Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1858-01-07
HARLEY HARTMAN;
OR,
The Snaggers of Memphremagog
A Tale Of the Canada Border Counterfeiters.


-,,.~,~,,..,,-,-,,.,>o,.,,,,,,>,
Tale Of the Canada Border Counterfeiters.
~~~~~~~~~~o~-~~~~~.-~>o~~-y~~r~
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION.
A few years only have elapsed since HARLEY
HARTMAN picked up his duds,' and took his
departure, an honest, industrious and reformed
man. Many years before the period referred to,
he was the occupant and owner of =" little
farm well tilled,'' pleasantly situated among the
Green Mountains of Vermont, in the town of
So, in Orleans County,
Deficient ia no worldly possessions essential
to his comfort; possessing many of the convent
encies of life with an athletic frame vigor-
GUS and unimpaired constitution and the pros
pect before him of a steady, and, though mode
rate, yet certain increase of his worldly store,
it would hardly seem as if he could be content,
much less anxious, to abandon his cheerful pros
poets; surrender to the hands of another his
happy home leave wife all alteration, and
children all love; for the vain and delusive hope
of speedily and criminally acquiring fortune
at the peril of his honor and his life. Yet thus
it was. Till this dangerous temptation was Of
fSered him, Hartman had maintained a charac-
ter for perfect uprightness in all his intercourse
with mankind His heart knew no voluntary
impulse to evil. The pure, the sirtuous, the
good, in thought, and word and deed, he most
approved though not as the result of any fixed
moral principle; for in the few years of life he
had spent he had not been subjected to the Sc
we're trials which the impure, the vicious, and
the bad impose but simply because his lot was
cast in moral atmosphere where he had not
opportunity to inhale the odorous infection Of
vice But soon his virtue was destined to under
go the assayer's test; and then if the "gold
should become dim " and " the most fine gold
changed!" and none " should turn His hand
upon him and purely purge away his dross," Oh
woe would betide that trusting wife, and thost
unofending children whom God had given hin
as the shaded emblems of the sinlessness and pu
rity of cherubim and seraphim in the World o
Light
Oh tits the spirit of pride; the hunger AM
thirst for gold the desire to live otherwise thai
as our Maker designed, by the "sweat of ou
brow !" the passion fol. fine clothes, tawdry orna
pents, and velvet palms; these take bread from
the mouth Of Famine make mothers childless
and bedew the hearthstone, daily and nightly
with widows and orphans tears But we ar
moralizing
Had Hartman thus reflected, he might hay
been content to this day, to live as one
"who doth ambition shun,
Andloves to live i the sun,
Seeking the food he eats,
And pleased with what he gets,
Where he should see
No enemy,
But winter and rough weather.n
And to all the world he might have said, wit
the manly independence of Corin, 81 am a tru
laborer | earn that I eat, get that wear
owe no man hate, envy no mans happiness
glad of other mems good, content with m
harm and the greatest of my pride is to ST
my ewes Craze, and my lambs suck" Bu
the simplicity of his habits had apparent
precluded the necessity for this sort of rehe
ton.
Indulgng in that contented humor which hi
been imputed to Corin, he sat, near the clio
of warm summers day, in the doorway
his house, holding in his arms Herbert al
Alice Hartman, his only children; one
sprightly and intelligent boy of six year
the other two years younger, and as chubb
fair-complexioned, and curly-haired little che
ub, as ever evoked a smile upon a mothers Ii
or tear in a mothers eye. A heavy show
of rain had just passed off, and Hartman W
endeavoring to explain to his children the ma
ural cause of the rainbow then visible, al
they, with intent and eager gaze, were admi
ing its rich and varied hues of orange, and pu
pie, and green, as these alternately prevailed
This, my children" said Mrs. Harrima
who possessed a well-stored, and a well-cu
tivated intellect, and whose watchful and d
cerning eye was quickly conversant with the
thoughts, is the work of God He pain
the sky by day; studs it with myriads of sta
by night and with storms, clouds. and te,
pests, magnifcently mars his own handiwor
lie has given you minds to comprehend, al
tastes to applaud the beauty of His works.
one gives you gifts, you give the giver 10,
Then, my children, for the rare gifts of mir
taste, and all the other faculties you possess,
OF which God has given you, give that Gil,
love-
Such was the temper of her mind On
other hand, his was an inert code of morals.
rather it was no code, for though it had pas
the Congress of his brain nenine contradice,
yet it had received no specific approval, a
consequently, was not very vigorously enfor
by the Executive head. Hers was an act
teaching spirit, and she sought to stimulate
moral sense by occasional remarks, in his p
ence, ostensibly designed for his children.
interpreted the proverb, +" Small tubs have Ia
ears" to mean that children hear as readil,
husbands do what is said by mothers and wi
She, therefore, strove to say nothing in
presence of either that should make an
desirable impression. She was like the " !
dent man who foreseeth the evil and hid
himself :''-he more like the simple who
on and are punished" F" Yet with all
strength of mind she was imbued with an
reasonable degree of veneation for signs,