starlit lake,
spurted from the north end of Beaver Island. It was the temple, in
which the Mormon people had worshipped for the last time, sending
sparks and illumined vapor to the zenith. The village of St. James was
partly in ashes, and a blue pallor of smoke hung dimly over nearly
every hill and hollow, for Gentile fishermen crazed with drink and
power and long arrears of grievances had carried torch and axe from
farm to farm. Until noon of that day all householding families had
been driven to huddle with their cattle around the harbor dock and
forced to make pens for the cattle of lumber which had been piled
there for transportation. Unresisting as sheep they let themselves
be shipped on four small armed steamers sent by their enemies to
carry them into exile. Not one of the twelve elders who had received
the last instructions of their murdered king rose up to organize any
defence. Scarcely a month had passed since his wounding unto death,
and his withdrawal, like Arthur, in the arms of weeping women to that
spot in Wisconsin where he had found his sacred Voree plates or
tables of the law. Scarcely two weeks had passed since news came back
of his burial there. And already the Mormon settlement was swept off
Beaver Island.
Used to border warfare and to following their dominating prophet to
victory, they yet seemed unable to strike a blow without him. Such
non-resistance procured them nothing but contempt. They even submitted
to being compelled to destroy a cairn raised over the grave of one
considered a malefactor, carrying the heap stone by stone to throw
into the lake, Gentiles standing over them like Egyptian masters.
Little waves ran in rows of light, washing against the point on
the north side of the landlocked harbor. A primrose star was there
struggling aloft at the top of a rough rock tower. It was the fish-oil
flame of Beaver lamp, and the keeper sat on his door-sill at the
bottom of the light-house with his wife beside him.
The lowing of cattle missing their usual evening tendance came across
from the dock, a mournful accompaniment to the distant roaring of fire
and falling of timbers.
“Do you realize, Ludlow,” the young woman inquired, slipping her hand
into her husband's, “that I am now the only Mormon on Beaver Island?”
“You never were a very good Mormon, Cecilia. You didn't like the breed
any better than I did, though there were good people among them.”
“Will they lose all their cattle, Ludlow?”
“The cattle are safe enough,” he laughed. “The men that are doing this
transporting will take the cattle. None of our Mormon friends will
ever see a hoof from Beaver Island again.”
“But it seems robbery to drive them off and seize their property.”
“That's the way King Strang took Beaver from the Gentiles in the first
place. Mormons and Gentiles can't live together.”
“We can.”
“I told you that you were a poor Mormon, Cecilia. And from first to
last I opposed my family's entering the community. Tithes and meddling
sent my father out of it a poor man. But I'm glad he went before this;
and your people, too.”
She drew a deep breath. “Oh yes! They're safe in Green Bay. I couldn't
endure to have them on those steamers going down the lake to-night.
What will become of the community, Ludlow?”
“God knows. They'll be landed at Chicago and turned adrift on the
world. I'm glad they're away from here. I've no cause to love them,
but I was afraid they would be butchered like sheep. Your father and
my father, if they had still been elders on the island, wouldn't
have submitted, as these folks did, to abuse and exile and the loss
of everything they had in the world. I can't understand it of some
of them. There was Jim Baker, for instance; I'd have sworn he would
fight.”
“I can understand why he didn't. He hasn't taken any interest since
his second marriage.”
“Now, that was a nice piece of work! I always liked Jim the best of
any of the young men until he did that. And what inducement was there
in the woman?”
The light-house keeper's wife fired up. “What inducement there was for
him ever to marry Rosanne I couldn't see. And I know Elizabeth Aiken
loved him when we were girls together.”
“And didn't Rosanne?”
“Oh—Rosanne! A roly-poly spoiled young one, that never will be a
woman! Elizabeth is noble.”
“You're fond of Elizabeth because she was witness to our secret
marriage when King Strang wouldn't let me have you. I liked Jim for
the same reason. Do you mind how we four slipped one at a time up the
back stairs in my father's house that night, while the young folks
were dancing below?”
“I mind we picked Elizabeth because Rosanne would be sure to blab,
even if she had to suffer herself for it. How scared the poor elder
was!”
“We did him a good turn when we got him to marry us. He'd be on one
of the steamers bound for nowhere, to-night, instead of snug at Green
Bay, if we hadn't started him on the road to what King Strang called
disaffection.”
The light-house keeper jumped up and ran out on the point, his wife
following him in nervous dread.
“What is the matter, Ludlow?”
Their feet crunched gravel and paused where ripples still ran in,
endlessly bringing lines of dimmer and dimmer light. A rocking boat
was tied to a stake. Anchored and bare-masted, farther out in the
mouth of the bay, a fishing-smack tilted slightly in rhythmic motion.
While they stood a touch of crimson replaced the sky light in the
water, and great blots like blood soaking into the bay were reflected
from the fire. The burning temple now seemed to rise a lofty tower
of flame against the horizon. Figures could be seen passing back and
forth in front of it, and shouts of fishermen came down the peninsula.
The King's printing-office where the _Northern Islander_ was once
issued as a daily had smouldered down out of the way. It was the first
place to which they had set torch.
“I thought I heard some one running up the sail on our sail-boat,”
said the light-house keeper. “No telling what these fellows may do. If
they go to meddling with me in my little Government office, they'll
find me as stubborn as the Mormons did.”
“Oh, Ludlow, look at the tabernacle, like a big red-hot cheese-box on
the high ground! Think of the coronation there on the first King's
Day!”
The light-house keeper's wife was again in imagination a long-limbed
girl of fifteen, crowding into the temple to witness such a ceremony
as was celebrated on no other spot of the New World. The King of
Beaver, in a crimson robe, walked the temple aisle, followed by
his council, his twelve elders, and seventy ministers of the minor
order. In the presence of a hushed multitude he was anointed, and
a crown with a cluster of projecting stars was set on his golden
head. Hails and shouts, music of marching singers and the strewing
of flowers went before him into the leafy July woods. Thus King's
Day was established and annually observed on the 8th of July. It
began with burnt-offerings. The head of each family was required to
bring a chicken. A heifer was killed and carefully cut up without
breaking a bone; and, while the smoke of sacrifice arose, feasting and
dancing began, and lasted until sunset. Firstlings of flocks and the
first-fruits of orchard and field were ordained the King's; and he
also claimed one-tenth of each man's possessions. The Mosaic law was
set up in Beaver Island, even to the stoning of rebellious children.
The smoke of a sacrificed people was now reeking on Beaver. This
singular man's French ancestry—for he was descended from Henri de
L'Estrange, who came to the New World with the Duke of York—doubtless
gave him the passion for picturesqueness and the spiritual grasp on
his isolated kingdom which keeps him still a notable and unforgotten
figure.
“It makes me feel bad to see so much destruction,” the young man said
to his wife; “though I offered to go with Billy Wentworth to shoot
Strang if nobody else was willing. I knew I was marked, and sooner or
later I would disappear if he continued to govern this island. But
with all his faults he was a man. He could fight; and whip. He'd have
sunk every steamer in the harbor to-day.”
“It's heavy on my heart, Ludlow—it's dreadful! Neighbors and friends
that we shall never see again!”
The young man caught his wife by the arm. They both heard the swift
beat of footsteps flying down the peninsula. Cecilia drew in her
breath and crowded against her husband. A figure came into view and
identified itself, leaping in bisected draperies across an open space
to the light-house door.
“Why, Rosanne!” exclaimed the keeper's wife. She continued to say
“Why, Rosanne! Why, Rosanne Baker!” after she had herself run into the
house and lighted a candle.
She set the candle on the chimney. It showed her rock-built domicile,
plain but dignified, like the hollow of a cavern, with blue china
on the cupboard shelves and a spinning-wheel standing by the north
wall. A corner staircase led to the second story of the tower, and
on its lowest step the fugitive dropped down, weeping and panting.
She was peculiarly dressed in the calico bloomers which the King of
Beaver had latterly decreed for the women of his kingdom. Her trim
legs and little feet, cased in strong shoes, appeared below the baggy
trousers. The upper part of her person, her almond eyes, round curves
and features were full of Oriental suggestions. Some sweet inmate of
a harem might so have materialized, bruising her softness against the
hard stair.
“Why, Rosanne Baker!” her hostess reiterated. Cecilia did not wear
bloomers. She stood erect in petticoats. “I thought you went on one of
the boats!”
“I didn't,” sobbed Rosanne. “When they were crowding us on I slipped
among the lumber piles and hid. I've been hid all day, lying flat
between boards—on top where they couldn't see me.”
“Suppose the lumber had been set on fire, too! And you haven't had
anything to eat?”
“I don't want to eat. I'm only frightened to death at the wicked
Gentiles burning the island. I couldn't stay there all night, so I got
down and ran to your house.”
“Of course, you poor child! But, Rosanne, where's your husband?”
The trembling creature stiffened herself and looked at Cecilia out of
the corners of her long eyes. “He's with Elizabeth Aiken.”
The only wife of one husband did not know how to take hold of this
subject.
“But your father was there,” she suggested. “How could you leave your
father and run the risk of never seeing him again?”
“I don't care if I never see him again. He said he was so discouraged
he didn't care what became of any of us.”
Cecilia was going to plead the cause of domestic affection further,
but she saw that four step-mothers could easily be given up. She
turned helplessly to her husband who stood in the door.
“Poor thing! Ludlow, what in the world shall we do?”
“Put her to bed.”
“Of course, Ludlow. But will anybody hurt you to-morrow?”
“There are two good guns on the rack over the chimney. I don't think
anybody will hurt me or her either, to-morrow.”
“Rosanne, my dear,” said Cecilia, trying to lift the relaxed soft body
and to open the stairway door behind her. “Come up with me right off.
I think you better be where people cannot look in at us.”
Rosanne yielded and stumbled to her feet, clinging to her friend.
When they disappeared the young man heard her through the stairway
enclosure sobbing with convulsive gasps:
“I hate Elizabeth Aiken! I wish they would kill Elizabeth Aiken! I
hate her—I hate her!”
The light-house-keeper sat down again on his doorstep and faced the
prospect of taking care of a homeless Mormon. It appeared to him that
his wife had not warmly enough welcomed her or met the situation with
that recklessness one needed on Beaver Island. The tabernacle began to
burn lower, brands streaming away in the current which a fire makes.
It was strange to be more conscious of inland doings than of that
vast unsalted sea so near him, which moistened his hair with vaporous
drifts through the darkness. The garnet redness of the temple shed
a huger amphitheatre of shine around itself. A taste of acrid smoke
was on his lips. He was considering that drunken fishermen might
presently begin to rove, and he would be wiser to go in and shut the
house and put out his candle, when by stealthy approaches around the
light-house two persons stood before him.
“Is Ludlow here?” inquired a voice which he knew.
“I'm here, Jim! Are all the Mormons coming back?”
“Is Rosanne in your house?”
“Rosanne is here; up-stairs with Cecilia. Come inside, Jim. Have you
Elizabeth with you?”
“Yes, I have Elizabeth with me.”
The three entered together. Ludlow shut the door and dropped an iron
bar across it. The young men standing opposite were of nearly the same
age; but one was fearless and free and the other harassed and haggard.
Out-door labor and the skill of the fisheries had given to both depth
of chest and clean, muscular limbs. But James Baker had the desperate
and hunted look of a fugitive from justice. He was fair, of the
strong-featured, blue-eyed type that has pale chestnut-colored hair
clinging close to a well-domed head.
“Yes, Rosanne is here,” Ludlow repeated. “Now will you tell me how you
got here?”
“I rowed back in a boat.”
“Who let you have a boat?”
“There were sailors on the steamer. After I found Rosanne was left
behind I would have had a boat or killed the man that prevented me. I
had to wait out on the lake until it got dark. I knew your wife would
take care of her. I told myself that when I couldn't find any chance
to land in St. James's Bay until sunset.”
“She's been hiding in the lumber on the dock all day.”
“Did any one hurt her?”
“Evidently not.”
The Mormon husband's face cleared with a convulsion which in woman
would have been a relieving burst of tears.
“Sit down, Elizabeth,” said the lighthouse-keeper. “You look fit to
fall.”
“Yes, sit down, Elizabeth,” James Baker repeated, turning to her with
secondary interest. But she remained standing, a tall Greek figure in
bloomers, so sure of pose that drapery or its lack was an accident
of which the eye took no account. She had pushed her soft brown
hair, dampened by the lake, behind her ears. They showed delicately
against the two shining masses. Her forehead and chin were of noble
and courageous shape. If there was fault, it was in the breadth and
height of brows masterful rather than feminine. She had not one
delicious sensuous charm to lure man. Her large eyes were blotted with
a hopeless blankness. She waited to see what would be done next.
“Now I'll tell you,” said Baker to his friend, with decision, “I'm not
going to bring the howling Gentiles around you.”
“I don't care whether they come or not.”
“I know you don't. It isn't necessary in such a time as this for you
and me to look back.”
“I told you at the time I wouldn't forget it, Jim. You stood by me
when I married Cecilia in the teeth of the Mormons, and I'll stand by
you through any mob of Gentiles. My sail-boat's out yonder, and it's
yours as long as you want it; and we'll provision it.”
“That's what I was going to ask, Ludlow.”
“If I were you I'd put for Green Bay. Old neighbors are there, my
father among them.”
“That was my plan!”
“But,” Ludlow added, turning his thumb over his shoulder with
embarrassment, “they're all Gentiles in Green Bay.”
“Elizabeth and I talked it over in the boat. I told her the truth
before God. We've agreed to live apart. Ludlow, I never wanted any
wife but Rosanne, and I don't want any wife but Rosanne now. You
don't know how it happened; I was first of the young men called on to
set an example. Brother Strang could bring a pressure to bear that
it was impossible to resist. He might have threatened till doomsday.
But I don't know what he did with me. I told him it wasn't treating
Elizabeth fair. Still, I married her according to Saints' law, and I
consider myself bound by my pledge to provide for her. She's a good
girl. She has no one to look to but me. And I'm not going to turn her
off to shift for herself if the whole United States musters against
me.”
“Now you talk like a man. I think better of you than I have for a
couple of weeks past.”
“It ought to make me mad to be run off of Beaver. But I couldn't take
any interest. May I see Rosanne?”
“Go right up-stairs. Cecilia took her up to put her to bed. The walls
and floors are thick here or she would have heard your voice.”