rival's absence, we can not say, but he straightway became more
assiduous in his attentions to Margaret. He was also decidedly favored
by Captain Roberts and his wife, both of whom had been alarmed by the
violent character of Cutler. Time soon began to obscure the recollection
of the absent suitor, and Stone's delicate and considerate gallantry
rapidly gained ground in Margaret's affections. It was just one month
after Cutler's departure that his triumph was complete; she consented to
be his wife so soon as the minister who travelled on that circuit should
enter the neighborhood. But the good man had set out on his circuit only
the day before the consent was given, and it would probably be at least
a month before his return. In the meantime, Cutler might recross the
mountains, and Stone had seen quite enough of Margaret's capriciousness
to tremble for the safety of his conquest, should that event occur
before it was thoroughly secured.
This was embarrassing: but when a man is in earnest, expedients are
never wanting.
There was an old gentleman living a few miles from the valley, who had
once held the commission of a justice of the peace, and though he had
not exercised his functions, or even claimed his dignity, for several
years, Stone was advised that he retained his official power "until his
successor was appointed and qualified," and that, consequently, any
official act of his would be legal and valid. He was advised, moreover,
and truly, that even if the person performing the ceremony were not a
magistrate, a marriage would be lawful and binding upon the simple
"consent" of the parties, properly published and declared.
Full-freighted with the happy news, he posted away to Captain Roberts,
and without difficulty obtained his sanction. He then went to Margaret,
and, with the assistance of her mother, who stood in much dread of
Cutler's violence, succeeded in persuading her to consent. Without
delay, the _cidevant_ magistrate was called in, the ceremony was
performed, and Margaret was Stone's wife!
The very day after this event, Cutler returned! What were his thoughts
no one knew, for he spoke to none upon the subject. He went, however,
to see "the bride," and, in the presence of others, bantered her
pleasantly upon her new estate, upon his own pretensions, and upon the
haste with which the ceremony had been performed. He started away with
the rest of the company present; but, on reaching the door--it was
afterward remembered--pretended to have forgotten something, and ran
back into the room where they had left Margaret alone. Here he remained
full ten minutes, and when he came out walked thoughtfully apart and
disappeared. What he said to Margaret no one knew; but, that evening,
when they were alone, she asked anxiously of her husband, "whether he
was quite sure that their marriage had been legal?" Stone reassured her,
and nothing more was said upon the subject.
Cutler had brought with him, over the mountains, the proclamation of the
governor of Virginia, announcing the declaration of war, and calling
upon the state for its quota of troops to repel invasion. He manifested
a warm interest in the enrolling and equipment of volunteers, and, in
order to attest his sincerity, placed his own name first upon the roll.
A day or two afterward, on meeting Stone, in the presence of several
others who had enrolled themselves, he laughingly observed, that the new
bridegroom "was probably too comfortable at home, to desire any
experience in campaigning:" and, turning away, he left the company
laughing at Stone's expense.
This touched the young man's pride--probably the more closely, because
he was conscious that the insinuation was not wholly void of truth--and,
without a moment's hesitation, he called Cutler back, took the paper,
and enrolled his name. Cutler laughed again, said _he_ would not have
done so, had he been in Stone's circumstances, and, after some further
conversation, walked away in the direction of Stone's residence. Whether
he actually entered the house is not known; but when the young husband
returned home, a few hours afterward, his wife's first words indicated
that she knew of his enrolment.
"Is it possible," said she, with some asperity, "that you already care
so little for me as to enrol yourself for an absence of six months?"
Stone would much have preferred to break the news to her himself, for he
had some foreboding as to the view she might take of his conduct. He had
scarcely been married a week, and he was conscious that a severe
construction of the act of enrolment, when there was notoriously not
the least necessity for it, might lead to inferences, than which,
nothing could be more false. If he had said, at once, that he had been
taunted by his old rival, and written his name under the influence of
pride, all would have been well, for his wife would then have
understood, though she might not have approved his action. But this
confession he was ashamed to make, and, by withholding it, laid the
foundation for his own and his wife's destruction. He at once
acknowledged the fact, disclaiming, however, the indifference to her,
which she inferred, and placing the act upon higher ground:--
"The danger of the country," he said, "was very imminent, and it became
every good citizen to do all he could for its defence. He had no idea
that the militia would be called far from home, or detained for a very
long time; but, in any event, he felt that men were bound, in such
circumstances, to cast aside personal considerations, and contribute,
each his share, to the common defence."
His wife gazed incredulously at him while he talked this high
patriotism: and well she might, for he did not speak as one moved by
such feelings. The consciousness of deceit, of concealment, and of
childish rashness, rendered his manner hesitating and embarrassed.
Margaret observed all this, for her jealousy was aroused and her
suspicions sharpened; she made no reply, however, but turned away, with
a toss of the head, and busied herself, quite fiercely, with her
household cares. From that moment, until the day of his departure, she
stubbornly avoided the subject, listening, but refusing to reply, when
her husband attempted to introduce it. When Cutler came--rather
unnecessarily, as Stone thought--to consult him about the organization
of a spy-company, to which both were attached, she paid no attention to
their conversation, but walked away down a road over which she knew
Cutler must pass on his return homeward. Whether this was by appointment
with him is not known: probably, however, it was her own motion.
We need not stay to detail all that took place between her and her
former suitor, when, as she had expected, they met in a wood some
hundreds of yards from her home; its result will sufficiently appear in
the sequel. One circumstance, however, we must not omit. She recurred to
a conversation which had passed sometime before, in relation to the
legality of her marriage; and though Cutler gave no positive opinion,
his parting advice was nearly in the following words:--
"If you think, from your three weeks' experience, that Stone cares
enough for you to make it prudent, I would advise you to have the
marriage ceremony performed by Parson Bowen, immediately upon his
return; and if you care enough for him to wish to retain him, you had
better have it performed _before he goes away_."
With these words, and without awaiting an answer, he passed on, leaving
her alone in the road. When she returned home, she did not mention the
subject; and though Parson Bowen returned to the neighborhood quite a
week before Stone went away, she never suggested a repetition of the
ceremony. When Stone manifested some anxiety on the subject, she turned
suddenly upon him and demanded--
"You do not think our marriage legal, then?"
He assured her that he only made the suggestion for her satisfaction,
entertaining no doubt, himself, that they were regularly and lawfully
married.
"I am content to remain as I am," she said, curtly, and the parson was
not summoned.
Five days afterward the troops took up the line of march for the
frontier. Hull had not yet surrendered Michigan; but Proctor had so
stirred up the Indians (who, until then, had been quiet since the battle
of Tippecanoe), as to cut off all communication with the advanced
settlements, and even to threaten the latter with fire and slaughter.
Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, were then overrun by British and Indians;
for Hopkins had not yet commenced his march from Kentucky, and Congress
was still debating measures for protection. Hull's surrender took place
on the sixteenth of August, eighteen hundred and twelve, and in the
following month, General Harrison, having been appointed to the chief
command in the northwest, proceeded to adopt vigorous measures for the
defence of the country. It was to one of the regiments organized by him,
that our friends from Virginia found themselves attached. They had
raised a company of spies, and in this both Stone and Cutler held
commissions.
They marched with the regiment, or rather in advance of it, for several
weeks. By that time, they had penetrated many miles beyond the
settlements, and Harrison began to feel anxious to ascertain the
position of General Hopkins, and open communications with him. For this
service Cutler volunteered, and was immediately selected by the
general. On the following morning, he set out with five men to seek the
Kentuckians. He found them without difficulty and delivered his
despatches; but from that day he was not seen, either in the camp of
Hopkins or in that of Harrison! It was supposed that he had started on
his return, and been taken or killed by the Indians, parties of whom
were prowling about between the lines of the two columns.
Stone remained with his company two or three months longer, when, the
enterprise of Hopkins having failed, and operations being suspended for
the time, it was thought inexpedient to retain them for the brief period
which remained of their term of enlistment, and they were discharged.
Stone returned home, and, full of anticipations, the growth of a long
absence, hastened at once to his own house. The door was closed, no
smoke issued from the chimney, there was no one there! After calling in
vain for a long time, he ran away to her father's, endeavoring to feel
certain that he would find her there. But the old man received him with
a mournful shake of the head. Margaret had been gone more than a month,
no one knew whither or with whom!
A report had been in circulation that Cutler was seen in the
neighborhood, a few days before her disappearance; but no news having
been received of his absence from the army, it had not been generally
credited. But now, it was quite clear!
The old man invited Stone to enter, but he declined. Sitting down on a
log, he covered his face with his hands, for a few moments, and seemed
buried in grief. It did not last long, however: he rose almost
immediately, and going a little aside, calmly loaded his rifle. Without
noticing the old man, who stood gazing at him in wonder, he turned away,
and, with his eyes fixed upon the ground, took the path toward his own
house. He was seen to break the door and enter, but he remained within
only a few minutes. On coming out, he threw his rifle over his shoulder,
and walked away through the forest. Half an hour afterward, smoke was
seen issuing from the roof of the house in several places, and on
repairing thither, the neighbors found the whole place in a bright
flame! It was of no use to attempt to save it or any of its contents. An
hour afterward, it was a heap of smouldering ruins, and its owner had
disappeared from the country!
Seven years passed away.
The war was over: the Indians had been driven to the north and west, and
the tide of emigration had again set toward the Mississippi. The
northwestern territory--especially that part of it which is now included
within the limits of Illinois and Indiana--was rapidly filling up with
people from the south and east. The advanced settlements had reached the
site of Springfield, in the "Sangamon country,"[78] now the capital of
Illinois, and a few farms were opened in the north of Madison
county--now Morgan and Scott. The beautiful valley, most inaptly called,
of the _Mauvaisterre_, was then an unbroken wilderness.
The grass was growing as high as the head of a tall man, where now
well-built streets and public squares are traversed by hurrying crowds.
Groves which have since become classic were then impenetrable thickets;
and the only guides the emigrant found, through forest and prairie, were
the points of the compass, and the courses of streams. But in the years
eighteen hundred and seventeen, eighteen, and nineteen, the western
slope of the Sangamon country began rapidly to improve. Reports had gone
abroad of "the fertility of its soil, the beauty of its surface, its
genial climate, and its many advantages of position"--and there is
certainly no country which more richly deserves these praises.
But the first emigrant who made his appearance here, in the autumn of
eighteen hundred and nineteen, was probably moved by other
considerations. It was none other than Abram Cutler! And his family
consisted of a wife and three young children! That wife was Margaret
Roberts--or rather Margaret Stone; for, notwithstanding the
representations of Cutler, her union with Stone had been perfectly
legal. By what arts he had succeeded in inducing her to elope with him,
we can only judge from his previous proceedings; but this is certain,
that resentment toward Stone, who, she probably believed, had unfairly
trapped her, was as likely to move her impulsive and unstable spirit, as
any other motive. Add to this, the wound given to her vanity by the
sudden departure of her young husband upon a long campaign, with the
acuteness given to this feeling by the arts of Cutler, and we shall not
be at a loss to explain her action.
Whether she had not bitterly repented her criminal haste, we know not;
but that hardship and suffering of some sort had preyed upon her spirit,
was evident in her appearance. Her beauty was much faded; she had grown
pale and thin; and though she was scarcely yet in the prime of
womanhood, her step was heavy and spiritless. She was not happy, of
course, but her misery was not only negative: the gnawings of remorse
were but too positive and real!
Cutler was changed almost as much as his victim. The lapse of seven
years had added a score to his apparent age; and, if we are to credit
the representations of persons who were probably looking for signs of
vice, the advance of time had brought out, in well-marked lineaments,
upon his countenance, the evil traits of his character. His cheeks were
sunken, his features attenuated, and his figure exceedingly spare, but
he still exhibited marks of great personal strength and activity. His
glance, always of doubtful meaning, was now unsettled and furtive; and I
have heard one of the actors in this history assert, that it had a
scared, apprehensive expression, as if he were in constant expectation
of meeting a dangerous enemy.
Nor is this at all improbable, for during the seven years which had
elapsed since the consummation of his design upon Margaret, he had
emigrated no less than three times--frightened away, at each removal, by
some intimation, or suspicion, that the avenger was on his track! No
wonder that his look was wary, and his face pale and haggard!
On this, his fourth migration, he had crossed the prairies from the
waters of the Wabash; and having placed the wide expanse of waving plain
between him and the settlements, he at length considered himself safe
from pursuit. Passing by the little trading-station, where Springfield
now stands, he traversed the beautiful country lying between that and
the Mauvaisterre. But the alternation of stately timber and lovely
prairie had no charms for him: he sought not beauty or fertility, but
seclusion; for his pilgrimage had become wearisome, and his step was
growing heavy. Remorse was at his heart, and fear--the appealing face of
his patient victim kept his crime in continual remembrance--and he knew,
that like a blood-hound, his enemy was following behind. It was a weary
load! No wonder that his cheeks were thin or his eyes wild!
He passed on till he came to a quiet, secluded spot, where he thought
himself not likely soon to be disturbed by emigration. It was sixteen
miles west of the place where Jacksonville has since been built, upon
the banks of the lower Mauvaisterre, seven miles from the Illinois
river. The place was long known as Cutler's grove, but a town grew up
around it, and has been christened by the sounding name of Exeter. Those
who visit it now, and have heard the story of Cutler, will commend his
judgment in selecting it for retirement; for, town as it is, a more
secluded, dreamy little place is nowhere to be found. It would seem that
the passage of a carriage through its _street_--for it has but
one--would be an event in its history; and the only things which redeem
it, in the fancy, from the category of visionary existences, are a
blacksmith's shop and a mill!
But Cutler's trail was seen upon the prairies, and the course of many an
emigrant was determined by the direction taken by his predecessor. It
was not long before others came to "settle" in the neighborhood.
Emigration was gradually encroaching, also, from the south; families
began to take possession of the river "bottoms;" the smoke from frontier
cabins ascended in almost every point of timber; and by the summer of
eighteen hundred and twenty, Cutler found himself as far from the
frontier as ever! But he was resolved not to move again: a dogged
spirit--half weariness, half despair--had taken possession of him. "I
have moved often enough," he said to Margaret, "and here I am determined
to remain, come what may!"
Actuated by such feelings--goaded by a fear which he could not conquer,
and yet was resolute not to indulge--the lurking devil in his nature
could not long remain dormant. Nothing develops evil tendencies so
rapidly as the consciousness of wrong and the fear of punishment. His
life soon became reckless and abandoned, and the first sign of his
degradation was his neglect of his household. For days together Margaret
saw nothing of him; his only companions were the worthless and outlawed;
and, when intoxicating liquors could be procured, which was,
fortunately, not often, he indulged in fearful excesses.
Of evil company, there was, unhappily, but too much; for the settlement
was cursed with a band of desperadoes, exiles from organized society,
who had sought the frontier to obtain impunity for their misdeeds. The
leaders of this band were three brothers, whom no law could control, no
obligation restrain; and with these men Cutler soon formed a close and
suspicious intimacy. The eyes of the citizens had been for some time
directed toward the companions, by circumstances attending various
depredations; and, though unknown to themselves, they were constantly
watched by many of their neighbors. It is uncertain whether Cutler was
acquainted with the character of the men when his association with them
first commenced, for in none of the places where he had lived, had he
hitherto been suspected of crime. It is most probable that he sought
their company because they were "dissipated" like himself; and that, in
the inception of their acquaintance, there was no other bond between
them than the habit of intoxication.
Had we time and space, we would fain pause here to reflect upon the
position and feelings of the false wife--deserted, in her turn, by him
for whom she had given up truth and honor--alone in the wilderness with
her children, whose birth she could not but regret, and harassed by
thoughts which could not but be painfully self-condemning. But we must
hasten on.
In the autumn of eighteen hundred and twenty, information was brought to
the settlement, that a store at Springfield (as it is now called), had
been entered and robbed--that the leaders of the desperadoes above
alluded to, were suspected--and that the goods stolen were believed to
be concealed in Cutler's grove, where they lived. Warrants were issued,
and the three were arrested; but the magistrate before whom they were
taken for examination, was a timid and ignorant man; and by the
interference of Cutler, who assumed to be a lawyer, they were examined
separately, and allowed to testify, each for the other! An officer who
knew no more than to permit this, of course could do no less than
discharge them. The arrest and examination, however, crude and informal
as they were, confirmed the suspicions of the citizens, and directed
them, more vehemently than ever, against Cutler, as well as his friends.
It satisfied them, moreover, that they would never be able to reach
these men through the ordinary forms of law, and strengthened the
counsels of those who had already suggested the organization of a
company of regulators.
While these things were fermenting in the minds of the people, the
desperadoes, encouraged by their success, and rendered bold by impunity,
committed their depredations more frequently and openly than ever. It
was remarked, too, that Cutler, having committed himself at the
examination of friends, was now more constantly and avowedly their
associate; and, since he was not a man to play a second part, that they
deferred to him on all occasions, never moving without him, and treating
him at all times as an acknowledged leader. The people observed,
moreover, that from being, like his neighbors, a small farmer of limited
possessions, he rose rapidly to what, on the frontier, was considered
affluence. He soon ceased to labor on his lands, and set up a very
considerable "store," importing his goods from Saint Louis, and, by
means of the whiskey he sold, collecting all the idle and vicious of the
settlement constantly about him. His "store" was in exceedingly bad
repute, and the scanty reputation which he had retained after the public
part he had taken before the magistrate, was speedily lost.
Things were in this state in the spring of eighteen hundred and
twenty-one, when an old gentleman of respectable appearance, who had
emigrated to this country by water, having been pleased with the land in
the neighborhood of the place where the town of Naples now stands,
landed his family and effects, and settled upon the "bottom." It was
soon rumored in the settlement, that he had brought with him a large
amount of money; and it was also remarked that Cutler and his three
companions were constantly with him, either at the "Grove" or on the
"bottom." Whether the rumor was the cause of their attention, or their
assiduity the foundation of the report, the reader must determine for
himself.
One evening in May, after a visit to this man, where Cutler had been
alone, he came home in great haste, and suddenly announced to Margaret
his intention to "sell out," and move further westward! His unhappy
victim supposed she knew but too well the meaning of this new movement:
she asked no questions, but, with a sigh of weariness, assented. On the
following day, he commenced hastily disposing of his "store," his stock,
his cabin--everything, in fact, save a few farming utensils, his
furniture, and a pair of horses. It was observed--for there were many
eyes upon him--that he never ventured out after twilight, and, even in
the broad sunshine, would not travel far, alone or unarmed. In such
haste did he seem, that he sold many of his goods at, what his friends
considered, a ruinous sacrifice. The fame of great bargains brought many
people to his counter, so that, within ten days, his arrangements were
complete; and, much to the satisfaction of his neighbors, he set out
toward the river.
Two of his associates accompanied him on his journey--a precaution for
which he would give no reason, except that he wished to converse with
them on the way. He crossed the Illinois near the mouth of the
Mauvaisterre, and, turning northward, in the evening reached a cabin on
the banks of M'Kee's creek, not more than ten miles from his late
residence. This house had been abandoned by its former occupant, on
account of the forays of the Indians; but was now partially refitted, as
for a temporary abode. Here, the people about "the grove" were surprised
to learn, a few days after Cutler's departure, that he had halted with
the apparent intention to remain, at least for some time.