University of Virginia Library

1. CHAPTER I.

The summer's sun was throwing his parting beams over the
circular range of high, detached hills that enclosed a small village
situated near the mouth of one of the Green Mountain tributaries
of the Connecticut river. Long, wavy lines of thin, blue
smoke becoming visible in the absence of the sun, lay stretched,
with their delicate aerial tracery, from hill to hill above the
shaded hamlet, beneath which the piteous bleat of the hungry
calf, the lowing of the returning cow, the joyous shouts of children,
with other various sounds of congregated life, rose loud and
distinct, in the growing denseness of the evening air, and mingled
with the sharp, peeping cries of the night-hawk loftily careering
in the expanse above, the low, sweet trill of the retiring wood-bird,
and the clear, hurried notes of the whip-poor-will, now beginning
to burst from the woody sides of the surrounding heights.
The field-laborers were seen, with shouldered implements, leisurely
coming in from the adjoining meadows, mechanics and
other men of business leaving their shops, and all quitting their
various avocations for the day, and quietly taking their different
ways to their respective abodes.

Among these there was one personage, a man of about fifty,
on whom, as he was seen passing on horse-back up a lane to his
house, a large ancient looking building, standing aloof from all

others, many an eye was turned with anxious or envious glances;
for his movements more or less involved the interests of a great
portion of this little community. He was the rich man of the
village. But it should have been enough for those inclined to
envy Jude Hosmer his wealth, and secretly repine, that they
could not change situations with him—it should have been
enough to cure the foolish wish, in this, as in a thousand instances
of the kind, to have scanned for a moment but his outward
appearance, to say nothing of the unknown elements of misery
within—to have noted his wasted frame, his head, prematurely
gray, dropped in deep study, his thin, sharp features, combining
in an expression of countenance, in which keen anxiety, intense,
corroding thought, and eager, grasping desire, were stamped on
every lineament, and betrayed in every glance, the whole unrelieved
by a single warming touch which spoke of sympathy, or a
single relaxing smile that betokened inward happiness.

We have termed him the rich man of the village; for he had
been so reputed ever since the death of his brother, who had been
dead about ten years, and who was known to be his full equal
in wealth. Indeed he and that brother, Colonel James Hosmer,
were the principal founders of the village, having come here
nearly thirty years before, purchased the fine water-privilege
the stream here furnished and the valuable tract of meadow land
contiguous, built mills, engaged largely, at first, in the lumbering
business, and finally in merchandise; one, as was agreed between
them, keeping a store for groceries and hard-ware, and
the other a dry goods store. And they both, in the course of
about twenty years, amassed what are considered in the country
handsome fortunes. But their fortunes were made by means as
different as their characters, which, excepting their common traits,
enterprise and industry, were as opposite as light and darkness:
Jude, the elder, the person whom we have introduced, was cold,
selfish and to the last degree grasping; while James was warm
hearted, generous and scrupulously honest. Jude never gave
anything for any purpose, had confidence in none, trusted no one
without security, and knew no mercy in the collection of his
debts. James, on the contrary, was public spirited, confiding, trusted
largely, and very rarely sued anybody. And yet Jude, with all
his parsimony, caution and exaction, found it impossible to advance

in wealth faster than his brother, who, against all the predictions
of the other, scarcely ever had the confidence he reposed
in individuals abused. People would make extra exertions to
pay one who had used them so fairly and kindly, and failing
debtors would come secretly and first secure him, leaving Old
Jude, as he was called, to pounce upon the remnant of their
property by legal process. In short, he prospered wonderfully,
and, in his noble and fortunate career, strikingly exemplified the
trite but golden maxim, “Honesty is the best policy.”

Yes, honesty is, in truth, the best and only safe policy, even
in the accumulation of wealth. Far less tact and talent are necessary
to ensure riches with honesty than success with knavery.
And we have often wondered how our young men of business,
when they cast about them among the men of millions,
the Lawrences and Astors of the land, all noted for undeviating
honesty, and then look at the Rathburns, or hundreds of others,
who have succeeded, perhaps, to considerable extent without
that great virtue, but who, with keener foresight and greater capabilities
than the former, it may be, have failed to attain a tithe
of their wealth, we have wondered how our young men could
ever shut their eyes to the fact, that, though trickery and unfair
dealing may flourish awhile, yet no great and permanent wealth
can be obtained by dishonest and unfair courses—wondered how
they can avoid seeing, that, if the latter class ever gain success
by dishonest ingenuity and overreaching, their success, with the
same capacities, would have been doubled had they pursued a
course of upright integrity, which alone can long secure that
general confidence indispensable to the acquisition of extensive
wealth.—All young men of any observation must see and acknowledge
a fact, so often and fully demonstrated in the business
community around them. And this, we should think, would be
sufficient, if no worthier motive actuated them, to induce all,
however inclined, to adopt at their outset in life, the rigid rule,
that exact honesty in dealing, with all classes, whatever slight
advantages may for the time be lost, be always religiously maintained.

At length Colonel Hosmer, to the sincere grief of all clases,
was taken away by an acute disease, leaving a widow and an
only child, a daughter of eight or nine years of age, to inherit

his property. Jude Hosmer became administrator on his brother's
estate, and guardian of his child, on the bonds of the widow,
who in a year or two followed her husband to the grave, and
thus left the whole of the property of the deceased to his unchecked
control. Soon after this, Jude Hosmer quitted trade,
and commenced the business of usurious money-lending, buying
up mortgaged securities, disputed titles, or anything else, in
which he saw a prospect of doubling his outlay. His rapacity seemed
to increase with his age; and he was even suspected by many
of having recourse to unlawful practices to increase his wealth.
Indeed the State's Attorney of the county, at one time, thought
he had identified him as the secret vender of an immense amount
of counterfeit money, which had been saddled on community,
or found in the possession of the smaller villains arrested for
attempting to pass some of it. But before the time appointed
for the trial of the latter, part of whom, on promise of exemption
from punishment, had agreed to turn state's evidences, and
not only testify themselves to the allegations they had privately
made against Hosmer, and several of his agents still at large,
but put the government in possession of other and sufficient
proof, the whole gang escaped, having broke jail by means of
implements furnished them evidently from without, by unknown
confederates, as was said by some, while others shook their
heads but thought it prudent to keep their suspicions to themselves.
Old Jude was also twice charged before the grand jury
with the crime of procuring false witnesses in his law-suits.
And here, too, he strangely escaped by the absconding of some
witnesses and the unexpected testimony of others. But though
he thus triumphed over all, who had attempted to make him
amenable to the criminal law, and though, for awhile, he bore
all down before him in civil litigation, yet, at length, the general
suspicion that his movements had created in the public mind
began to count to his disadvantage. The current of his luck in
the law turned against him; and he lost in rapid succession,
three or four important suits, in which he had been engaged, and
with them large sums of money. It was known also that his
property must have suffered deeply in several heavy speculations,
into which, goaded on by his avarice, he had gambler-like
rashly entered by way of retrieving the bad fortunes that had latterly
attended him. Still he was supposed to be immensely rich
in his own property, besides having the use of that of his ward.
As to the latter, however, he had given out, especially since his
own reverses, that his brother's property had been strangely
overrated; and that in consequence of large debts, that had
been unexpectedly brought against it, and the failure of securities,
little or nothing, after meeting the expenses of settling the
estate and defending titles, would be left for the heir over what
had been expended in her maintenance and education.

Such had been the history—as far as could be known to the
public of the affairs of one, who so closely kept his dark counsels
to himself,—such the history and ungenial character of Jude
Hosmer, whom we will now accompany to his abode, which had
been anything but a blest one: For most of his children had
died early, a son, who arrived at maturity, became a drunkard
and died miserably, and his only remaining child, a married but
childless daughter had become insane. And his family, at this
time consisted only of his wife, a weak, sickly, querulous woman,
her nurse nad maid of all work, a blear-eyed old thing
with just sense enough to make a good drudge, a deaf, surly
looking servant boy, nearly grown, and lastly, Miss Lucy Hosmer,
the niece and ward already mentioned, a lovely and high-minded
girl, now in the first fresh bloom of womanhood, and
standing here in singular contrast with the ill-assorted inmates
of this cheerless domicil.