The Mormon Prophet, Lily Dougall [young adult books to read TXT] 📗

of Nauvoo; and he had his own party in the sacred city, and they up and put their scandals in the public print in the prophet's own city.

"But the prophet he rose up and shook himself, like Samson when his arms were tied with the withes, and he denounced the wickedness, and went to the house where the paper was published, and kicked the printing press down himself, and burned the paper. And that day he preached most powerful in the Nauvoo Temple."

"We heard that it was on account of the illegality of his action in the printing office that the people of Illinois arrested him."

The stranger did not answer directly. His mind had passed on to scenes which had stirred him more personally.

"I was in the city all the time. The Government of Illinois sent to arrest Mr. Smith, but his people rallied round him, and said that in consequence of the lawless persecutions that had passed in Missouri they had a right to mistrust the justice of the State. They called out the Nauvoo Legion, and sent back the constables that had come from Carthage. That made the Gentiles terribly angry. The Illinois militiamen went about saying openly that they would burn down the town and kill every man, woman, and child in it. So then Governor Ford himself advised our prophet to keep the Legion under arms, for he said the Gentiles were so furious; but he asked the prophet to go to Carthage and pledge himself to appear for the trial when it came on, for it was a civil suit, and no harm could come to him and his. Governor Ford pledged his honour as the Governor of the State.

"I had been waiting about the town until the prophet should be less bothered before asking him to heal my sickness, but when I heard that he was going away, then I misdoubted that it would be long before he came back. I thought I'd make a push for it, so I went and hung round the door of the prophet's house. I was only a poor man and I did not like to go in, for the bishops and elders and all the grand folks were going in and out all that day. I heard the things they said, and most of them were saying that the prophet had had a vision, and that if he went to Carthage he would never come back alive. They said too that if he stayed, the town would be sacked, and I understood that they were asking him to run away. Towards evening I saw a buggy draw up at the back door of the hotel, and all the elders seemed to be holding a meeting, for they were singing hymns; so then it just come to me that they were going to get the prophet off, and I ran down the road to the ferry, for I knew he would have to go that way. I waited in the boat, and the same buggy came down to it, and a man with a cloak on and his hat over his eyes came out and sat in the corner of the boat, and we all knew that it was the prophet, and none of us durst speak to him. But I went over in the boat, for I hoped I'd get up courage to ask him when we came to the other side. When he stood on the shore he seemed like a man that didn't know what to do, although there was horses there for him to take, and he turned round and went off the road up on to a little hill; and I went after him a bit of the way behind, and I came and found him just standing looking at the city, for the river swept round two sides of it so noble like, and blue as the sky above, and the city stood all white, and the temple stood high in the middle, and all of it glistened in the sun. The prophet had taken off his hat, and he stood with his hands folded on the stick he carried, and he just looked and looked at the city. I had never seen a man look like that but once before, and then it was a man I knew whose wife died, and he looked at her face just steadfast like that. I couldn't think to speak to him about myself just then, although I'd got him alone, for my heart was just broke to see how sad he looked, and him just in the prime of life; for it was his own city, and the sound of all its work came over to us as we stood there, and the thousands and thousands of happy homes in it belonged to his own people.

"But when I moved a bit he saw me, and he started at first as if I'd been going to shoot him, thinking no doubt that I was an enemy spying on him. At that, because my disease had weakened me, and because I seemed to feel nothing all through me but the grief that he was bearing, I began to cry like a child.

"Then he stretched out his hands towards the city and I heard him say, 'My Lord, thou hast given me this people, and if I leave them without a shepherd they will be stricken and scattered and robbed by the destroyer.'

"So then in a few minutes he held out his hand to me, so gentlemanlike, as if I was as good as him, and he said, 'Come, my friend, let us go back, and let God determine what we shall do or suffer.' So we went and got on the ferry-boat and went back, and I never spoke to him; but I went with him all the way to his house.

"The next morning I heard that he and Mr. Hyrum were going to set off for Carthage to be tried. So I got a horse and went to Carthage before them, for I felt then that I cared for nothing but to see the prophet again. But I heard tell how, as they went along, their wives and their friends went with them part way, and they turned back two or three times as they were parting from them, for the prophet said that they would never see his face again.

"Governor Ford he met them at Carthage with a great to-do. He pledged the honour of the State that they should be safe, and he had the troops drawn upon either side, and he passed down between them with the prophet and Mr. Hyrum and showed them himself into the gaol. The prophet said that it was illegal to put them in the gaol, for it was a civil matter, and Governor Ford said, for I heard him, that it was because they would be safer there. I was standing just behind the line of soldiers jostling up with the crowd, and I heard the Governor say, 'I pledge you my honour, and the faith and honour of this State, that no harm shall come to you while undergoing this imprisonment.' So then they were shut in; but the crowd and the soldiers remained in the streets, and I heard enough to know that harm would come.

"The next morning the Governor went away from Carthage, to be out of it, and that day, in the afternoon, a mob of men with faces painted like Indians came out with guns, and we knew that their purpose was to murder the prophet. I went to the gaol and sat upon the steps, and the militia, which was called the Carthage Greys, came out, and halted, about eight rods from the gaol, and I thought at first that they would fire on the mob when they came, but they never moved, but stood and looked on. So the murder was done by them all in cold blood as well as by the mob."

"Did you see him die?" asked Susannah with white lips.

"If he was a relation of yours, ma'am, I can tell you that he died like a man. First I thought that I would spend what little strength I had left in fighting the mob at the door, and that they should not go in except over my body; but the gaoler opened the door in pretence of finding out what was the matter, for he was in the plot; so I thought that I would run up and give warning. But by the time I got to the door of the upper room where the prophet was, the mob was up behind me, so I never rightly knew what I did, for they knocked me down just within the room. There were four or five men with the prophet and Mr. Hyrum, and these kept the mob back for a few minutes at the door, but a bullet hit Mr. Hyrum in the head, and I saw the prophet leaning over him, and he said in a voice that was very sad, 'My dear, dear brother!'

"Then the prophet stood up quite calmly and pulled out a pistol and shot at the mob until all its barrels were discharged. His firing made the men hold back, for a good number of the mob were struck. Then they came on again until the door was literally full with muskets and rifles, but I was lying on the floor below the shots, so I saw them pass over my head. The very walls were riddled with them, and the prophet stood in the midst of the shots and threw up his hands towards heaven and cried, 'O Lord, my God.' Then, not knowing what he did, he staggered to the window, dying from his wounds, and he fell outside the window, and I heard that the mob out there propped up his body and used it for a target."

Susannah rose up with clenched hands and pitiful face, but she went out of the room, leaving the two men together. "Were you injured?" asked Ephraim of the stranger.

"Well, sir, I was bruised by being trampled on, but the gaoler got hold of me and dragged me into an iron cell and locked me in, and the next morning he came and let me out."

"That was a year ago," said Ephraim. "Have you been in Nauvoo since then?"

"Yes, I went back. I wanted to know, sir, what would come, and take my share of the suffering after seeing the prophet die so courageous; but, sir, the Church is sorely divided. I didn't like to say it before your lady, for I see that she's got some one she cares for amongst us, but there's a strong party among the apostles and elders that are worshippers of Baal, and are most evil in their conduct and practice, and are apostate, though they call themselves followers of the prophet. And Mr. Brigham Young is at the head of them. It's a bad thing that the Illinois militia is set out to fight against us and turn us out of the city without mercy, but it's a sorer thing that the greater part of our people, being ignorant, will follow Mr. Brigham Young; and he's bent on going west, sir, into the heart of the Rocky Mountains, where he can set up a kingdom of his own. His teaching is against good doctrine in two respects; he says that they will wax strong there until they can avenge the blood of their brethren who have been hunted and slain, and that the elders and apostles will live like the patriarchs of old, and have many wives, in order