Gaut Gurley | Page 2

a terrible Snow-storm.--Their Suffering
before reaching Central Camp.--The discovery that this Camp had been
Burnt, and Robbed of their whole Stock of Furs.--Their Providential
Escape from Death.
CHAPTER XVI
.
The Legal Prosecution to Recover their Furs, or punish Gaut, the
supposed Criminal.--The unsatisfactory Result, and Gaut's dark
menaces of Revenge.
CHAPTER XVII
.
Gaut's Efforts to get the old Company off into the Forest, on a Spring
Expedition.--All refuse but Elwood and Son, who conclude to
go.--Love Entanglements, and the boding Fears of Mrs. Elwood.
CHAPTER XVIII
.
Opening of Spring in the Settlement.--The Trappers fail to
Return.--Gaut comes without them.--The Alarm and Suspicions of the
Settlers that he has Murdered, the Elwoods.--The Circumstantial
Evidence.
CHAPTER XIX

.
The attempt to Arrest Gaut.--His retreat to a Cave in the
Mountain.--His final Dislodgement and Capture, for Trial and
Examination.
CHAPTER XX
.
Retrospect of the Adventures of Gaut and the Elwoods.--The Murder of
Mark Elwood, and the Wounding of Claud, by Gaut.--Claud's life
saved by Fluella.
CHAPTER XXI
.
Gaut's Trial, Sentence, and Imprisonment.--General Denouement of the
Story.--Gaut breaks Jail, escapes, and becomes a desperate
Pirate-leader.
SEQUEL.
Awful Fate of a Pirate Ship.--Gaut's Death.

CHAPTER I
.
"God made the country and man made the town."
So wrote the charming Cowper, giving us to understand, by the drift of
the context, that he intended the remark as having a moral as well as a
physical application; since, as he there intimates, in "gain-devoted
cities," whither naturally flow "the dregs and feculence of every land,"
and where "foul example in most minds begets its likeness," the vices
will ever find their favorite haunts; while the virtues, on the contrary,
will always most abound in the country. So far as regards the virtues, if
we are to take them untested, this is doubtless true. And so far, also, as
regards the mere _vices_, or actual transgressions of morality, we need,
perhaps, to have no hesitation in yielding our assent to the position of
the poet. But, if he intends to include in the category those flagrant
crimes which stand first in the gradation of human offences, we must
be permitted to dissent from that part of the view; and not only dissent,

but claim that truth will generally require the very reversal of the
picture, for of such crimes we believe it will be found, on examination,
that the country ever furnishes the greatest proportion. In cities, the
frequent intercourse of men with their fellow-men, the constant
interchange of the ordinary civilities of life, and the thousand
amusements and calls on their attention that are daily occurring, have
almost necessarily a tendency to soften or turn away the edge of malice
and hatred, to divert the mind from the dark workings of revenge, and
prevent it from settling into any of those fatal purposes which result in
the wilful destruction of life, or some other gross outrage on humanity.
But in the country, where, it will be remembered, the first blood ever
spilled by the hand of a murderer cried up to Heaven from the ground,
and where the meliorating circumstances we have named as incident to
congregated life are almost wholly wanting, man is left to brood in
solitude over his real or fancied wrongs, till all the fierce and stormy
passions of his nature become aroused, and hurry him unchecked along
to the fatal outbreak. In the city, the strong and bad passions of hate,
envy, jealousy, and revenge, softened in action, as we have said, on
finding a readier vent in some of the conditions of urban society,
generally prove comparatively harmless. In the country, finding no
such softening influences, and no such vent, and left to their own
workings, they often become dangerously concentrated, and, growing
more and more intensified as their self-fed fires are permitted to burn
on, at length burst through every barrier of restraint, and set all law and
reason alike at defiance.
And if this view, as we believe, is correct in regard to the operation of
this class of passions, why not in regard to the operation of those of an
opposite character? Why should not the same principle apply to the
operation of love as well as hate? It should, and does, though not in an
equal degree, perhaps, apply to them both. It has been shown to be so
in the experience of the past. It is illustrated in many a sad drama of
real life, but never more strikingly than in the true and darkly romantic
incidents which form the groundwork of the tale upon which we are
about to enter.
It was on a raw and gusty evening in the month of November, a few
years subsequent to our last war with Great Britain, and the cold and
vapor-laden winds,