University of Virginia Library

2. CHAPTER II.

For the better understanding of some of the allusions of
the preceding chapter, and of others that may yet appear in
different parts of our tale, as well, indeed, as for a better appreciation
of the whole, we will here turn aside from the thread
of the narrative just commenced, to take a brief retrospect of
the leading events and circumstances with which the previous
lives of the several personages we have introduced had been
connected, and among which their characters had been shaped
and their destinies determined.

Some twenty two or three years previous to the juncture we
have been describing, Arthur and Mark Elwood, by the fruits
of their unremitting industry as laborers on a farm in summers,
and as pedlars of what they could best buy and sell in winters,
added to the few hundred dollars patrimony they each inherited,
were enabled, in a few years, to realize the object of their early
ambition, in the opening of a small retail store, in one of the
little outskirt villages of northern New-Hampshire.

Such, like that of hundreds of others among us who now
count their wealth by half millions, was the slender beginning
of these two brothers. And, although they were from the first,
as we have seen them at the last, as different in their general
characters as they were in their persons, they yet got on very
well together; for, however they might disagree respecting the
modes and means of acquisition, they were always as one in

regard to the great result each alike had in view, and that was
to make money and be rich. And, by a sort of tacit understanding,
falling into the departments of business best suited to
their different tastes and capacities, the quiet, cautious, calculating,
and systematic Arthur confined himself to the store, kept
the books, contrived the ways and means, and, in short, did the
principal head-work of the establishment; while Mark, being
of a more stirring turn, and, from his brisk bon homme manner
and less scrupulous disposition, better calculated for drumming
up customers and securing bargains for the store, did most of
the outdoor business, riding about the country, contracting for
produce, securing barter deal, and making himself, in all things,
the runner and trumpeter of the company. At night they
usually met together to compare notes and report progress;
and they were never happier than when they sat down in their
small store-room, hemmed in and surrounded by casks of nails,
quintals of codfish, farming tools, etc., on one side, and narrow
shelves of cheap calicos, India cottons, and flaunting ribbons, on
the other, and recounted to each other the business and bargains
of the day. Thus the two, working on, like the spring and
balance-wheel of some piece of mechanism, in harmony together,
soon placed themselves beyond all fears of failure, and seemed
happy and contented with their situation and prospects.

This situation of affairs, however, was not destined to be of
very long continuance. Not long after finding themselves safely
on the highway to independence, they very naturally began to
think of selecting, from among the fair young customers of their
store, the ones who might make them eligible companions for
life. And, as the wayward love-fates would have it, they both
secretly fixed their affections on one and the same girl, — the
pretty and sensible Alice Gregg, who, though a plain farmer's
daughter, was, to the vexation and envy of her numerous rustic
suitors, to be won by nothing short of one of the village merchants.
Alice was not long in discovering her advantage, nor
in deciding to avail herself of it, so far as to confine her election

to one of these, her two undeclared lovers. And, after balancing
a while in her mind the account between her judgment,
which would have declared for the reserved but sterling Arthur,
and her fancy, which clamored hard for the manly-looking and
more social Mark, she finally yielded the reins to the latter,
and took measures accordingly. After this, Arthur's taste in
selecting a piece of goods did not, as before, seem to be appreciated.
Her handkerchief was never dropped where he had
any chance to pick it up; and she was never quite ready to go
till Mark was nearest at hand to help her into her wagon or
side-saddle. By this delicate system of female tactics, common
with girls of more pretensions than Alice, she effectually repressed
the advances of the one, and as effectually encouraged
those of the other; and the result, as she had anticipated, was
a declaration from Mark, an acceptance on her part, and a
speedy marriage between them. Arthur's heart bled at the
event; but it bled inwardly; and he had at least the consolation
of believing that no one suspected the state of his feelings,
except, perhaps, Alice, and he was not unwilling that she should
know them. He therefore put the best face on the matter he
could, — appeared wholly unconcerned, — attended the wedding,
and with forced gayety openly wished the new married couple
the happiness which he secretly wished was his own. The
tender passion had been a new thing to the money-loving
Arthur. By its elevating influences, he, who had looked for
enjoyment only in wealth, had been enabled to raise his vision
to a higher sphere of happiness. And thus to lose the bright
glimpses, and be thrown back to earth again, was, in reality,
however he might disguise the fact from others, a serious blow
to his feelings, and one, indeed, which soon mainly led to a
movement on his part that gave a new turn to his apparent
destinies, and a no less one, probably, to those of his then
almost envied brother Mark. For, finding it impossible to feel
his former interest in business, in a place whose associations
had become painful to him, he secretly resolved to leave it as
soon as he believed he could do so without leading to any surmises
respecting the true cause of the change he contemplated.
Accordingly, in a few months, he began to suggest his own unfitness
for making a profitable partner in country trade, and
finally came out with a direct proposition to his brother to buy
him out at a sum which he knew would be a temptingly low
one. And the result was, that the proposition was accepted,
“the partnership dissolved by mutual consent,” and the released
Arthur, with his portion, soon on his way to one of the eastern
seaports, to set up business, as he soon did, for himself alone.

The withdrawal of Arthur Elwood deprived this little establishment
of its only really valuable guidance, and left it to the
chance fortunes of greater gains or greater losses than would
have been likely to occur under the cautious and hazard-excluding
system of business which he had adopted for its control.
But, nothing for a year or two occurring to induce Mark
Elwood to depart from the system under which the business
had been conducted, and Arthur's prudent maxims of trade, to
which he had been accustomed to defer, remaining fresh in his
mind, he naturally kept on in the old routine, which he was the
more willing to follow, as by it he found himself clearly on the
advance. He was blessed in his family; for his wife, who had
no undue aspirations for wealth or show, had not only proved
an efficient helper by her economy and good counsels, but added
still more to his gratification by bringing him a promising boy.
Being the only trader of the village, or hamlet it might more
properly be called, he was conscious of being the object of that
peculiar kind of favor and respect which was then — more
freely than at the present day, perhaps — accorded to the country
merchant by the masses among whom he resided. And,
finding his still comparatively moderate expectations thus every
day fully realized, he was satisfied with his condition in the
present, and hopeful and happy in the prospects it presented in
the future; for the demon of unlawful gain had not then
tempted him into forbidden paths by the lure of sudden riches.

But that demon at length came in the shape of Gaut Gurley.
From what part of the country this singular and questionable
personage originally came, was unknown, even in the neighboring
village (which was within the borders of Maine) where he
had recently located himself with a young wife and child. And,
as he very rarely made any allusions to his own personal affairs,
every thing relating to his origin, life, and employments, previous
to his appearance in this region, was a matter of mere conjecture,
and many a dark surmise, also, we should add, respecting
his true character. For the last few years, however, he was
known to have followed, at the appropriate seasons of the year,
the business of trapping, or trading for furs with the Indians,
around the northern lakes. He had several times passed
through the village on his returns from his northern tours, and
called on the Elwoods, whose contrasted characters he seemed
soon to understand. But he pressed no bargains upon them
for his peltries; for, disliking the close questionings and scrutinizing
glances of Arthur, and finding he could make no final
trade with Mark without the assent of the former, he gave up
all attempts of the kind, and did not call again during the continuance
of the partnership, nor till this time; when, finding
that Mark was in trade alone, he announced his intention of
spending some time in the village, to see what arrangements
could be made, as he at first held out to Elwood, for establishing
this as his place for the regular sales or deposit of his furs.

But the fur traffic, whatever it might have been formerly,
was now not the main, if any part of the object he had in view.
The times had changed, closing many of the old avenues of
trade, but opening new ones to tempt the ever restless spirit of
gain. And, although the fur trade was still profitable, there was
yet another springing up, which, for those who, like him, had
no scruples about engaging in it, promised to become far more
so. The restrictions which it had been the policy of our government
to throw around commerce, in the incipient stages of
our last national quarrel with Great Britain, had caused an unprecedented

rise in the prices of silks and other fine fabrics of
foreign import. This had put whatever there was of the two
alleged leading traits of Yankee character, acquisitiveness and
ingenuity, on the qui vive to obtain those goods at the former
prices, for the purpose of home speculation. And Canada,
being separated by a land boundary only from the States, presented
to the greedy eyes of hundreds of village mammonists,
who, like Elwood, were plodding along at the slow jog of twenty
per cent profits, opportunities of so purchasing as to quadruple
their gains; which were quite too severe a test for their slender
stock of patriotism to withstand. It was but a natural consequence,
therefore, that all of them whose love of gain was
not overcome by their fear of loss by detection and the forfeiture
of their goods, should soon be found, in spite of all the vigilance
and activity of the host of custom-house officers by whom the
government had manned the Canadian lines, secretly engaged
in that contraband traffic.

The history of smuggling as carried on between the Northern
States and Canada, from the enactment of the embargo at the
close of 1807, and especially from the enactment of the more
stringent non-intercourse law of 1810, to the declaration of
war in 1812, and even, to a greater or less extent, to the proclamation
of peace in 1815, is a portion of our annals that yet
remains almost wholly unwritten. Although the contraband
trade in question was doubtless more or less followed along the
entire extent of our northern boundaries, from east to west,
yet along no portions of them half so extensively, probably, as
those of Vermont and New Hampshire, which, from their close
contiguity to Montreal and Quebec, the only importing cities
of the Canadas, afforded the most tempting facilities and the
best chances for success. Along these borders, indeed, it was
for years one almost continuous scene of wild warfare between
the custom-house officers and their assistants, and the smugglers
and their abettors, both parties carrying arms, and the
smugglers, especially, going armed to the teeth. In these skirmishes

many were, at different times, killed outright; many
more were missing, even on the side of the officials, for whom
dark fates were naturally conjectured; while hundreds, on
both sides, were crippled or otherwise seriously wounded.
Sometimes, when a double sleigh, or wagon, deeply laden with
smuggled goods, in charge of three or four stout and resolute
fellows aboard, who, with as many more, perhaps, of their confederates
on horseback or in light teams, before and behind,
were making their way, at full speed, with their prize, from
the line to some secret and safe depository in the interior, was
suddenly beset and brought to a stand by an equal or greater
number of government officials, deeply intent on a seizure, a
most furious conflict would ensue, in which the combatants,
growing desperate for the seizure or defence of the prize, would
ply their hard yeoman fists, clubs, loaded whipstocks, or whatever
was at hand, with terrible effect, and often prolong the
melée till the snow or ground was encrimsoned with blood, and
scarcely an uninjured man remained on the ground. Sometimes
the besetting officials were made prisoners, and marched off at
the cocked pistol's mouth into the deep woods, and, after being
led forward and backward through the labyrinths of the forest
till bewildered and lost, were suddenly left to find their way
out as they best could, — a feat which there was no danger of
their accomplishing till long after both the smugglers and their
goods were beyond the reach of pursuers. And sometimes the
smugglers, when closely pressed and seeing no hope of rescue
if taken, as their last resort, drew their dirks and pistols; and
wo to the official who then persisted in attempting a seizure.

But the system of tactics more generally practiced by the
smugglers was that of craft and concealment, carried out by
some ingenious measure to prevent all suspicion of the times
and places of their movements, by travelling in the night or in
stormy weather, or in the most unfrequented routes, and, when
pursued, by putting the pursuers on false scents, or by feints
of running away with loads of empty boxes to mislead pursuit,

till the goods, which had been previously taken to some place
of temporary concealment, could be removed from the vicinity
of the search and sent on their destination.

Such were the general features of the illicit traffic which
characterized the period of which we are treating, — a traffic
which laid the foundations of many a village fortune, whose
dashing heirs would not probably be very willing to acknowledge
the true source from which the wealth and position they
may now be enjoying was derived, — and finally a traffic which,
in its attending homicides and desperate affrays, its hot pursuits
and marvellous escapes, its curious concealments and artful subterfuges,
and, lastly, in the family and neighborhood feuds which
it left behind, would furnish materials for a series of tales as
wild and romantic, if not always as creditable to the actors, as
any thing ever yet spread before the public.

It was this questionable business which was then occupying
the thoughts of Gaut Gurley, and in which it was his aim to
involve Mark Elwood, whom he had pitched on for the purpose,
as not only a man of sufficient means, with no scruples which
could not be overcome, but a man whom he believed he could
make dependent on him, when once enlisted, and to whom he
could dictate terms for his own services. And it is no wonder
that a man of his dark cunning, working on one of the obtuse
moral sense, the love of money, and the thoughtlessness of consequences,
of Elwood, should, as he did, soon completely succeed
in his objects. For, after having kindled Elwood's political
prejudices against the embargo law, which was held up to be
such an outrage on the commercial rights of the North that it
were almost a merit to violate it, Gaut proceeded to show how
enormous were the profits to be made in this trade, and how
safely the goods might be smuggled in, through the back roads
and forest routes with which he was familiar, by employing
Frenchmen, as he could, at a cheap rate, to bring them in large
panniers on the backs of their Canadian ponies, or by engaging
Indians, who could be enlisted for even less wages, to bring

them in knapsacks through the woods. And so clearly did he
demonstrate all this to the mind of Elwood, that the latter,
being unable any longer to resist the temptation of thus securing
the gains of a traffic, by the side of which the small profits
of his store at home dwindled into contempt, soon resolved to
engage in it.

From this time Gaut was in high favor with Elwood. The
two, indeed, seemed to have suddenly become inseparable.
They were always found together, and always engaged in some
closely private conversation, the purport of which no others
were permitted to know, or were enabled to conjecture, except
from the new business movement which was observed soon to
follow the forming of their mysterious connection. And that
movement was that Elwood put his store in charge of a clerk,
and, giving out that he was about to engage more extensively
in the fur trade, which would require him to be often absent,
went off with a strong and fleet double team, in a northerly
direction, with Gaut for his only companion.

With the advent of this new era in the life of Elwood, every
thing became changed about his establishment. His bustling
presence, with his bantering, off-hand, and communicative talk,
no longer enlivened the store and neighborhood; and people,
who before seemed to know every thing about his business and
plans, now knew nothing. For he was now most of the time
absent in conducting his operations at the north, or in his
stealthy journeyings thence to the cities, to receive and dispose
of the valuable packages which he had put on their passage.
He generally came and departed in the night, and, even during
his brief stays at home, he kept himself secluded, seeming to
wish to be seen as little as possible. All this, of course, led to
considerable talk and various speculations; but he so well
shrouded his movements from the public, and kept afloat so
many plausible stories to account for his change of business,
that he prevented suspicions from taking any definite shape

about home, or spreading abroad to any extent that endangered
his operations, although those operations were constantly continued
for years, and, from cautious and small beginnings, at
length became more bold, extensive, and successful, perhaps,
than any thing of the kind ever carried on in the interior of
New England. But there was one whose suspicions of the true
character of the business in which he was engaged, notwithstanding
his denials and evasions, even to her, and whose fears
and anxieties on account of the dangers she believed he was
constantly incurring, not only from seizure of his property and
the personal violence to which he was exposed in trying to
defend it, but from his association of reckless confederates,
especially Gaut Gurley, of whose dark character, as little as
she had seen of him, she was already filled with an instinctive
dread, — there was one whose suspicions, and consequent
anxieties, he could never succeed in quieting; and that was his
discreet and faithful wife. She had, during the first year or
two of his new career, often expostulated with him on the
doubtful character of his business; but he, by always making
light of her fears, by telling her some truth and withholding
more, and disclosing as great a part of his astonishing gains as
he supposed would pass with her for honest acquisitions, generally
silenced, if he did not convince, her; and she, finding him
always light-hearted and satisfied with himself, when he came
home, finally ceased her remonstrances, having concluded she
would try to conquer her doubts and fears, or at least say no
more on the subject.

At length, however, after a prolonged absence on a tour, in
which he had a large venture at stake, he came home in a
greatly altered mood. His usual buoyancy of spirits was gone;
he appeared gloomy and abstracted; and, although, in reply to
the anxious inquiries of his wife, he represented himself to have
been entire successful, — even to a greater extent than ever
before, — yet it was quite obvious that something very untoward,

to say the least, must have happened to him. He would not
leave his house after dark, he placed loaded pistols within the
reach of his hand when he went to bed, and he would often
start up wildly from his sleep. His whole conduct, indeed, was
such as to excite the deeper concern of his perplexed wife, for
she feared it betokened his connection with something very
wrong, — something that had brought him into deadly peril, —
something, perhaps, done to others, which made her tremble to
think of, but something, at all events, which made her more
than ever dread to have him go back again to the scene of his
operations. But of the last-named of her fears she was shortly
relieved; for, to her agreeable surprise, he soon assured her of
his determination to break off entirely from the business he had
been pursuing, and, as much to her gratification as to the
evident vexation of Gaut Gurley, who had come on to look his
employer up, he firmly persisted in carrying out his resolution.
Nor was this all. He rapidly drew his business to a close,
broke off his old associations, privately left the place, and, in a
few weeks, sent for his family to join him in Boston, where it
appeared he had been for some time secretly transferring his
capital, and where he had now established himself in business,
with all the means required, even there, of doing it to the best
advantage. And for some years he did engage in business to
advantage, the same strangely good luck attending him, and
prospering wonderfully in all he undertook, till he gained the
reputation of being among the wealthiest of the city. But the
spoiler came in a second appearance of Gaut Gurley, who,
having squandered in the country the bounteous sums of money
which Elwood had paid him for his services, now followed the
latter to the city. And, with the coming of that personage,
together with the foolish ambition that had, about that time,
seized Elwood, to outshine some of his city competitors in display
and expensive living, commenced the wane of a fortune
which, as large as it was, it had required but two short years
to bring to the verge on which we represented its unhappy
master as standing in the opening scene of our story.

Having now related all we designed in this retrospect of
events, we will return from the somewhat long but necessary
digression, and take up the thread of the narrative where we
left it.