Page:Once a Week Volume 7.djvu/387

. 27, 1862.]

the light of a single tallow candle which flared aloft on a shelf in Peckaby’s shop, consecrated in more prosperous days to wares, but bare now, a large collected assemblage was regarding each other, with looks of eager interest. There could not have been less than thirty present, all crammed together in that little space of a few feet square. The first comers had taken their seats on the counters; the others stood as they could. Two or three men, just returned from their day’s labour, were there; but the crowd was chiefly composed of the weaker sex.

The attention of these people was concentrated on a little man who faced them, leaning against the wall at the back of the shop, and holding forth in a loud, persuasive tone. If you object to the term “holding forth,” you must blame Mrs. Duff: it is borrowed from her. She informed us, you may remember, that the stranger who met, and appeared to avoid Lionel Verner, was no other than a “missionary from Jerusalem,” taken with an anxiety for the souls of Deerham, and about to do what he could to convert them—“Brother Jarrum.”

Brother Jarrum had entered upon his work, conjointly with his entry upon Peckaby’s spare room. He held nightly meetings in Peckaby’s shop, and the news of his fame was spreading. Women of all ages flocked in to hear him—you know how impressionable they have the character of being. A sprinkling of men followed out of curiosity, of idleness, or from propensity to ridicule. Had Brother Jarrum proved to be a real missionary from Jerusalem—though, so far as my knowledge goes, such messengers from that city are not common—genuinely desirous of converting them from wrath to grace, I fear his audience would, after the first night or two, have fallen off considerably. This missionary, however, contrived both to keep his audience and to increase it; his promises partaking more of the mundane nature than do such promises in general. In point of fact, Brother Jarrum was an elder from a place that he was pleased to term “New Jerusalem:” in other words from the Salt Lake city.

It has been the fate of certain spots of England, more so than of most other parts of the world, to be favoured by periodical visits from these gentry. Deerham was now suffering under the infliction, and Brother Jarrum was doing all that lay in his power to convert half its population into Mormon proselytes. His peculiar doctrines it is of no consequence to transcribe; but some of his promises were so rich that it is a pity you should lose the treat of hearing them. They commenced with—husbands to all. Old or young, married or single, each was safe to be made the wife of one of these favoured prophets the instant she set foot in the new city. This of course was a very grand thing for the women—as you may know if you have any experience with them—especially for those who were getting on the shady side of forty, and had not changed their name. They, the women, gathered together and pressed into Peckaby’s shop, and stared at Brother Jarrum with eager eyes, and listened with strained ears, only looking off him to cast admiring glances one to another.

“Stars and snakes!” said Brother Jarrum, whose style of oratory was more peculiar than elegant, “what flounders me is, that the whole lot of you Britishers don’t migrate of yourselves to the desired city—the promised land—the Zion on the mountains. You stop here to pinch and toil and care, and quarrel one of another, and starve your children through having nothing to give ’em, when you might go out there to ease, to love, to peace, to plenty. It’s a charming city; what else should it be called the City of the Saints for? The houses have shady verandars round ’em, with sweet shrubs a-creeping up, and white posts and pillows to lean against. The bigger a household is, the more rooms it have got; not a lady there, if there was a hundred of ’em in family, but what’s got her own parlour and bedroom to herself, which no stranger thinks of going in at without knocking for leaf. All round and about these houses is productive gardens, trees and flowers for ornament, and fruits and green stuff to eat. There’s trees that they call cotton wood, and firs, and locusts, and balsams, and poplars, and pines, and acacias, some of ’em in blossom. A family may live for nothing upon the produce of their own ground. Vegetables is to be had for the cutting; their own cows gives the milk—such milk and butter as this poor place, Deerham, never saw—but the rich flavour’s imparted to ’em from the fine quality of the grass; and fruit you might feed upon till you got a surfeit. Grapes and peaches is all a hanging in clusters to the hand, only waiting to be plucked! Stars! my mouth’s watering now at the thoughts of ’em! I—”

“Please, sir, what did you say the name of the place was again?” interrupted a female voice.

“New Jerusalem,” replied Brother Jarrum. “It’s in the territory of Utah. On the maps and on the roads, and for them that have not awoke to the new light, it’s called the Great Salt Lake City; but, for us favoured saints, it’s New Jerusalem. It’s Zion—it’s Paradise—it’s anything beautiful you may like to call it. There’s a ball-room in it.”

This abrupt wind-up rather took some of the audience aback. A ball-room!

“A ball-room,” gravely repeated Brother Jarrum. “A public ball-room not far from a hundred feet long; and we have a theatre for the acting of plays; and we go for rides in winter in sleighs. Ah! did you think it was with us, out there, as it is with you in the old country? One’s days to be made up of labour, labour, labour; no interlude to it but starvation and the crying of children as can’t get nursed or fed! We like amusement; and we have it; dancing in particular. Our