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CHARLEMONT;
OR,
THE PRIDE OF THE VILLAGE
A TALE OF KENTUCKY.
BY W. GILMORE SIMMS,
[Illustration: no caption, but contains the word Charlemont. Two men are
riding a horse and a woman stands nearby.]
“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 PIONEERS 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.