Charlemont

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Charles Aldarondo, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading
Team.

[Illustration: no caption, but contains the word Charlemont. Two
men are riding a horse and a woman stands nearby.]

CHARLEMONT;

OR,

THE PRIDE OF THE VILLAGE

A TALE OF KENTUCKY.

BY W. GILMORE SIMMS,

"Nor will I be secure.
In any confidence of mine own strength,
For such security is oft the mother
Of negligence, and that, the occasion
Of unremedy'd ruin."

Microcosmus--THO. NABBES.

TO THE HON. JAMES HALL, OF CINCINNATI:

AS ONE OF THE ABLEST OF OUR LITERARY PIONEEERS A GENUINE REPRESENTATIVE
OF THE GREAT WEST;

WHOSE WRITINGS EQUALLY ILLUSTRATE HER HISTORY AND GENIUS:

this story of "CHARLEMONT," and its Sequel "BEAUCHAMPE" are
respectfully inscribed by

THEIR AUTHOR

ADVERTISEMENT

The domestic legend which follows, is founded upon actual events of
comparatively recent occurrence in the state of Kentucky. However
strange the facts may appear in the sequel--however in conflict with
what are usually supposed to be the sensibilities and characteristics
of woman--they are yet unquestionably true; most of them having
been conclusively established, by the best testimony, before a
court of justice. Very terrible, indeed, was the tragedy to which
they conducted--one that startled the whole country when it took
place, and the mournful interest of which will long be remembered.
More on this subject need not be mentioned here. The narrative,
it is hoped, will satisfy all the curiosity of the reader. It has
been very carefully prepared from and according to the evidence;
the art of the romancer being held in close subjection to the
historical authorities. I have furnished only the necessary details
which would fill such blanks in the story as are of domestic
character; taking care that these should accord, in all cases, with
the despotic facts. In respect to these, I have seldom appealed to
invention. It is in the delineation and development of character,
only, that I have made free to furnish scenes, such as appeared to
me calculated to perfect the portraits, and the better to reconcile
the reader to real occurrences, which, in their original nakedness,
however unquestionably true, might incur the risk of being thought
improbabilities.

The reflections which will be most likely to arise from the
perusal of such a history, lead us to a consideration of the social
characteristics of the time and region, and to a consideration of
the facility with which access to society is afforded by the manners
and habits of our forest population. It is in all newly-settled
countries, as among the rustic population of most nations, that the
absence of the compensative resources of wealth leads to a singular
and unreserved freedom among the people. In this way, society
endeavors to find equivalents for those means of enjoyment which
a wealthy people may procure from travel, from luxury, from the
arts, and the thousand comforts of a well-provided homestead. The
population of a frontier country, lacking such resources, scattered
over a large territory, and meeting infrequently, feel the lack of
social intercourse; and this lack tends to break down most of the
barriers which a strict convention usually establishes for the
protection, not only of sex and caste, but of its own tastes and
prejudices. Lacking the resources of superior wealth, population,
and civilization, the frontier people are naturally required to
throw the doors open as widely as possible, in order to obtain that
intercourse with their fellows which is, perhaps, the first great
craving of humanity. As a matter of necessity, there is little
discrimination exercised in the admission of their guests. A specious
outside, agreeable manners, cleverness and good humor, will soon
make their way into confidence, without requiring other guaranties
for the moral of the stranger. The people are naturally frank and
hospitable; for the simple reason that these qualities of character
are essential for procuring them that intercourse which they crave.
The habits are accessible, the restraints few, the sympathies are
genial, active, easily aroused, and very confiding. It follows,
naturally, that they are frequently wronged and outraged, and just
as naturally that their resentments are keen, eager, and vindictive.
The self-esteem, if not watchful, is revengeful; and society sanctions
promptly the fierce redress--that wild justice of revenge--which
punishes without appeal to law, with its own right hand, the
treacherous guest who has abused the unsuspecting confidence which
welcomed him to a seat upon the sacred hearth. In this brief portrait
of the morale of society, upon our frontiers, you will find the
materiel from which this story has been drawn, and its justification,
as a correct delineation of border life in one of its more settled
phases in the new states. The social description of Charlemont
exhibits, perhaps, a THIRD advance in our forest civilization, from
the original settlement.

It is not less the characteristic of these regions to exhibit
the passions and the talents of the people in equal and wonderful
saliency. We are accordingly struck with two classes of social
facts, which do not often arrest the attention in old communities.
We see, for example, the most singular combination of simplicity and
sagacity in the same person; simplicity in conventional respects,
and sagacity in all that affects the absolute and real in life,
nature and the human sensibilities. The rude man, easily imposed
upon, in his faith, fierce as an outlaw in his conflicts with men,
will be yet exquisitely alive to the nicest consciousness of woman;
will as delicately appreciate her instincts and sensibilities, as
if love and poetry had been his only tutors from the first, and
had mainly addressed their labors to this one object of the higher
heart, education; and in due degree with the tenderness with
which he will regard the sex, will be the vindictive ferocity with
which--even though no kinsman--he will pursue the offender who has
dared to outrage them in the case of any individual. In due degree
as his faith is easy will his revenges be extreme. In due degree as
he is slow to suspect the wrong-doer, will be the tenacity of his
pursuit when the offender requires punishment. He seems to throw
wide his heart and habitation, but you must beware how you trespass
upon the securities of either.

The other is a mental characteristic which leads to frequent
surprises among strangers from the distant cities. It consists in
the wonderful inequality between his mental and social development.
The same person who will be regarded as a boor in good society, will
yet exhibit a rapidity and profundity of thought and intelligence--a
depth and soundness of judgment--an acuteness in discrimination--a
logical accuracy, and critical analysis, such as mere good society
rarely shows, and such as books almost as rarely teach. There will
be a deficiency of refinement, taste, art--all that the polished
world values so highly--and which it seems to cherish and encourage
to the partial repudiation of the more essential properties of
intellect. However surprising this characteristic may appear, it
may yet be easily accounted for by the very simplicity of a training
which results in great directness and force of character--a frank
heartiness of aim and object--a truthfulness of object which
suffers the thoughts to turn neither to the right hand nor to the
left, but to press forward decisively to the one object--a determined
will, and a restless instinct--which, conscious of the deficiencies
of wealth and position, is yet perpetually seeking to supply them
from the resources within its reach. These characteristics will
be found illustrated in the present legend, an object which it
somewhat contemplates, apart from the mere story with which they
are interwoven.

A few words more in respect to our heroine, Margaret Cooper. It
is our hope and belief, that she will be found a real character by
most of our readers. She is drawn from the life, and with a severe
regard to the absolute features of the original. In these days of
"strong-minded women," even more certainly than when the portrait
was first taken, the identity of the sketch with its original will
be sure of recognition. Her character and career will illustrate
most of the mistakes which are made by that ambitious class, among
the gentler sex, who are now seeking so earnestly to pass out from
that province of humiliation to which the sex has been circumscribed
from the first moment of recorded history. What she will gain by
the motion, if successful, might very well be left to time, were
it not that the proposed change in her condition threatens fatally
some of her own and the best securities of humanity. We may admit,
and cheerfully do so, that she might, with propriety, be allowed
some additional legal privileges of a domestic sort. But the great
object of attainment, which is the more serious need of the sex--her
own more full development as a responsible being--seems mainly
to depend upon herself, and upon self-education. The great first
duty of woman is in her becoming the mother of men; and this duty
implies her proper capacity for the education and training of the
young. To fit her properly for this duty, her education should become
more elevated, and more severe in degree with its elevation. But
the argument is one of too grave, too intricate, and excursive
a character, to be attempted here. It belongs to a very different
connection. It is enough, in this place, to say that Margaret Cooper
possesses just the sort of endowment to make a woman anxious to
pass the guardian boundaries which hedge in her sex--her danger
corresponds with her desires. Her securities, with such endowments,
and such a nature, can only be found in a strict and appropriate
education, such as woman seldom receives anywhere, and less, perhaps,
in this country than in any other. To train fully the feminine
mind, without in any degree impairing her susceptibilities and
sensibilities, seems at once the necessity and the difficulty of
the subject. Her very influence over man lies in her sensibilities.
It will be to her a perilous fall from pride of place, and power,
when, goaded by an insane ambition, in the extreme development of
her mere intellect, she shall forfeit a single one of these securities
of her sex.

CHAPTER I.

THE SCENE.

The stormy and rugged winds of March were overblown--the first
fresh smiling days of April had come at last--the days of sunshine
and shower, of fitful breezes, the breath of blossoms, and the
newly-awakened song of birds. Spring was there in all the green
and glory of her youth, and the bosom of Kentucky heaved with the
prolific burden of the season. She had come, and her messengers
were everywhere, and everywhere busy. The birds bore her gladsome
tidings to

"Alley green,
Dingle or bushy dell of each wild wood,
And every bosky bourn from side to side--"

nor were the lately-trodden and seared grasses of the forests left
unnoted; and the humbled flower of the wayside sprang up at her
summons. Like some loyal and devoted people, gathered to hail the
approach of a long-exiled and well-beloved sovereign, they crowded
upon the path over which she came, and yielded themselves with
gladness at her feet. The mingled songs and sounds of their rejoicing
might be heard, and far-off murmurs of gratulation, rising from the
distant hollows, or coming faintly over the hill-tops, in accents
not the lees pleasing because they were the less distinct. That
lovely presence which makes every land blossom, and every living
thing rejoice, met, in the happy region in which we meet her now,
a double tribute of honor and rejoicing.

The "dark and bloody ground," by which mournful epithets Kentucky
was originally known to the Anglo-American, was dark and bloody
no longer. The savage had disappeared from its green forests for
ever, and no longer profaned with slaughter, and his unholy whoop
of death, its broad and beautiful abodes. A newer race had succeeded;
and the wilderness, fulfilling the better destinies of earth, had
begun to blossom like the rose. Conquest had fenced in its sterile
borders with a wall of fearless men, and peace slept everywhere in
security among its green recesses. Stirring industry--the perpetual
conqueror--made the woods resound with the echoes of his biting
axe and ringing hammer. Smiling villages rose in cheerful white,
in place of the crumbling and smoky cabins of the hunter. High
and becoming purposes of social life and thoughtful enterprise
superseded that eating and painful decay, which has terminated in
the annihilation of the red man; and which, among every people,
must always result from their refusal to exercise, according to
the decree of experience, no less than Providence, their limbs and
sinews in tasks of well-directed and continual labor.

A great nation urging on a sleepless war against sloth and feebleness,
is one of the noblest of human spectacles. This warfare was rapidly
and hourly changing the monotony and dreary aspects of rock and
forest. Under the creative hands of art, temples of magnificence
rose where the pines had fallen. Long and lovely vistas were opened
through the dark and hitherto impervious thickets. The city sprang
up beside the river, while hamlets, filled with active hope and
cheerful industry, crowded upon the verdant hill-side, and clustered
among innumerable valleys Grace began to seek out the homes of
toil, and taste supplied their decorations. A purer form of religion
hallowed the forest-homes of the red-man, while expelling for ever
the rude divinities of his worship; and throughout the land, an
advent of moral loveliness seemed approaching, not less grateful
to the affections and the mind, than was the beauty of the infant
April, to the eye and the heart of the wanderer.

But something was still wanting to complete the harmonies of nature,
in the scene upon which we are about to enter. Though the savage
had for ever departed from its limits, the blessings of a perfect
civilization were not yet secured to the new and flourishing regions
of Kentucky. Its morals were still in that fermenting condition
which invariably distinguishes the settlement of every new country
by a various and foreign people. At the distant period of which we
write, the population of Kentucky had not yet become sufficiently
stationary to have made their domestic gods secure, or to have
fixed the proper lines and limits regulating social intercourse
and attaching precise standards to human conduct. The habits and
passions of the first settlers--those fearless pioneers who had
struggled foot to foot with the Indian, and lived in a kindred
state of barbarity with him, had not yet ceased to have influence
over the numerous race which followed them. That moral amalgam
which we call society, and which recognises a mutual and perfectly
equal condition of dependence, and a common necessity, as the great
cementing principles of the human family, had not yet taken place;
and it was still too much the custom, in that otherwise lovely
region, for the wild man to revenge his own wrong, and the strong
man to commit a greater with impunity. The repose of social order
was not yet secured to the great mass, covering with its wing,
as with a sky that never knew a cloud, the sweet homes and secure
possessions of the unwarlike. The fierce robber sometimes smote
the peaceful traveler upon the highway, and the wily assassin of
reputation, within the limits of the city barrier, not unfrequently
plucked the sweetest rose that ever adorned the virgin bosom
of innocence, and triumphed, without censure, in the unhallowed
spoliation.

But sometimes there came an avenger;--and the highway robber fell
before the unexpected patriot; and the virgin was avenged by the
yet beardless hero, for the wrong of her cruel seducer. The story
which we have to tell, is of times and of actions such as these.
It is a melancholy narrative--the more melancholy as it is most
certainly true. It will not be told in vain, if the crime which
it describes in proper colors, and the vengeance by which it was
followed, and which it equally records, shall secure the innocent
from harm, and discourage the incipient wrongdoer from his base
designs.

CHAPTER II.

THE TRAVELLERS.

Let the traveller stand with us on the top of this rugged eminence,
and look down upon the scene below. Around us, the hills gather
in groups on every side, a family cluster, each of which wears the
same general likeness to that on which we stand, yet there is no
monotony in their aspect. The axe has not yet deprived them of a
single tree, and they rise up, covered with the honored growth of
a thousand summers. But they seem not half so venerable. They wear,
in this invigorating season, all the green, fresh features of youth
and spring. The leaves cover the rugged Limbs which sustain them,
with so much ease and grace, as if for the first time they were
so green and glossy, and as if the impression should be made more
certain and complete, the gusty wind of March has scattered abroad
and borne afar, all the yellow garments of the vanished winter.
The wild flowers begin to flaunt their blue and crimson draperies
about us, as if conscious that they are borne upon the bosom
of undecaying beauty; and the spot so marked and hallowed by each
charming variety of bud and blossom, would seem to have been a
selected dwelling for the queenly Spring herself.

Man, mindful of those tastes and sensibilities which in great part
constitute his claim to superiority over the brute, has not been
indifferent to the beauties of the place. In the winding hollows
of these hills, beginning at our feet, you see the first signs of
as lovely a little hamlet as ever promised peace to the weary and
the discontent. This is the village of Charlemont.

A dozen snug and smiling cottages seem to have been dropped in
this natural cup, as if by a spell of magic. They appear, each of
them, to fill a fitted place--not equally distant from, but equally
near each other. Though distinguished, each by an individual feature,
there is yet no great dissimilarity among them. All are small, and
none of them distinguished by architectural pretension. They are
now quite as flourishing as when first built, and their number has
had no increase since the village was first settled. Speculation
has not made it populous and prosperous, by destroying its repose,
stifling its charities, and abridging the sedate habits and comforts
of its people. The houses, though constructed after the fashion
of the country, of heavy and ill-squared logs, roughly hewn, and
hastily thrown together, perhaps by unpractised hands, are yet made
cheerful by that tidy industry which is always sure to make them
comfortable also. Trim hedges that run beside slender white palings,
surround and separate them from each other. Sometimes, as you see,
festoons of graceful flowers, and waving blossoms, distinguish
one dwelling from the rest, declaring its possession of some fair
tenant, whose hand and fancy have kept equal progress with habitual
industry; at the same time, some of them appear entirely without
the little garden of flowers and vegetables, which glimmers and
glitters in the rear or front of the greater number.

Such was Charlemont, at the date of our narrative. But the traveller
would vainly look, now, to find the place as we describe it. The
garden is no longer green with fruits and flowers--the festoons
no longer grace the lowly portals--the white palings are down and
blackening in the gloomy mould--the roofs have fallen, and silence
dwells lonely among the ruins,--the only inhabitant of the place.
It has no longer a human occupant.

"Something ails it now--the spot is cursed."

Why this fate has fallen upon so sweet an abiding place--why the
villagers should have deserted a spot, so quiet and so beautiful--it
does not fall within our present purpose to inquire. It was most
probably abandoned--not because of the unfruitfulness of the soil,
or the unhealthiness of the climate--for but few places on the bosom
of the earth, may be found either more fertile, more beautiful, or
more healthful--but in compliance with that feverish restlessness
of mood--that sleepless discontent of temper, which, perhaps, more
than any other quality, is the moral failing in the character of the
Anglo-American. The roving desires of his ancestor, which brought
him across the waters, have been transmitted without diminution--nay,
with large increase--to the son. The creatures of a new condition
of things, and new necessities, our people will follow out their
destiny. The restless energies which distinguish them, are, perhaps,
the contemplated characteristics which Providence has assigned
them, in order that they may the more effectually and soon, bring
into the use and occupation of a yet mightier people, the wilderness
of that new world in which their fortunes have been cast. Generation
is but the pioneer of generation, and the children of millions, more
gigantic and powerful than ourselves, shall yet smile to behold,
how feeble was the stroke made by our axe upon the towering trees
of their inheritance.

It was probably because of this characteristic of our people, that
Charlemont came in time to be deserted. The inhabitants were one
day surprised with tidings of more attractive regions in yet deeper
forests, and grew dissatisfied with their beautiful and secluded
valley. Such is the ready access to the American mind, in its
excitable state, of novelty and sudden impulse, that there needs but
few suggestions to persuade the forester to draw stakes, and remove
his tents, where the signs seem to be more numerous of sweeter
waters and more prolific fields. For a time, change has the power
which nature does not often exercise; and under its freshness,
the waters DO seem sweeter, and the stores of the wilderness, the
wild-honey and the locust, DO seem more abundant to the lip and
eye.

Where our cottagers went, and under what delusion, are utterly
unknown to us; nor is it important to our narrative that we should
inquire. Our knowledge of them is only desirable, while they were
in the flourishing condition in which they have been seen. It is
our trust that the novelty which seduced them from their homes, did
not fail them in its promises--that they may never have found, in
all their wanderings, a less lovely abiding-place, than that which
they abandoned. But change has its bitter, as well as its sweet,
and the fear is strong that the cottagers of Charlemont, in the
weary hours, when life's winter is approaching, will still and
vainly sigh after the once-despised enjoyments of their deserted
hamlet.

It was toward the close of one of those bright, tearful days in
April, of which we have briefly spoken, when a couple of travellers
on horseback, ascended the last hill looking down upon Charlemont.
One of these travellers had passed the middle period of life; the
other was, perhaps, just about to enter upon its heavy responsibilities,
and more active duties. The first wore the countenance of one
who had borne many sorrows, and borne them with that resignation,
which, while it proves the wisdom of the sufferer, is at the same
time, calculated to increase his benevolence. The expression of his
eye, was full of kindness and benignity, while that of his mouth,
with equal force, was indicative of a melancholy, as constant as
it was gentle and unobtrusive. A feeble smile played over his lips
while he spoke, that increased the sadness which it softened; as
the faint glimmer of the evening sunlight, upon the yellow leaves
of autumn, heightens the solemn tones in the rich coloring of the
still decaying forest.

The face of his companion, in many of its features, was in direct
contrast with his own. It was well formed, and, to the casual
glance, seemed no less handsome than intellectual. There was much
in it to win the regard of the young and superficial. An eye that
sparkled with fire, a mouth that glowed with animation--cheeks
warmly colored, and a contour full of vivacity, seemed to denote
properties of mind and heart equally valuable and attractive. Still,
a keen observer would have found something sinister, in the upward
glancing of the eye, at intervals, from the half-closed lids; and,
at such moments, there was a curling contempt upon the lips, which
seemed to denote a cynical and sarcastic turn of mind. A restless
movement of the same features seemed equally significant of caprice
of character, and a flexibility of moral; while the chin narrowed
too suddenly and became too sharp at the extremity, to persuade a
thorough physiognomist, that the owner could be either very noble
in his aims, or very generous in his sentiments. But as these
outward tokens can not well be considered authority in the work
of judgment, let events, which speak for themselves, determine the
true character of our travellers.

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