University of Virginia Library

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.