CONISTON

By Winston Churchill

 "We have been compelled to see what was weak in democracy as well as what was strong. We have begun obscurely to recognize that things do not go of themselves, and that popular government is not in itself a panacea, is no better than any other form except as the virtue and wisdom of the people make it so, and that when men undertake to do their own kingship, they enter upon, the dangers and responsibilities as well as the privileges of the function. Above all, it looks as if we were on the way to be persuaded that no government can be carried on by declamation. "

 --JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 

BOOK I

CHAPTER I

First I am to write a love-story of long ago, of a time some little whileafter General Jackson had got into the White House and had shown theworld what a real democracy was. The Era of the first six Presidents hadclosed, and a new Era had begun. I am speaking of political Eras. Certaingentlemen, with a pious belief in democracy, but with a firmerdetermination to get on top, arose, --and got in top. So many of thesegentlemen arose in the different states, and they were so clever, andthey found so many chinks in the Constitution to crawl through and stealthe people's chestnuts, that the Era may be called the Boss-Era. Afterthe Boss came along certain Things without souls, but of many minds, andfound more chinks in the Constitution: bigger chinks, for the Things werebigger, and they stole more chestnuts. But I am getting far ahead of mylove-story--and of my book. 

The reader is warned that this first love-story will, in a few chapters, come to an end: and not to a happy end--otherwise there would be no book. Lest he should throw the book away when he arrives at this page, it isonly fair to tell him that there is another and a much longer love storylater on, if he will only continue to read, in which, it is hoped, he maynot be disappointed. 

The hills seem to leap up against the sky as I describe that region whereCynthia Ware was born, and the very old country names help to summon upthe picture. Coniston Mountain, called by some the Blue Mountain, clad inHercynian forests, ten good miles in length, north and south, with itsnotch road that winds over the saddle behind the withers of it. ConistonWater, that oozes out from under the loam in a hundred places, on theeastern slope, gathers into a rushing stream to cleave the very granite, flows southward around the south end of Coniston Mountain, and havingturned the mills at Brampton, idles through meadows westward in its owngreen valley until it comes to Harwich, where it works again and tumblesinto a river. Brampton and Harwich are rivals, but Coniston Water givesof its power impartially to each. From the little farm clearings on thewestern slope of Coniston Mountain you can sweep the broad valley of acertain broad river where grew (and grow still) the giant pines that gavemany a mast to King George's navy as tribute for the land. And beyondthat river rises beautiful Farewell Mountain of many colors, nowsapphire, now amethyst, its crest rimmed about at evening with saffronflame; and, beyond Farewell, the emerald billows of the western peakscatching the level light. A dozen little brooks are born high among thewestern spruces on Coniston to score deep, cool valleys in their waythrough Clovelly township to the broad music of the water and freshriver-valleys full of the music of the water and fresh with the odor ofthe ferns. 

To this day the railroad has not reached Coniston Village--nay, norConiston Flat, four miles nearer Brampton. The village lies on its ownlittle shelf under the forest-clad slope of the mountain, and in themidst of its dozen houses is the green triangle where the militia used todrill on June days. At one end of the triangle is the great pine mastthat graced no frigate of George's, but flew the stars and stripes onmany a liberty day. Across the road is Jonah Winch's store, with aplatform so high that a man may step off his horse directly on to it;with its checker-paned windows, with its dark interior smelling of coffeeand apples and molasses, yes, and of Endea rum--for this was before thedays of the revivals. 

How those checker-paned windows bring back the picture of that villagegreen! The meeting-house has them, lantern-like, wide and high, in threesashes--white meeting-house, seat alike of government and religion, withits terraced steeple, with its classic porches north and south. Behind itis the long shed, and in front, rising out of the milkweed and theflowering thistle, the horse block of the first meeting-house, where manya pillion has left its burden in times bygone. Honest Jock Hallowellbuilt that second meeting-house--was, indeed, still building it at thetime of which we write. He had hewn every beam and king post in it, andset every plate and slip. And Jock Hallowell is the man who, unwittinglystarts this chronicle. 

At noon, on one of those madcap April days of that Coniston country, Jockdescended from his work on the steeple to perceive the ungainly figure ofJethro Bass coming toward him across the green. Jethro was about thirtyyears of age, and he wore a coonskin cap even in those days, and trouserstacked into his boots. He carried his big head bent forward, a little toone aide, and was not, at first sight, a prepossessing-looking person. Asour story largely concerns him and we must get started somehow, it may aswell be to fix a little attention on him. 

"Heigho!" said Jock, rubbing his hands on his leather apron. 

"H-how be you, Jock?" said Jethro, stopping. 

"Heigho!" cried Jock, "what's this game of fox and geese you're a-playin'among the farmers?"

"C-callate to git the steeple done before frost?" inquired Jethro, without so much as a smile. "B-build it tight, Jock--b-build it tight. "

"Guess he'll build his'n tight, whatever it is, " said Jock, looking afterhim as Jethro made his way to the little tannery near by. 

Let it be known that there was such a thing as social rank in Coniston;and something which, for the sake of an advantageous parallel, we maycall an Established Church. Coniston was a Congregational town still, andthe deacons and dignitaries of that church were likewise the pillars ofthe state. Not many years before the time of which we write actualdisestablishment had occurred, when the town ceased--as a town--to paythe salary of Priest Ware, as the minister was called. The father ofJethro Bass, Nathan the currier, had once, in a youthful lapse, permitteda Baptist preacher to immerse him in Coniston Water. This had been theextent of Nathan's religion; Jethro had none at all, and was, for thisand other reasons, somewhere near the bottom of the social scale. 

"Fox and geese!" repeated Jock, with his eyes still on Jethro'sretreating back. The builder of the meetinghouse rubbed a great, brownarm, scratched his head, and turned and came face to face with CynthiaWare, in a poke bonnet. 

Contrast is a favorite trick of authors, and no greater contrast is to behad in Coniston than that between Cynthia Ware and Jethro Bass. In thefirst place; Cynthia was the minister's daughter, and twenty-one. I cansummon her now under the great maples of the village street, a virginalfigure, gray eyes that kindled the face shaded by the poke bonnet, and upyou went above the clouds. 

"What about fox and geese, Jock?" said Cynthia. 

"Jethro Bass, " said Jock, who, by reason of his ability, was a privilegedcharacter. "Mark my words, Cynthy, Jethro Bass is an all-fired sightsmarter that folks in this town think he be. They don't take notice ofhim, because he don't say much, and stutters. He hain't be'n eddicated agreat deal, but I wouldn't be afeard to warrant he'd make a racket in theworld some of these days. "

"Jock Hallowell!" cried Cynthia, the gray beginning to dance, "I supposeyou think Jethro's going to be President. "

"All right, " said Jock, "you can laugh. Ever talked with Jethro?"

"I've hardly spoken two words to him in my life, " she replied. And it wastrue, although the little white parsonage was scarce two hundred yardsfrom the tannery house. 

"Jethro's never ailed much, " Jock remarked, having reference to Cynthia'sproclivities for visiting the sick. "I've seed a good many different menin my time, and I tell you, Cynthia Ware, that Jethro's got a kind ofpower you don't often come acrost. Folks don't suspicion it. "

In spite of herself, Cynthia was impressed by the ring of sincerity inthe builder's voice. Now that she thought of it, there was rugged powerin Jethro's face, especially when he took off the coonskin cap. Shealways nodded a greeting when she saw him in the tannery yard or on theroad, and sometimes he nodded back, but oftener he had not appeared tosee her. She had thought this failure to nod stupidity, but it mightafter all be abstraction. 

"What makes you think he has ability?" she asked, picking flowers from abunch of arbutus she held. 

"He's rich, for one thing, " said Jock. He had not intended a dissertationon Jethro Bass, but he felt bound to defend his statements. 

"Rich!"

"Wal, he hain't poor. He's got as many as thirty mortgages round amongthe farmers--some on land, and some on cattle. "

"How did he make the money?" demanded Cynthia, in surprise. 

"Hides an' wool an' bark--turned 'em over an' swep' in. Gits a load, andLyman Hull drives him down to Boston with that six-hoss team. Lyman gitsdrunk, Jethro keeps sober and saves. "

Jock began to fashion some wooden pegs with his adze, for nails werescarce in those days. Still Cynthia lingered, picking flowers from thebunch. 

"What did you mean by 'fox and geese' Jock?" she said presently. 

Jock laughed. He did not belong to the Establishment, but was aUniversalist; politically he admired General Jackson. "What'd you say ifJethro was Chairman of the next Board of Selectmen?" he demanded. 

No wonder Cynthia gasped. Jethro Bass, Chairman of the Board, in thehonored seat of Deacon Moses Hatch, the perquisite of the church inConiston! The idea was heresy. As a matter of fact, Jock himself utteredit as a playful exaggeration. Certain nonconformist farmers, of whomthere were not a few in the town, had come into Jonah Winch's store thatmorning; and Jabez Miller, who lived on the north slope, had taken awaythe breath of the orthodox by suggesting that Jethro Bass be nominatedfor town office. Jock Hallowell had paused once or twice on his work onthe steeple to look across the tree-tops at Coniston shouldering the sky. He had been putting two and two together, and now he was merely makingfive out of it, instead of four. He remembered that Jethro Bass had forsome years been journeying through the town, baying his hides and wool, and collecting the interest on his mortgages. 

Cynthia would have liked to reprove Jock Hallowell, and tell him therewere some subjects which should not be joked about. Jethro Bass, Chairmanof the Board of Selectmen!

"Well, here comes, young Moses, I do believe, " said Jock, gathering hispegs into his apron and preparing to ascend once more. "Callated he'dspring up pretty soon. "

"Jock, you do talk foolishly for a man who is able to build a church, "said Cynthia, as she walked away. The young Moses referred to was MosesHatch, Junior, son of the pillar of the Church and State, and it was anopen secret that he was madly in love with Cynthia. Let it be said of himthat he was a steady-going young man, and that he sighed for the moon. 

"Moses, " said the girl, when they came in sight of the elms that, shadedthe gable of the parsonage, "what do you think of Jethro Bass?"

"Jethro Bass!" exclaimed honest Moses, "whatever put him into your head, Cynthy?" Had she mentioned perhaps, any other young man in Coniston, Moses would have been eaten with jealousy. 

"Oh, Jock was joking about him. What do you think of him?"

"Never thought one way or t'other, " he answered. "Jethro never had muchto do with the boys. He's always in that tannery, or out buyin' of hides. He does make a sharp bargain when he buys a hide. We always goes shareson our'n. "

Cynthia was not only the minister's daughter, --distinction enough, --herreputation for learning was spread through the country roundabout, and atthe age of twenty she had had an offer to teach school in Harwich. Once aweek in summer she went to Brampton, to the Social library there, and satat the feet of that Miss Lucretia Penniman of whom Brampton has ever beenso proud--Lucretia Penniman, one of the first to sound the clarion notefor the intellectual independence of American women; who wrote the "Hymnto Coniston"; who, to the awe of her townspeople, went out into the greatworld and became editress of a famous woman's journal, and knewLongfellow and Hawthorne and Bryant. Miss Lucretia it was who started theBrampton Social Library, and filled it with such books as both sexesmight read with profit. Never was there a stricter index than hers. Cynthia, Miss Lucretia loved, and the training of that mind was thepleasantest task of her life. 

Curiosity as a factor has never, perhaps, been given its proper weight byphilosophers. Besides being fatal to a certain domestic animal, as aninstigating force it has brought joy and sorrow into the lives of men andwomen, and made and marred careers. And curiosity now laid hold ofCynthia Ware. Why in the world she should ever have been curious aboutJethro Bass is a mystery to many, for the two of them were as far apartas the poles. Cynthia, of all people, took to watching the tanner's son, and listening to the brief colloquies he had with other men at JonahWinch's store, when she went there to buy things for the parsonage; andit seemed to her that Jock had not been altogether wrong, and that therewas in the man an indefinable but very compelling force. And when a womanbegins to admit that a man has force, her curiosity usually increases. Onone or two of these occasions Cynthia had been startled to find his eyesfixed upon her, and though the feeling she had was closely akin to fear, she found something distinctly pleasurable in it. 

May came, and the pools dried up, the orchards were pink and white, thebirches and the maples were all yellow-green on the mountain sidesagainst the dark pines, and Cynthia was driving the minister's gig toBrampton. Ahead of her, in the canon made by the road between the greatwoods, strode an uncouth but powerful figure--coonskin cap, homespunbreeches tucked into boots, and all. The gig slowed down, and Cynthiabegan to tremble with that same delightful fear. She knew it must bewicked, because she liked it so much. Unaccountable thing! She felt allakin to the nature about her, and her blood was coursing as the saprushes through a tree. She would not speak to him; of that she was sure, and equally sure that he would not speak to her. The horse was walkingnow, and suddenly Jethro Bass faced around, and her heart stood still. 

"H-how be you, Cynthy?" he asked. 

"How do you do, Jethro?"

A thrush in the woods began to sing a hymn, and they listened. After thata silence, save for the notes of answering birds quickened by the song, the minister's horse nibbling at the bushes. Cynthia herself could nothave explained why she lingered. Suddenly he shot a question at her. 

"Where be you goin'?"

"To Brampton, to get Miss Lucretia to change this book, " and she held itup from her lap. It was a very large book. 

"Wh-what's it about, " he demanded. 

"Napoleon Bonaparte. "

"Who was be?"

"He was a very strong man. He began life poor and unknown, and fought hisway upward until he conquered the world. "

"C-conquered the world, did you say? Conquered the world?"

"Yes. "

Jethro pondered. 

"Guess there's somethin' wrong about that book--somethin' wrong. Conquerthe United States?"

Cynthia smiled. She herself did not realize that we were not a part ofthe world, then. 

"He conquered Europe; where all the kings and queens are, and became aking himself--an emperor. "

"I want to-know!" said Jethro. "You said he was a poor boy?"

"Why don't you read the book, Jethro?" Cynthia answered. "I am sure I canget Miss Lucretia to let you have it. "

"Don't know as I'd understand it, " he demurred. 

"I'll try to explain what you don't understand, " said Cynthia, and herheart gave a bound at the very idea. 

"Will You?" he said, looking at her eagerly. "Will you? You mean it?"

"Certainly, " she answered, and blushed, not knowing why. "I-I must begoing, " and she gathered up the reins. 

"When will you give it to me?"

"I'll stop at the tannery when I come back from Brampton, " she said, anddrove on. Once she gave a fleeting glance over her shoulder, and he wasstill standing where she had left him. 

When she returned, in the yellow afternoon light that flowed over woodand pasture, he came out of the tannery door. Jake Wheeler or SpeedyBates, the journeyman tailoress, from whom little escaped, could not havesaid it was by design--thought nothing, indeed, of that part of it. 

"As I live!" cried Speedy from the window to Aunt Lucy Prescott in thebed, "if Cynthy ain't givin' him a book as big as the Bible!"

Aunt Lucy hoped, first, that it was the Bible, and second, that Jethrowould read it. Aunt Lucy, and Established Church Coniston in general, believed in snatching brands from the burning, and who so deft as Cynthiaat this kind of snatching! So Cynthia herself was a hypocrite for once, and did not know it. At that time Jethro's sins were mostly of omission. As far as rum was concerned, he was a creature after Aunt Lucy's ownheart, for he never touched it: true, gaunt Deacon Ira Perkins, tithing-man, had once chided him for breaking the Sabbath--shooting at afox. 

To return to the book. As long as he lived, Jethro looked back to the joyof the monumental task of mastering its contents. In his mind, Napoleonbecame a rough Yankee general; of the cities, villages, and fortress heformed as accurate a picture as a resident of Venice from Marco Polo'saccount of Tartary. Jethro had learned to read, after a fashion, towrite, add, multiply, and divide. He knew that George Washington andcertain barefooted companions had forced a proud Britain to her knees, and much of the warring in the book took color from Captain TimothyPrescott's stories of General Stark and his campaigns, heard at JonahWinch's store. What Paris looked like, or Berlin, or the Hospice of St. Bernard--though imaged by a winter Coniston--troubled Jethro not at all;the thing that stuck in his mind was that Napoleon--for a considerabletime, at least--compelled men to do his bidding. Constitutions crumblebefore the Strong. Not that Jethro philosophized about constitutions. Existing conditions presented themselves, and it occurred to him thatthere were crevices in the town system, and ways into power through thecrevices for men clever enough to find them. 

A week later, and in these same great woods on the way to Brampton, Cynthia overtook him once more. It was characteristic of him that heplunged at once into the subject uppermost in his mind. 

"Not a very big place, this Corsica--not a very big place. "

"A little island in the Mediterranean, " said Cynthia. 

"Hum. Country folks, the Bonapartes--country folks?"

Cynthia laughed. 

"I suppose you might call them so, " she said. "They were poor, and livedout of the world. "

"He was a smart man. But he found things goin' his way. Didn't have tomove 'em. "

"Not at first;" she admitted; "but he had to move mountains later. Howfar have you read?"

"One thing that helped him, " said Jethro, in indirect answer to thisquestion, "he got a smart woman for his wife--a smart woman. "

Cynthia looked down at the reins in her lap, and she felt again thatwicked stirring within her, --incredible stirring of minister's daughterfor tanner's son. Coniston believes, and always will believe, that thesocial bars are strong enough. So Cynthia looked down at the reins. 

"Poor Josephine!" she said, "I always wish he had not cast her off. "

"C-cast her off?" said Jethro. "Cast her off! Why did he do that?"

"After a while, when he got to be Emperor, he needed a wife who would bemore useful to him. Josephine had become a drag. He cared more aboutgetting on in the world than he did about his wife. "

Jethro looked away contemplatively. 

"Wa-wahn't the woman to blame any?" he said. 

"Read the book, and you'll see, " retorted Cynthia, flicking her horse, which started at all gaits down the road. Jethro stood in his tracks, staring, but this time he did not see her face above the hood of the gig. Presently he trudged on, head downward, pondering upon another problemthan Napoleon's. Cynthia, at length, arrived in Brampton Street, in ahumor that puzzled the good Miss Lucretia sorely. 

CHAPTER II

The sun had dropped behind the mountain, leaving Coniston in amethystineshadow, and the last bee had flown homeward from the apple blossoms infront of Aunt Lucy Prescott's window, before Cynthia returned. Aunt Lucywas Cynthia's grandmother, and eighty-nine years of age. Still she sat inher window beside the lilac bush, lost in memories of a stout, rosy lasswho had followed a stalwart husband up a broad river into the wildernesssome seventy years agone in Indian days--Weathersfield Massacre days. That lass was Aunt Lucy herself, and in just such a May had Timothy's axerung through the Coniston forest and reared the log cabin, where six ofher children were born. Likewise in review passed the lonely months whenTimothy was fighting behind his rugged General Stark for that privilegemore desirable to his kind than life--self government. Timothy Prescottwould pull the forelock to no man, would have such God-fearing persons ashe chose make his laws for him. 

Honest Captain Timothy and his Stark heroes, Aunt Lucy and her memories, have long gone to rest. Little did they dream of the nation we have livedto see, straining at her constitution like a great ship at anchor in agale, with funnels belching forth smoke, and a new race of men throngingher decks for the mastery. Coniston is there still behind its mountain, with its rusty firelocks and its hillside graves. 

Cynthia, driving back from Brampton in the gig, smiled at Aunt Lucy inthe window, but she did not so much as glance at the tannery housefarther on. The tannery house, be it known, was the cottage where Jethrodwelt, and which had belonged to Nathan, his father; and the tannerysheds were at some distance behind it, nearer Coniston Water. Cynthia didnot glance at the tannery house, for a wave of orthodox indignation hadswept over her: at any rate, we may call it so. In other words, she wasangry with herself: pitied and scorned herself, if the truth be told, forher actions--an inevitable mood. 

In front of the minister's barn under the elms on the hill Cynthia pulledthe harness from the tired horse with an energy that betokened activityof mind. She was not one who shrank from self-knowledge, and the questionput itself to her, "Whither was this matter tending?" The fire that is instrong men has ever been a lure to women; and many, meaning to play withit, have been burnt thereby since the world began. But to turn the fire. To some use, to make the world better for it or stranger for it, thatwere an achievement indeed! The horse munching his hay, Cynthia lingeredas the light fainted above the ridge, with the thought that this might bewoman's province, and Miss Lucretia Penniman might go on leading herwomen regiments to no avail. Nevertheless she was angry with Jethro, notbecause of what he had said, but because of what he was. 

The next day is Sunday, and there is mild excitement in Coniston. ForJethro Bass, still with the coonskin cap, but in a brass-buttoned coatsecretly purchased in Brampton, appeared at meeting! It made nodifference that he entered quietly, and sat in the rear slip, orthodoxConiston knew that he was behind them: good Mr. Ware knew it, and changeda little his prayers and sermon: Cynthia knew it, grew hot and cold byturns under her poke bonnet. Was he not her brand, and would she not getthe credit of snatching him? How willingly, then, would she have given upthat credit to the many who coveted it--if it were a credit. Was Jethroat meeting for any religious purpose?

Jethro's importance to Coniston lay in his soul, and that soul wasnumbered at present ninety and ninth. When the meeting was over, AuntLucy Prescott hobbled out at an amazing pace to advise him to readchapter seven of Matthew, but he had vanished: via the horse sheds; ifshe had known it, and along Coniston Water to the house by the tannery, where he drew breath in a state of mind not to be depicted. He had gazedat the back of Cynthia's poke bonnet for two hours, but he had an uneasyfeeling that he would have to pay a price. 

The price was paid, in part, during the next six days. To do Jethro'simportance absolute justice, he did inspire fear among hiscontemporaries, and young men and women did not say much to his face;what they did say gave them little satisfaction. Grim Deacon Ira stoppedhim as he was going to buy hides, and would have prayed over him ifJethro had waited; dear Aunt Lucy did pray, but in private. In six daysorthodox Coniston came to the conclusion that this ninety and ninth soulwere better left to her who had snatched it, Cynthia Ware. 

As for Cynthia, nothing was farther from her mind. Unchristian as was thethought, if this thing she had awakened could only have been put back tosleep again, she would have thought herself happy. But would she havebeen happy? When Moses Hatch congratulated her, with more humor thansincerity, he received the greatest scare of his life. Yet in those daysshe welcomed Moses's society as she never had before; and Coniston, including Moses himself, began thinking of a wedding. 

Another Saturday came, and no Cynthia went to Brampton. Jethro may or maynot have been on the road. Sunday, and there was Jethro on the back seatin the meetinghouse: Sunday noon, over his frugal dinner, the ministermildly remonstrates with Cynthia for neglecting one who has shown signsof grace, citing certain failures of others of his congregation: Cynthiaturns scarlet, leaving the minister puzzled and a little uneasy: Monday, Miss Lucretia Penniman, alarmed, comes to Coniston to inquire afterCynthia's health: Cynthia drives back with her as far as Four Corners, talking literature and the advancement of woman; returns on foot, thinking of something else, when she discerns a figure seated on a log bythe roadside, bent as in meditation. There was no going back the thing todo was to come on, as unconcernedly as possible, not noticinganything, --which Cynthia did, not without a little inward palpitating andcuriosity, for which she hated herself and looked the sterner. The figureunfolded itself, like a Jack from a box. 

"You say the woman wahn't any to blame--wahn't any to blame?"

The poke bonnet turned away. The shoulders under it began to shake, andpresently the astonished Jethro heard what seemed to be faint peals oflaughter. Suddenly she turned around to him, all trace of laughter gone. 

"Why don't you read the book?"

"So I am, " said Jethro, "so I am. Hain't come to this casting-off yet. "

"And you didn't look ahead to find out?" This with scorn. 

"Never heard of readin' a book in that fashion. I'll come to it intime--g-guess it won't run away. "

Cynthia stared at him, perhaps with a new interest at this ploddingdetermination. She was not quite sure that she ought to stand talking tohim a third time in these woods, especially if the subject ofconversation were not, as Coniston thought, the salvation of his soul. But she stayed. Here was a woman who could be dealt with by no knownrules, who did not even deign to notice a week of marked coldness. 

"Jethro, " she said, with a terrifying sternness, "I am going to ask you aquestion, and you must answer me truthfully. "

"G-guess I won't find any trouble about that, " said Jethro, apparentlynot in the least terrified. 

"I want you to tell me why you are going to meeting. "

"To see you, " said Jethro, promptly, "to see you. "

"Don't you know that that is wrong?"

"H-hadn't thought much about it, " answered Jethro. 

"Well, you should think about it. People don't go to meeting to--to lookat other people. "

"Thought they did, " said Jethro. "W-why do they wear their bestclothes--why do they wear their best clothes?"

"To honor God, " said Cynthia, with a shade lacking in the conviction, forshe added hurriedly: "It isn't right for you to go to church tosee--anybody. You go there to hear the Scriptures expounded, and to haveyour sins forgiven. Because I lent you that book, and you come tomeeting, people think I'm converting you. "

"So you be, " replied Jethro, and this time it was he who smiled, "so yoube. "

Cynthia turned away, her lips pressed together: How to deal with such aman! Wondrous notes broke on the stillness, the thrush was singing hishymn again, only now it seemed a paean. High in the azure a hawk wheeled, and floated. 

"Couldn't you see I was very angry with you?"

"S-saw you was goin' with Moses Hatch more than common. "

Cynthia drew breath sharply. This was audacity--and yet she liked it. 

"I am very fond of Moses, " she said quickly. 

"You always was charitable, Cynthy, " said he. 

"Haven't I been charitable to you?" she retorted. 

"G-guess it has be'n charity, " said Jethro. He looked down at hersolemnly, thoughtfully, no trace of anger in his face, turned, andwithout another word strode off in the direction of Coniston Flat. 

He left a tumultuous Cynthia, amazement and repentance struggling withanger, which forbade her calling him back: pride in her answering topride in him, and she rejoicing fiercely that he had pride. Had he butknown it, every step he took away from her that evening was a step inadvance, and she gloried in the fact that he did not once look back. Asshe walked toward Coniston, the thought came to her that she was rid ofthe thing she had stirred up, perhaps forever, and the thrush burst intohis song once more. 

That night, after Cynthia's candle had gone out, when the minister sat onhis doorsteps looking at the glory of the moon on the mountain forest, hewas startled by the sight of a figure slowly climbing toward him up theslope. A second glance told him that it was Jethro's. Vaguely troubled, he watched his approach; for good Priest Ware, while able to obeyone-half the scriptural injunction, had not the wisdom of the serpent, and women, as typified by Cynthia, were a continual puzzle to him. Thatvery evening, Moses Hatch had called, had been received with more favorthan usual, and suddenly packed off about his business. Seated in themoonlight, the minister wondered vaguely whether Jethro Bass weretroubling the girl. And now Jethro stood before him, holding out a book. Rising, Mr. Ware bade him good evening, mildly and cordially. 

"C-come to leave this book for Cynthy, " said Jethro. 

Mr. Ware took it, mechanically. 

"Have you finished it?" he asked kindly. 

"All I want, " replied Jethro, "all I want. "

He turned, and went down the slope. Twice the words rose to theminister's lips to call him back, and were suppressed. Yet what to say tohim if he came? Mr. Ware sat down again, sadly wondering why Jethro Bassshould be so difficult to talk to. 

The parsonage was of only one story, with a steep, sloping roof. On theleft of the doorway was Cynthia's room, and the minister imagined heheard a faint, rustling noise at her window. Presently he arose, barredthe door; could be heard moving around in his room for a while, andafter that all was silence save for the mournful crying of a whippoorwillin the woods. Then a door opened softly, a white vision stole into thelittle entry lighted by the fan-window, above, seized the book and stoleback. Had the minister been a prying man about his household, he wouldhave noticed next day that Cynthia's candle was burned down to thesocket. He saw nothing of the kind: he saw, in fact, that his daughterflitted about the house singing, and he went out into the sun to droppotatoes. 

No sooner had he reached the barn than this singing ceased. But how wasMr. Ware to know that?

Twice Cynthia, during the week that followed, got halfway down the slopeof the parsonage hill, the book under her arm, on her way to the tannery;twice went back, tears of humiliation and self-pity in her eyes at thethought that she should make advances to a man, and that man the tanner'sson. Her household work done, a longing for further motion seized her, and she walked out under the maples of the village street. Let it beunderstood that Coniston was a village, by courtesy, and its shaded roada street. Suddenly, there was the tannery, Jethro standing in front ofit, contemplative. Did he see her? Would he come to her? Cynthia, seizedby a panic of shame, flew into Aunt Lucy Prescott's, sat through half anhour of torture while Aunt Lucy talked of redemption of sinners, duringten minutes of which Jethro stood, still contemplative. What tumult wasin his breast, or whether there was any tumult, Cynthia knew not. He wentinto the tannery again, and though she saw him twice later in the week, he gave no sign of seeing her. 

On Saturday Cynthia bought a new bonnet in Brampton; Sunday morning putit on, suddenly remembered that one went to church to honor God, and woreher old one; walked to meeting in a flutter of expectancy not to bedenied, and would have looked around had that not been a cardinal sin inConiston. No Jethro! General opinion (had she waited to hear it among thehorse sheds or on the green), that Jethro's soul had slid back into themurky regions, from which it were folly for even Cynthia to try to dragit. 

CHAPTER III

To prove that Jethro's soul had not slid back into the murky regions, andthat it was still indulging in flights, it is necessary to follow him(for a very short space) to Boston. Jethro himself went in Lyman Hull'ssix-horse team with a load of his own merchandise--hides that he hadtanned, and other country produce. And they did not go by the way ofTruro Pass to the Capital, but took the state turnpike over the ranges, where you can see for miles and miles and miles on a clear summer dayacross the trembling floors of the forest tops to lonely sentinelmountains fourscore miles away. 

No one takes the state turnpike nowadays except crazy tourists who arewilling to risk their necks and their horses' legs for the sake ofscenery. The tough little Morgans of that time, which kept their feetlike cats, have all but disappeared, but there were places on that roadwhere Lyman Hull put the shoes under his wheels for four miles at astretch. He was not a companion many people would have chosen with whomto enjoy the beauties of such a trip, and nearly everybody in Conistonwas afraid of him. Jethro Bass would sit silent on the seat for hoursand--it is a fact to be noted that when he told Lyman to do a thing, Lyman did it; not, perhaps, without cursing and grumbling. Lyman was aprofane and wicked man--drover, farmer, trader, anything. He had a cidermill on his farm on the south slopes of Coniston which Mr. Ware hadmentioned in his sermons, and which was the resort of the ungodly. Thecider was not so good as Squire Northcutt's, but cheaper. Jethro was notafraid of Lyman, and he had a mortgage on the six-horse team, and on thefarm and the cider mill. 

After six days, Jethro and Lyman drove over Charlestown bridge and intothe crooked streets of Boston, and at length arrived at a drover's hotel, or lodging-house that did not, we may be sure, front on Mount VernonStreet or face the Mall. Lyman proceeded to get drunk, and Jethro to sellthe hides and other merchandise which Lyman had hauled for him. 

There was a young man in Boston, when Jethro arrived in Lyman Hull'steam, named William Wetherell. By extraordinary circumstances he andanother connected with him are to take no small part in this story, whichis a sufficient excuse for his introduction. His father had been aprosperous Portsmouth merchant in the West India trade, a man of manyattainments, who had failed and died of a broken heart; and William, attwo and twenty, was a clerk in the little jewellery shop of Mr. Judson inCornhill. 

William Wetherell had literary aspirations, and sat from morning tillnight behind the counter, reading and dreaming: dreaming that he was tobe an Irving or a Walter Scott, and yet the sum total of his works inafter years consisted of some letters to the Newcastle Guardian, and abeginning of the Town History of Coniston!

William had a contempt for the awkward young countryman who suddenlyloomed up before him that summer's morning across the counter. But amoment before the clerk had been in a place where he would fain havelingered--a city where blue waters flow swiftly between white palacestoward the sunrise. 

 "And I have fitted up some chambers there Looking toward the golden Eastern air, And level with the living winds, which flow Like waves above the living waves below. "

Little did William Wetherell guess, when he glanced up at the intruder, that he was looking upon one of the forces of his own life! Thecountryman wore a blue swallow tail coat (fashioned by the hand of SpeedyBates), a neck-cloth, a coonskin cap, and his trousers were tucked intorawhide boots. He did not seem a promising customer for expensivejewellery, and the literary clerk did not rise, but merely closed hisbook with his thumb in it. 

"S-sell things here, " asked the countryman, "s-sell things here?"

"Occasionally, when folks have money to buy them. "

"My name's Jethro Bass, " said the countryman, "Jethro Bass from Coniston. Ever hear of Coniston?"

Young Mr. Wetherell never had, but many years afterward he remembered hisname, heaven knows why. Jethro Bass! Perhaps it had a strange ring to it. 

"F-folks told me to be careful, " was Jethro's next remark. He did notlook at the clerk, but kept his eyes fixed on the things within thecounter. 

"Somebody ought to have come with you, " said the clerk, with a smile ofsuperiority. 

"D-don't know much about city ways. "

"Well, " said the clerk, beginning to be amused, "a man has to keep hiswits about him. "

Even then Jethro spared him a look, but continued to study the contentsof the case. 

"What can I do for you, Mr. Bass? We have some really good things here. For example, this Swiss watch, which I will sell you cheap, for onehundred and fifty dollars. "

"One hundred and fifty dollars--er--one hundred and fifty?"

Wetherell nodded. Still the countryman did not look up. 

"F-folks told me to be careful, " he repeated without a smile. He waslooking at the lockets, and finally pointed a large finger at one ofthem--the most expensive, by the way. "W-what d'ye get for that?" heasked. 

"Twenty dollars, " the clerk promptly replied. Thirty was nearer theprice, but what did it matter. 

"H-how much for that?" he said, pointing to another. The clerk told him. He inquired about them all, deliberately repeating the sums, consideringwith so well-feigned an air of a purchaser that Mr. Wetherell began totake a real joy in the situation. For trade was slack in August, anddiversion scarce. Finally he commanded that the case be put on the top ofthe counter, and Wetherell humored him. Whereupon he picked up the lockethe had first chosen. It looked very delicate in his huge, rough hand, andWetherell was surprised that the eyes of Mr. Bass had been caught by themost expensive, for it was far from being the showiest. 

"T-twenty dollars?" he asked. 

"We may as well call it that, " laughed Wetherell. 

"It's not too good for Cynthy, " he said. 

"Nothing's too good for Cynthy, " answered Mr. Wetherell, mockingly, little knowing how he might come to mean it. 

Jethro Bass paid no attention to this speech. Pulling a great cowhidewallet from his pocket, still holding the locket in his hand, to theamazement of the clerk he counted out twenty dollars and laid them down. 

"G-guess I'll take that one, g-guess I'll take that one, " he said. 

Then he looked at Mr. Wetherell for the first time. 

"Hold!" cried the clerk, more alarmed than he cared to show, "that's notthe price. Did you think I could sell it for that price?"

"W-wahn't that the price you fixed?"

"You simpleton!" retorted Wetherell, with a conviction now that he wascalling him the wrong name. "Give me back the locket, and you shall haveyour money, again. "

"W-wahn't that the price you fixed?"

"Yes, but--"

"G-guess I'll keep the locket--g-guess I'll keep the locket. "

Wetherell looked at him aghast, and there was no doubt about hisdetermination. With a sinking heart the clerk realized that he shouldhave to make good to Mr. Judson the seven odd dollars of difference, andthen he lost his head. Slipping round the counter to the door of theshop, he turned the key, thrust it in his pocket, and faced Mr. Bassagain--from behind the counter. 

"You don't leave this shop, " cried the clerk, "until you give me backthat locket. "

Jethro Bass turned. A bench ran along the farther wall, and there heplanted himself without a word, while the clerk stared at him, --with whatfeelings of uneasiness I shall not attempt to describe, --for the customerwas plainly determined to wait until hunger should drive one of themforth. The minutes passed, and Wetherell began to hate him. Then some onetried the door, peered in through the glass, perceived Jethro, shook theknob, knocked violently, all to no purpose. Jethro seemed lost in areverie. 

"This has gone far enough, " said the clerk, trying to keep his voice fromshaking "it is beyond a joke. Give me back the locket. " And he tenderedJethro the money again. 

"W-wahn't that the price you fixed?" asked Jethro, innocently. 

Wetherell choked. The man outside shook the door again, and people on thesidewalk stopped, and presently against the window panes a sea of curiousfaces gazed in upon them. Mr. Bass's thoughts apparently were fixed onEternity--he looked neither at the people nor at Wetherell. And then, thecrowd parting as for one in authority, as in a bad dream the clerk sawhis employer, Mr. Judson, courteously pushing away the customer at thedoor who would not be denied. Another moment, and Mr. Judson had gainedadmittance with his private key, and stood on the threshold staring atclerk and customer. Jethro gave no sign that the situation had changed. 

"William, " said Mr. Judson, in a dangerously quiet voice, "perhaps youcan explain this extraordinary state of affairs. "

"I can, sir, " William cried. "This gentleman" (the word stuck in histhroat), "this gentleman came in here to examine lockets which I had noreason to believe he would buy. I admit my fault, sir. He asked the priceof the most expensive, and I told him twenty dollars, merely for a jest, sir. " William hesitated. 

"Well?" said Mr. Judson. 

"After pricing every locket in the case, he seized the first one, handedme twenty dollars, and now refuses to give it up, although he knows theprice is twenty-seven. "

"Then?"

"Then I locked the door, sir. He sat down there, and hasn't moved since. "

Mr. Judson looked again at Mr. Bass; this time with unmistakableinterest. The other customer began to laugh, and the crowd was pressingin, and Mr. Judson turned and shut the door in their faces. All this timeMr. Bass had not moved, not so much as to lift his head or shift one ofhis great cowhide boots. 

"Well, sir, " demanded Mr. Judson, "what have you to say?"

"N-nothin'. G-guess I'll keep the locket. I've, paid for it--I've paidfor it. "

"And you are aware, my friend, " said Mr. Judson, "that my clerk has givenyou the wrong price?"

"Guess that's his lookout. " He still sat there, doggedly unconcerned. 

A bull would have seemed more at home in a china shop than Jethro Bass ina jewellery store. But Mr. Judson himself was a man out of the ordinary, and instead of getting angry he began to be more interested. 

"Took you for a greenhorn, did he?" he remarked. 

"F-folks told me to be careful--to be careful, " said Mr. Bass. 

Then Mr. Judson laughed. It was all the more disconcerting to WilliamWetherell, because his employer laughed rarely. He laid his hand onJethro's shoulder. 

"He might have spared himself the trouble, my young friend, " he said. "You didn't expect to find a greenhorn behind a jewellery counter, didyou?"

"S-surprised me some, " said Jethro. 

Mr. Judson laughed again, all the while looking at him. 

"I am going to let you keep the locket, " he said, "because it will teachmy greenhorn a lesson. William, do you hear that?"

"Yes, sir, " William said, and his face was very red. 

Mr. Bass rose solemnly, apparently unmoved by his triumph in a somewhatremarkable transaction, and William long remembered how he towered overall of them. He held the locket out to Mr. Judson, who stared at it, astonished. 

"What's this?" said that gentleman; "you don't want it?"

"Guess I'll have it marked, " said Jethro, "ef it don't cost extry. "

"Marked!" gasped Mr. Judson, "marked!"

"Ef it don't cost extry, " Jethro repeated. 

"Well, I'll--" exclaimed Mr. Judson, and suddenly recalled the fact thathe was a church member. "What inscription do you wish put into it?" heasked, recovering himself with an effort. 

Jethro thrust his hand into his pocket, and again the cowhide wallet cameout. He tendered Mr. Judson a somewhat soiled piece of paper, and Mr. Judson read:--

 "Cynthy, from Jethro"

"Cynthy, " Mr. Judson repeated, in a tremulous voice, "Cynthy, notCynthia. "

"H-how is it written, " said Jethro, leaning over it, "h-how is itwritten?"

"Cynthy, " answered Mr. Judson, involuntarily. 

"Then make it Cynthy--make it Cynthy. "

"Cynthy it shall be, " said Mr. Judson, with conviction. 

"When'll you have it done?"

"To-night, " replied Mr. Judson, with a twinkle in his eye, "to-night, asa special favor. "

"What time--w-what time?"

"Seven o'clock, sir. May I send it to your hotel? The Tremont House, Isuppose?"

"I-I'll call, " said Jethro, so solemnly that Mr. Judson kept his laughteruntil he was gone. 

From the door they watched him silently as he strode across the streetand turned the corner. Then Mr. Judson turned. "That man will make hismark, William, " he said; and added thoughtfully, "but whether for good orevil, I know not. "

CHAPTER IV

What Cynthia may have thought or felt during Jethro's absence in Boston, and for some months thereafter, she kept to herself. Honest Moses Hatchpursued his courting untroubled, and never knew that he had a rival. Moses would as soon have questioned the seasons or the weather asCynthia's changes of moods, --which were indeed the weather for him, andwhen storms came he sat with his back to them, waiting for the sunshine. He had long ceased proposing marriage, in the firm belief that Cynthiawould set the day in her own good time. Thereby he was saved muchsuffering. 

The summer flew on apace, for Coniston. Fragrant hay was cut on hillsideswon from rock and forest, and Coniston Water sang a gentler melody--savewhen the clouds floated among the spruces on the mountain and the rainbeat on the shingles. During the still days before the turn of theyear, --days of bending fruit boughs, crab-apples glistening red in thesoft sunlight, --rumor came from Brampton to wrinkle the forehead of MosesHatch as he worked among his father's orchards. 

The rumor was of a Mr. Isaac Dudley Worthington, a name destined to makemuch rumor before it was to be carved on the marble. Isaac D. Worthington, indeed, might by a stretch of the imagination be called thepioneer of all the genus to be known in the future as City Folks, whowere, two generations later, to invade the country like a devouring armyof locusts. 

At that time a stranger in Brampton was enough to set the town agog. Buta young man of three and twenty, with an independent income of fourhundred dollars a year!--or any income at all not derived from his ownlabor--was unheard of. It is said that when the stage from over Truro Gaparrived in Brampton Street a hundred eyes gazed at him unseen, fromvarious ambushes, and followed him up the walk to Silas Wheelock's, wherehe was to board. In half an hour Brampton knew the essentials of IsaacWorthington's story, and Sam Price was on his way with it to Coniston fordistribution at Jonah Winch's store. 

Young Mr. Worthington was from Boston--no less; slim, pale, mediumheight, but with an alert look, and a high-bridged nose. But his clothes!Sam Price's vocabulary was insufficient here, they were cut in such away, and Mr. Worthington was downright distinguished-looking under hisgray beaver. Why had he come to Brampton? demanded Deacon Ira Perkins. Sam had saved this for the last. Young Mr. Worthington was threatenedwith consumption, and had been sent to live with his distant relative, Silas Wheelock. 

The presence of a gentleman of leisure--although threatened withconsumption--became an all-absorbing topic in two villages and threehamlets, and more than one swain, hitherto successful, felt the wind blowcolder. But in a fortnight it was known that a petticoat did not makeIsaac Worthington even turn his head. Curiosity centred on SilasWheelock's barn, where Mr. Worthington had fitted up a shop, and, presently various strange models of contrivances began to take shapethere. What these were, Silas himself knew not; and the gentleman ofleisure was, alas! close-mouthed. When he was not sawing and hammeringand planing, he took long walks up and down Coniston Water, and wassurprised deep in thought at several places. 

Nathan Bass's story-and-a-half house, devoid of paint, faced the road, and behind it was the shed, or barn, that served as the tannery, andbetween the tannery and Coniston Water were the vats. The rain flew insilvery spray, and the drops shone like jewels on the coat of a young manwho stood looking in at the tannery door. Young Jake Wheeler, son of thevillage spendthrift, was driving a lean white horse round in a ring: tothe horse was attached a beam, and on the beam a huge round stone rolledon a circular oak platform. Jethro Bass, who was engaged in pushinghemlock bark under the stone to be crushed, straightened. Of the three, the horse had seen the visitor first, and stopped in his tracks. 

"Jethro!" whispered Jake, tingling with an excitement that was butnatural. Jethro had begun to sweep the finer pieces of bark toward thecentre. "It's the city man, walked up here from Brampton. "

It was indeed Mr. Worthington, slightly more sunburned and lesscitified-looking than on his arrival, and he wore a woollen cap ofBrampton make. Even then, despite his wavy hair and delicate appearance, Isaac Worthington had the hawk-like look which became famous in lateryears, and at length he approached Jethro and fixed his eye upon him. 

"Kind of slow work, isn't it?" remarked Mr. Worthington. 

The white horse was the only one to break the silence that followed, bysneezing with all his might. 

"How is the tannery business in these parts?" essayed Mr. Worthingtonagain. 

"Thinkin' of it?" said Jethro. "T-thinkin' of it, be you?"

"No, " answered Mr. Worthington, hastily. "If I were, " he added, "I'd putin new machinery. That horse and stone is primitive. "

"What kind of machinery would you put in?" asked Jethro. 

"Ah, " answered Worthington, "that will interest you. All New Englandersare naturally progressive, I take it. "

"W-what was it you took?"

"I was merely remarking on the enterprise of New Englanders, " saidWorthington, flushing. "On my journey up here, beside the Merrimac, I hadthe opportunity to inspect the new steam-boiler, the falling-mill, thesplitting machine, and other remarkable improvements. In fact, thesesuggested one or two little things to me, which might be of interest toyou. "

"Well, " said Jethro, "they might, and then again they mightn't. Guess itdepends. "

"Depends!" exclaimed the man of leisure, "depends on what?"

"H-how much you know about it. "

Young Mr. Worthington, instead of being justly indignant, laughed andsettled himself comfortably on a pile of bark. He thought Jethro acharacter, and he was not mistaken. On the other hand, Mr. Worthingtondisplayed a knowledge of the falling-mill and splitting-machine and theprocess of tanneries in general that was surprising. Jethro, had Mr. Worthington but known it, was more interested in animate machines: moreinterested in Mr. Worthington than the falling-mill or, indeed, thetannery business. 

At length the visitor fell silent, his sense of superiority suddenlygone. Others had had this same feeling with Jethro, even the minister;but the man of leisure (who was nothing of the sort) merely felt a kindof bewilderment. 

"Callatin' to live in Brampton--be you?" asked Jethro. 

"I am living there now. "

"C-callatin' to set up a mill some day?"

Mr. Worthington fairly leaped off the bark pile. 

"What makes you say that?" he demanded. 

"G-guesswork, " said Jethro, starting to shovel again, "g-guesswork. "

To take a walk in the wild, to come upon a bumpkin in cowhide bootscrushing bark, to have him read within twenty minutes a cherished andwell-hidden ambition which Brampton had not discovered in a month (anddid not discover for many years) was sufficiently startling. Well mightMr. Worthington tremble for his other ambitions, and they were many. 

Jethro stepped out, passing Mr. Worthington as though he had alreadyforgotten that gentleman's existence, and seized an armful of bark thatlay under cover of a lean-to. Just then, heralded by a brightening of thewestern sky, a girl appeared down the road, her head bent a little as inthought, and if she saw the group by the tannery house she gave no sign. Two of them stared at her--Jake Wheeler and Mr. Worthington. SuddenlyJake, implike, turned and stared at Worthington. 

"Cynthy Ware, the minister's daughter, " he said. 

"Haven't I seen her in Brampton?" inquired Mr. Worthington, littlethinking of the consequences of the question. 

"Guess you have, " answered Jake. "Cynthy goes to the Social Library, togit books. She knows more'n the minister himself, a sight more. "

"Where does the minister live?" asked Mr. Worthington. 

Jake pulled him by the sleeve toward the road, and pointed to the lowgable of the little parsonage under the elms on the hill beyond themeeting-house. The visitor gave a short glance at it, swung around andgave a longer glance at the figure disappearing in the other direction. He did not suspect that Jake was what is now called a news agency. ThenMr. Worthington turned to Jethro, who was stooping over the bark. 

"If you come to Brampton, call and see me, " he said. "You'll find me atSilas Wheelock's. "

He got no answer, but apparently expected none, and he started off downthe Brampton road in the direction Cynthia had taken. 

"That makes another, " said Jake, significantly, "and Speedy Bates says henever looks at wimmen. Godfrey, I wish I could see Moses now. "

Mr. Worthington had not been quite ingenuous with Jake. To tell thetruth, he had made the acquaintance of the Social Library and MissLucretia, and that lady had sung the praises of her favorite. Once out ofsight of Jethro, Mr. Worthington quickened his steps, passed the store, where he was remarked by two of Jonah's customers, and his blood leapedwhen he saw the girl in front of him, walking faster now. Yes, it is afact that Isaac Worthington's blood once leaped. He kept on, but whennear her had a spasm of fright to make his teeth fairly chatter, and thananother spasm followed, for Cynthia had turned around. 

"How do you do Mr. Worthington?" she said, dropping him a littlecourtesy. Mr. Worthington stopped in his tracks, and it was some timebefore he remembered to take off his woollen cap and sweep the mud withit. 

"You know my name!" he exclaimed. 

"It is known from Tarleton Four Corners to Harwich, " said Cynthia, "allthat distance. To tell the truth, " she added, "those are the boundariesof my world. " And Mr. Worthington being still silent, "How do you likebeing a big frog in a little pond?"

"If it were your pond, Miss Cynthia, " he responded gallantly, "I shouldbe content to be a little frog. "

"Would you?" she said; "I don't believe you. "

This was not subtle flattery, but the truth--Mr. Worthington would neverbe content to be a little anything. So he had been judged twice in anafternoon, once by Jethro and again by Cynthia. 

"Why don't you believe me?" he asked ecstatically. 

"A woman's instinct, Mr. Worthington, has very little reason in it. "

"I hear, Miss Cynthia, " he said gallantly, "that your instinct isfortified by learning, since Miss Penniman tells me that you are quitecapable of taking a school in Boston. "

"Then I should be doubly sure of your character, " she retorted with atwinkle. 

"Will you tell my fortune?" he said gayly. 

"Not on such a slight acquaintance, " she replied. "Good-by, Mr. Worthington. "

"I shall see you in Brampton, " he cried, "I--I have seen you inBrampton. "

She did not answer this confession, but left him, and presentlydisappeared beyond the triangle of the green, while Mr. Worthingtonpursued his way to Brampton by the road, --his thoughts that evening noton waterfalls or machinery. As for Cynthia's conduct, I do not defend orexplain it, for I have found out that the best and wisest of women can attimes be coquettish. 

It was that meeting which shook the serenity of poor Moses, and helearned of it when he went to Jonah Winch's store an hour later. An hourlater, indeed, Coniston was discussing the man of leisure in a new light. It was possible that Cynthia might take him, and Deacon Ira Perkins madea note the next time he went to Brampton to question Silas Wheelock onMr. Worthington's origin, habits, and orthodoxy. 

Cynthia troubled herself very little about any of these. Scarcely anypurpose in the world is single, but she had had a purpose in talking toMr. Worthington, besides the pleasure it gave her. And the next Saturday, when she rode off to Brampton, some one looked through the cracks in thetannery shed and saw that she wore her new bonnet. 

There is scarcely a pleasanter place in the world than Brampton Street ona summer's day. Down the length of it runs a wide green, shaded byspreading trees, and on either side, tree-shaded, too, and each in itsown little plot, gabled houses of that simple, graceful architecture ofour forefathers. Some of these had fluted pilasters and cornices, theenvy of many a modern architect, and fan-shaped windows in dormer anddoorway. And there was the church, then new, that still stands to theglory of its builders; with terraced steeple and pillared porch and thewidest of checker-paned sashes to let in the light on high-backed pewsand gallery. 

The celebrated Social Library, halfway up the street, occupied part ofMiss Lucretia's little house; or, it might better be said, Miss Lucretiaboarded with the Social Library. There Cynthia hitched her horse, gavegreeting to Mr. Ezra Graves and others who paused, and, before she wasfairly in the door, was clasped in Miss Lucretia's arms. There were newbooks to be discussed, arrived by the stage the day before; but scarcehalf an hour had passed before Cynthia started guiltily at a timid knock, and Miss Lucretia rose briskly. 

"It must be Ezra Graves come for the Gibbon, " she said. "He's early. " Andshe went to the door. Cynthia thought it was not Ezra. Then came MissLucretia's voice from the entry:--

"Why, Mr. Worthington! Have you read the Last of the Mohicans already?"

There he stood, indeed, the man of leisure, and to-day he wore his beaverhat. No, he had not yet read the 'Last of the Mohicans. ' There werethings in it that Mr. Worthington would like to discuss with MissPenniman. Was it not a social library? At this juncture there came agiggle from within that made him turn scarlet, and he scarcely heard MissLucretia offering to discuss the whole range of letters. Enter Mr. Worthington, bows profoundly to Miss Lucretia's guest, his beaver in hishand, and the discussion begins, Cynthia taking no part in it. Strangelyenough, Mr. Worthington's remarks on American Indians are not onlyintelligent, but interesting. The clock strikes four, Miss Lucretiastarts up, suddenly remembering that she has promised to read to aninvalid, and with many regrets from Mr. Worthington, she departs. Then hesits down again, twirling his beaver, while Cynthia looks at him in quietamusement. 

"I shall walk to Coniston again, next week, " he announced. 

"What an energetic man!" said Cynthia. 

"I want to have my fortune told. "

"I hear that you walk a great deal, " she remarked, "up and down ConistonWater. I shall begin to think you romantic, Mr. Worthington--perhaps apoet. "

"I don't walk up and down Coniston Water for that reason, " he answeredearnestly. 

"Might I be so bold as to ask the reason?" she ventured. 

Great men have their weaknesses. And many, close-mouthed with their ownsex, will tell their cherished hopes to a woman, if their interests areengaged. With a bas-relief of Isaac Worthington in the town libraryto-day (his own library), and a full-length portrait of him in thecapitol of the state, who shall deny this title to greatness?

He leaned a little toward her, his face illumined by his subject, whichwas himself. 

"I will confide in you, " he said, "that some day I shall build here inBrampton a woollen mill which will be the best of its kind. If I gainmoney, it will not be to hoard it or to waste it. I shall try to make thetown better for it, and the state, and I shall try to elevate myneighbors. "

Cynthia could not deny that these were laudable ambitions. 

"Something tells me, " he continued, "that I shall succeed. And that iswhy I walk on Coniston Water--to choose the best site for a dam. "

"I am honored by your secret, but I feel that the responsibility yourepose in me is too great, " she said. 

"I can think of none in whom I would rather confide, " said he. 

"And am I the only one in all Brampton, Harwich, and Coniston who knowsthis?" she asked. 

Mr. Worthington laughed. 

"The only one of importance, " he answered. "This week, when I went toConiston, I had a strange experience. I left the brook at a tannery, anda most singular fellow was in the shed shovelling bark. I tried to gethim to talk, and told him about some new tanning machinery I had seen. Suddenly he turned on me and asked me if I was 'callatin' to set up amill. ' He gave me a queer feeling. Do you have many such odd charactersin Coniston, Miss Cynthia? You're not going?"

Cynthia had risen, and all of the laugher was gone from her eyes. Whathad happened to make her grow suddenly grave, Isaac Worthington neverknew. 

"I have to get my father's supper, " she said. 

He, too, rose, puzzled and disconcerted at this change in her. 

"And may I not come to Coniston?" he asked. 

"My father and I should be glad to see you, Mr. Worthington, " sheanswered. 

He untied her horse and essayed one more topic. 

"You are taking a very big book, " he said. "May I look at the title?"

She showed it to him in silence. It was the "Life of Napoleon Bonaparte. "

CHAPTER V

Isaac Worthington came to Coniston not once, but many times, before thesnow fell; and afterward, too, in Silas Wheelock's yellow sleigh throughthe great drifts under the pines, the chestnut Morgan trotting to oneside in the tracks. On one of these excursions he fell in with thatsingular character of a bumpkin who had interested him on his firstvisit, in coonskin cap and overcoat and mittens. Jethro Bass was ploddingin the same direction, and Isaac Worthington, out of the goodness of hisheart, invited him into the sleigh. He was scarcely prepared for thebumpkin's curt refusal, but put it down to native boorishness, andthought no more about it then. 

What troubled Mr. Worthington infinitely more was the progress of hissuit; for it had become a snit, though progress is a wrong word to use inconnection with it. So far had he got, --not a great distance, --and thencame to what he at length discovered was a wall, and apparentlyimpenetrable. He was not even allowed to look over it. Cynthia was kind, engaging; even mirthful, at times, save when he approached it; and hebecame convinced that a certain sorrow lay in the forbidden ground. Thenearest he had come to it was when he mentioned again, by accident, thatlife of Napoleon. 

That Cynthia would accept him, nobody doubted for an instant. It would bemadness not to. He was orthodox, so Deacon Ira had discovered, of goodhabits, and there was the princely four hundred a year--almost aminister's salary! Little people guessed that there was nolove-making--only endless discussions of books beside the great centrechimney, and discussions of Isaac Worthington's career. 

It is a fact--for future consideration--that Isaac Worthington proposedto Cynthia Ware, although neither Speedy Bates nor Deacon Ira Perkinsheard him do so. It had been very carefully prepared, that speech, andwas a model of proposals for the rising young men of all time. Mr. Worthington preferred to offer himself for what he was going to be--notfor what he was. He tendered to Cynthia a note for a large amount, payable in some twenty years, with interest. The astonishing thing torecord is that in twenty years he could have more than paid the note, although he could not have foreseen at that time the Worthington FreeLibrary and the Truro Railroad, and the stained-glass window in thechurch and the great marble monument on the hill--to another woman. Allof these things, and more, Cynthia might have had if she had onlyaccepted that promise to pay! But she did not accept it. He was a triflemore robust than when he came to Brampton in the summer, but perhaps shedoubted his promise to pay. 

It may have been guessed, although the language we have used has beenpurposely delicate, that Cynthia was already in love with--somebody else. Shame of shames and horror of horrors--with Jethro Bass! With Strength, in the crudest form in which it is created, perhaps, but yet withStrength. The strength might gradually and eventually be refined. Suchwas her hope, when she had any. It is hard, looking back upon thatvirginal and cultured Cynthia, to be convinced that she could have lovedpassionately, and such a man! But love she did, and passionately, too, and hated herself for it, and prayed and struggled to cast out what shebelieved, at times, to be a devil. 

The ancient allegory of Cupid and the arrows has never been improvedupon: of Cupid, who should never in the world have been trusted with aweapon, who defies all game laws, who shoots people in the bushes andinnocent bystanders generally, the weak and the helpless and the strongand self-confident! There is no more reason in it than that. He shotCynthia Ware, and what she suffered in secret Coniston never guessed. What parallels in history shall I quote to bring home the enormity ofsuch a mesalliance? Orthodox Coniston would have gone into sackcloth andashes, --was soon to go into these, anyway. 

I am not trying to keep the lovers apart for any mere purposes offiction, --this is a true chronicle, and they stayed apart most of thatwinter. Jethro went about his daily tasks, which were now becomemanifold, and he wore the locket on its little chain himself. He did notthink that Cynthia loved him--yet, but he had the effrontery to believethat she might, some day; and he was content to wait. He saw that sheavoided him, and he was too proud to go to the parsonage and so incurridicule and contempt. 

Jethro was content to wait. That is a clew to his character throughouthis life. He would wait for his love, he would wait for his hate: he hadwaited ten years before putting into practice the first step of a littlescheme which he had been gradually developing during that time, for whichhe had been amassing money, and the life of Napoleon Bonaparte, by theway, had given him some valuable ideas. Jethro, as well as Isaac D. Worthington, had ambitions, although no one in Coniston had hithertoguessed them except Jock Hallowell--and Cynthia Ware, after her curiosityhad been aroused. 

Even as Isaac D. Worthington did not dream of the Truro Railroad and ofan era in the haze of futurity, it did not occur to Jethro Bass that hisambitions tended to the making of another era that was at hand. Makers oferas are too busy thinking about themselves and like immediate matters toworry about history. Jethro never heard the expression about "cracks inthe Constitution, " and would not have known what it meant, --he merely hadthe desire to get on top. But with Established Church Coniston tight inthe saddle (in the person of Moses Hatch, Senior), how was he to do it?

As the winter wore on, and March town meeting approached, strange rumorsof a Democratic ticket began to drift into Jonah Winch's store, --aDemocratic ticket headed by Fletcher Bartlett, of all men, as chairman ofthe board. Moses laughed when he first heard of it, for Fletcher was aneasy-going farmer of the Methodist persuasion who was always in debt, andthe other members of the ticket, so far as Moses could learn of it--wereremarkable neither for orthodoxy or solidity. The rumors persisted, andstill Moses laughed, for the senior selectman was a big man with flesh onhim, who could laugh with dignity. 

"Moses, " said Deacon Lysander Richardson as they stood on the platform ofthe store one sunny Saturday in February, "somebody's put Fletcher up tothis. He hain't got sense enough to act that independent all by himself. "

"You be always croakin', Lysander, " answered Moses. 

Cynthia Ware, who had come to the store for buttons for Speedy Bates, whowas making a new coat for the minister, heard these remarks, and stoodthoughtfully staring at the blue coat-tails of the elders. A brass buttonwas gone from Deacon Lysander's, and she wanted to sew it on. Suddenlyshe looked up, and saw Jock Hallowell standing beside her. Jockwinked--and Cynthia blushed and hurried homeward without a word. Sheremembered, vividly enough, what Jack had told her the spring before, andseveral times during the week that followed she thought of waylaying himand asking what he knew. But she could not summon the courage. As amatter of fact, Jock knew nothing, but he had a theory. He was a strangeman, Jock, who whistled all day on roof and steeple and meddled withnobody's business, as a rule. What had impelled him to talk to Cynthia inthe way he had must remain a mystery. 

Meanwhile the disquieting rumors continued to come in. Jabez Miller, onthe north slope, had told Samuel Todd, who told Ephraim Williams, that hewas going to vote for Fletcher. Moses Hatch hitched up his team and wentout to see Jabez, spent an hour in general conversation, and then plumpedthe question, taking, as he said, that means of finding out. Jabez hemmedand hawed, said his farm was mortgaged; spoke at some length about theAmerican citizen, however humble, having a right to vote as he chose. Amost unusual line for Jabez, and the whole matter very mysterious and nota little ominous. Moses drove homeward that sparkling day, shutting hiseyes to the glare of the ice crystals on the pines, and thinkingprofoundly. He made other excursions, enough to satisfy himself that thisdisease, so new and unheard of (the right of the unfit to hold office), actually existed. Where the germ began that caused it, Moses knew nobetter than the deacon, since those who were suspected of leanings towardFletcher Bartlett were strangely secretive. The practical result ofMoses' profound thought was a meeting, in his own house, without respectto party, Democrats and Whigs alike, opened by a prayer from the ministerhimself. The meeting, after a futile session, broke up dismally. Seditionand conspiracy existed; a chief offender and master mind there was, somewhere. But who was he?

Good Mr. Ware went home, troubled in spirit, shaking his head. He had acold, and was not so strong as he used to be, and should not have gone tothe meeting at all. At supper, Cynthia listened with her eyes on herplate while he told her of the affair. 

"Somebody's behind this, Cynthia, " he said. "It's the most astonishingthing in my experience that we cannot discover who has incited them. Allthe unattached people in the town seem to have been organized. " Mr. Warewas wont to speak with moderation even at his own table. He saidunattached--not ungodly. 

Cynthia kept her eyes on her plate, but she felt as though her body wereafire. Little did the minister imagine, as he went off to write hissermon, that his daughter might have given him the clew to the mystery. Yes, Cynthia guessed; and she could not read that evening because of thetumult of her thoughts. What was her duty in the matter? To tell herfather her suspicions? They were only suspicions, after all, and shecould make no accusations. And Jethro! Although she condemned him, therewas something in the situation that appealed to a most reprehensiblesense of humor. Cynthia caught herself smiling once or twice, and knewthat it was wicked. She excused Jethro, and told herself that, with hislack of training, he could know no better. Then an idea came to her, andthe very boldness of it made her grow hot again. She would appeal to himtell him that that power he had over other men could be put to better andfiner uses. She would appeal to him, and he would abandon the matter. That the man loved her with the whole of his rude strength she was sure, and that knowledge had been the only salve to her shame. 

So far we have only suspicions ourselves; and, strange to relate, if wego around Coniston with Jethro behind his little red Morgan, we shallcome back with nothing but--suspicions. They will amount to convictions, yet we cannot prove them. The reader very naturally demands some specificinformation--how did Jethro do it? I confess that I can only indicate ina very general way: I can prove nothing. Nobody ever could prove anythingagainst Jethro Bass. Bring the following evidence before any grand juryin the country, and see if they don't throw it out of court. 

Jethro in the course of his weekly round of strictly business visitsthroughout the town, drives into Samuel Todd's farmyard, and hitches onthe sunny side of the red barns. The town of Coniston, it must beexplained for the benefit of those who do not understand the word "town"in the New England senses was a tract of country about ten miles by ten, the most thickly settled portion of which was the village of Coniston, consisting of twelve houses. Jethro drives into the barnyard, and SamuelTodd comes out. He is a little man, and has a habit of rubbing the sharpridge of his nose. 

"How be you, Jethro?" says Samuel. "Killed the brindle Thursday. Finesthide you ever seed. "

"G-goin' to town meetin' Tuesday--g-goin' to town meetin'Tuesday--Sam'l?" says Jethro. 

"I was callatin' to, Jethro. "

"Democrat--hain't ye--Democrat?"

"Callate to be. "

"How much store do ye set by that hide?"

Samuel rubs his nose. Then he names a price that the hide might fetch, under favorable circumstances, in Boston--Jethro does not wince. 

"Who d'ye callate to vote for, Sam'l?"

Samuel rubs his nose. 

"Heerd they was a-goin' to put up Fletcher and Amos Cuthbert, an' SamPrice for Moderator. " (What a convenient word is they when usedpolitically!) "Hain't made up my mind, clear, " says Samuel. 

"C-comin' by the tannery after town meetin'?" inquired Jethro, casually. 

"Don't know but what I kin. "

"F-fetch the hide--f-fetch the hide. "

And Jethro drives off, with Samuel looking after him, rubbing his nose. "No bill, " says the jury--if you can get Samuel into court. But youcan't. Even Moses Hatch can get nothing out of Samuel, who then talksJacksonian principles and the nights of an American citizen. 

Let us pursue this matter a little farther, and form a committee ofinvestigation. Where did Mr. Todd learn anything about Jacksonianprinciples? From Mr. Samuel Price, whom they have spoken of forModerator. And where did Mr. Price learn of these principles? Any one inConiston will tell you that Mr. Price makes a specialty of orators andoratory; and will hold forth at the drop of a hat in Jonah Winch's storeor anywhere else. Who is Mr. Price? He is a tall, sallow young man ofeight and twenty, with a wedge-shaped face, a bachelor and a Methodist, who farms in a small way on the southern slope, and saves his money. Hehas become almost insupportable since they have named him for Moderator. 

Get Mr. Sam Price into court. Here is a man who assuredly knows who theyare: if we are, not much mistaken, he is their mouthpiece. Get, an eelinto court. There is only one man in town who can hold an eel, and heisn't on the jury. Mr. Price will talk plentifully, in his nasal way; buthe won't tell you anything. 

Mr. Price has been nominated to fill Deacon Lysander Richardson's shoesin the following manner: One day in the late autumn a man in a coonskincap stops beside Mr. Price's woodpile, where Mr. Price has been choppingwood, pausing occasionally to stare off through the purple haze at thesouth shoulder of Coniston Mountain. 

"How be you, Jethro?" says Mr. Price, nasally. 

"D-Democrats are talkin' some of namin' you Moderator next meetin', " saysthe man in the coonskin cap. 

"Want to know!" ejaculates Mr. Price, dropping the axe and straighteningup in amazement. For Mr. Price's ambition soared no higher, and he hadmade no secret of it. "Wal! Whar'd you hear that, Jethro?"

"H-heerd it round--some. D-Democrat--hain't you--Democrat?"

"Always callate to be. "

"J-Jacksonian Democrat?"

"Guess I be. "

Silence for a while, that Mr. Price may feel the gavel in his hand, whichhe does. 

"Know somewhat about Jacksonian principles, don't ye--know somewhat?"

"Callate to, " says Mr. Price, proudly. 

"T-talk 'em up, Sam--t-talk 'em up. C-canvass, Sam. "

With these words of brotherly advice Mr. Bass went off down the road, andMr. Price chopped no more wood that night; but repeated to himself manytimes in his nasal voice, "I want to know!" In the course of the next fewweeks various gentlemen mentioned to Mr. Price that he had been spoken offor Moderator, and he became acquainted with the names of the othercandidates on the same mysterious ticket who were mentioned. Whereupon hegirded up his loins and went forth and preached the word of JacksonianDemocracy in all the farmhouses roundabout, with such effect that SamuelTodd and others were able to talk with some fluency about the rights ofAmerican citizens. 

Question before the Committee, undisposed of: Who nominated Samuel Pricefor Moderator? Samuel Price gives the evidence, tells the court he doesnot know, and is duly cautioned and excused. 

Let us call, next, Mr. Eben Williams, if we can. Moses Hatch, Senior, hasalready interrogated him with all the authority of the law and thechurch, for Mr. Williams is orthodox, though the deacons have to remindhim of his duty once in a while. Eben is timid, and replies to us, as toMoses, that he has heard of the Democratic ticket, and callates thatFletcher Bartlett, who has always been the leader of the Democraticparty, has named the ticket. He did not mention Jethro Bass to DeaconHatch. Why should he? What has Jethro Bass got to do with politics?

Eben lives on a southern spur, next to Amos Cuthbert, where you can lookoff for forty miles across the billowy mountains of the west. From nospot in Coniston town is the sunset so fine on distant Farewell Mountain, and Eben's sheep feed on pastures where only mountain-bred sheep cancling and thrive. Coniston, be it known, at this time is one of thefamous wool towns of New England: before the industry went West, withother industries. But Eben Williams's sheep do not wholly belong to himthey are mortgaged--and Eben's farm is mortgaged. 

Jethro Bass--Eben testifies to us--is in the habit of visiting him once amonth, perhaps, when he goes to Amos Cuthbert's. Just friendly calls. Isit not a fact that Jethro Bass holds his mortgage? Yes, for eight hundreddollars. How long has he held that mortgage? About a year and a half. Hasthe interest been paid promptly? Well, the fact is that Eben hasn't paidany interest yet. 

Now let us take the concrete incident. Before that hypocritical thawearly in February, Jethro called upon Amos Cuthbert--not so surly then ashe has since become--and talked about buying his wool when it should beduly cut, and permitted Amos to talk about the position of secondselectman, for which some person or persons unknown to the jury hadnominated him. On his way down to the Four Corners, Jethro had merelypulled up his sleigh before Eben Williams's house, which stood behind ahuge snow bank and practically on the road. Eben appeared at the door, alittle dishevelled in hair and beard, for he had been sleeping. 

"How be you, Jethro?" he said nervously. Jethro nodded. 

"Weather looks a mite soft. "

No answer. 

"About that interest, " said Eben, plunging into the dread subject, "don'tknow as I'm ready this month after all. "

"G-goin' to town meetin', Eben?"

"Wahn't callatin' to, " answered Eben. 

"G-goin' to town meetin', Eben?"

Eben, puzzled and dismayed, ran his hand through his hair. 

"Wahn't callatin' to--but I kin--I kin. "

"D-Democrat--hain't ye--D-Democrat?"

"I kin be, " said Eben. Then he looked at Jethro and added in a startledvoice, "Don't know but what I be--Yes, I guess I be. "

"H-heerd the ticket?"

Yes, Eben had heard the ticket. What man had not. Some one has been mostindustrious, and most disinterested, in distributing that ticket. 

"Hain't a mite of hurry about the interest right now--right now, " saidJethro. "M-may be along the third week in March--may be--c-can t tell. "

And Jethro clucked to his horse, and drove away. Eben Williams went backinto his house and sat down with his head in his hands. In about twohours, when his wife called him to fetch water, he set down the pail onthe snow and stared across the next ridge at the eastern horizon, whitening after the sunset. 

The third week in March was the week after town meeting!

"M-may be--c-can't tell, " repeated Eben to himself, unconsciouslyimitating Jethro's stutter. "Godfrey, I'll hev to git that ticketstraight from Amos. "

Yes, we may have our suspicions. But how can we get a bill on thisevidence? There are some thirty other individuals in Coniston whosemortgages Jethro holds, from a horse to a house and farm. It is notlikely that they will tell Beacon Hatch, or us; that they are going totown meeting and vote for that fatherless ticket because Jethro Basswishes them to do so. And Jethro has never said that he wishes them to. If so, where are your witnesses? Have we not come back to ourstarting-point, even as Moses Hatch drove around in a circle. . And wehave the advantage over Moses, for we suspect somebody, and he did notknow whom to suspect. Certainly not Jethro Bass, the man that lived underhis nose and never said anything--and had no right to. Jethro Bass hadnever taken any active part in politics, though some folks had heard, inhis rounds on business, that he had discussed them, and had spread thenews of the infamous ticket without a parent. So much was spoken of atthe meeting over which Priest Ware prayed. It was even declared that, being a Democrat, Jethro might have influenced some of those underobligations to him. Sam Price was at last fixed upon as the malefactor, though people agreed that they had not given him credit for so muchsense, and Jacksonian principles became as much abhorred by the orthodoxas the spotted fever. 

We can call a host of other witnesses if we like, among them cranky, happy-go-lucky Fletcher Bartlett, who has led forlorn hopes in formeryears. Court proceedings make tiresome reading, and if those who havebeen over ours have not arrived at some notion of the simple and innocentmethod of the new Era of politics note dawning--they never will. Nothingproved. But here is part of the ticket which nobody started:--

 For

 SENIOR SELECTMAN, FLETCHER BARTLETT. 

 (Farm and buildings on Thousand Acre Hill mortgaged to Jethro Bass. )

 SECOND SELECTMAN, AMOS CUTHBERT. 

 (Farm and buildings on Town's End Ridge mortgaged to Jethro Bass. )

 THIRD SELECTMAN, CHESTER PERKINS. 

 (Sop of some kind to the Established Church party. Horse and cow mortgaged to Jethro Bass, though his father, the tithing-man, doesn't know it. )

 MODERATOR, SAMUEL PRICE. 

 (Natural ambition--dove of oratory and Jacksonian principles. )

 etc. , etc. 

The notes are mine, not Moses's. Strange that they didn't occur to Moses. What a wealthy man has our hero become at thirty-one! Jethro Bass wasrich beyond the dreams of avarice--for Coniston. Truth compels me toadmit that the sum total of all his mortgages did not amount to ninethousand "dollars"; but that was a large sum of money for Coniston inthose days, and even now. Nathan Bass had been a saving man, and had leftto his son one-half of this fortune. If thrift and the ability to gainwealth be qualities for a hero, Jethro had them--in those days. 

The Sunday before March meeting, it blew bitter cold, and Priest Ware, preaching in mittens, denounced sedition in general. Underneath him, onthe first landing of the high pulpit, the deacons sat with knitted brows, and the key-note from Isaiah Prescott's pitch pipe sounded like mournfulecho of the mournful wind without. 

Monday was ushered in with that sleet storm to which the almanacs stillrefer, and another scarcely less important event occurred that day whichwe shall have to pass by for the present; on Tuesday, the sleet stillraging, came the historic town meeting. Deacon Moses Hatch, his choresdone and his breakfast and prayers completed, fought his way with hishead down through a white waste to the meeting-house door, and unlockedit, and shivered as he made the fire. It was certainly not good electionweather, thought Moses, and others of the orthodox persuasion, high inoffice, were of the same opinion as they stood with parted coat tailsbefore the stove. Whoever had stirred up and organized the hordes, whoever was the author of that ticket of the discontented, had notcounted upon the sleet. Heaven-sent sleet, said Deacon Ira Perkins, andwould not speak to his son Chester, who sat down just then in one of therear slips. Chester had become an agitator, a Jacksonian Democrat, and anoutcast, to be prayed for but not spoken to. 

We shall leave them their peace of mind for half an hour more, thosestanch old deacons and selectmen, who did their duty by theirfellow-citizens as they saw it and took no man's bidding. They could notsee the trackless roads over the hills, now becoming tracked, and thebent figures driving doggedly against the storm, each impelled by amotive: each motive strengthened by a master mind until it had becomeimperative. Some, like Eben Williams behind his rickety horse, camethrough fear; others through ambition; others were actuated by both; andstill others were stung by the pain of the sleet to a still greaterjealousy and envy, and the remembrance of those who had been in power. Imust not omit the conscientious Jacksonians who were misguided enough tobelieve in such a ticket. 

The sheds were not large enough to hold the teams that day. Jethro's barnand tannery were full, and many other barns in the village. And now thepeace of mind of the orthodox is a thing of the past. Deacon LysanderRichardson, the moderator, sits aghast in his high place as they cometrooping in, men who have not been to town meeting for ten years. DeaconLysander, with his white band of whiskers that goes around his neck likea sixteenth-century ruff under his chin, will soon be a memory. Nowenters one, if Deacon Lysander had known it symbolic of the new Era. Onewho, though his large head is bent, towers over most of the men who makeway for him in the aisle, nodding but not speaking, and takes his placein the chair under the platform on the right of the meeting-pause underone of the high, three-part windows. That chair was always his in futureyears, and there he sat afterward, silent, apparently taking no part. Butnot a man dropped a ballot into the box whom Jethro Bass did not see andmark. 

And now, when the meeting-house is crowded as it has never been before, when Jonah Winch has arranged his dinner booth in the corner, DeaconLysander raps for order and the minister prays. They proceed, first, toelect a representative to the General Court. The Jacksonians do notcontest that seat, --this year, --and Isaiah Prescott, fourteenth child ofTimothy, the Stark hero, father of a young Ephraim whom we shall hearfrom later, is elected. And now! Now for a sensation, now for disorderand misrule!

"Gentlemen, " says Deacon Lysander, "you will prepare your ballots for thechoice of the first Selectman. "

The Whigs have theirs written out, Deacon Moses Hatch. But who haswritten out these others that are being so assiduously passed around? SamPrice, perhaps, for he is passing them most assiduously. And what name iswritten on them? Fletcher Bartlett, of course; that was on the ticket. Somebody is tricked again. That is not the name on the ticket. Look overSara Price's shoulder and you will see the name--Jethro Bass. 

It bursts from the lips of Fletcher Bartlett himself--of Fletcher, inflammable as gunpowder. 

"Gentlemen, I withdraw as your candidate, and nominate a better and anabler man, --Jethro Bass. "

"Jethro Bass for Chairman of the Selectmen!"

The cry is taken up all over the meeting-house, and rises high above thehiss of the sleet on the great windows. Somebody's got on the stove, toadd to the confusion and horror. The only man in the whole place who isnot excited is Jethro Bass himself, who sits in his chair regardless ofthose pressing around him. Many years afterward he confessed to some onethat he was surprised--and this is true. Fletcher Bartlett had surprisedand tricked him, but was forgiven. Forty men are howling at themoderator, who is pounding on the table with a blacksmith's blows. SquireAsa Northcutt, with his arms fanning like a windmill from the edge of theplatform, at length shouts down everybody else--down to a hum. Somelisten to him: hear the words "infamous outrage"--"if Jethro Bass iselected Selectman, Coniston will never be able to hold up her head amongher sister towns for very shame. " (Momentary blank, for somebody has goton the stove again, a scuffle going on there. ) "I see it all now, " saysthe Squire--(marvel of perspicacity!) "Jethro Bass has debased anddebauched this town--" (blank again, and the squire points a finger ofrage and scorn at the unmoved offender in the chair) "he has bought andintimidated men to do his bidding. He has sinned against heaven, andagainst the spirit of that most immortal of documents--" (Blank again. Most unfortunate blank, for this is becoming oratory, but somebody frombelow has seized the squire by the leg. ) Squire Northcutt is toodignified and elderly a person to descend to rough and tumble, but he didget his leg liberated and kicked Fletcher Bartlett in the face. Oh, Coniston, that such scenes should take place in your town meeting! Bythis time another is orating, Mr. Sam Price, Jackson Democrat. There wasno shorthand reporter in Coniston in those days, and it is just as well, perhaps, that the accusations and recriminations should sink intooblivion. 

At last, by mighty efforts of the peace loving in both parties, somethinglike order is restored, the ballots are in the box, and Deacon Lysanderis counting them: not like another moderator I have heard of, who spilledthe votes on the floor until his own man was elected. No. Had theyregistered his own death sentence, the deacon would have counted themstraight, and needed no town clerk to verify his figures. But when hecame to pronounce the vote, shame and sorrow and mortification overcamehim. Coniston, his native town, which he had served and revered, wasdishonored, and it was for him, Lysander Richardson, to proclaim herdisgrace. The deacon choked, and tears of bitterness stood in his eyes, and there came a silence only broken by the surging of the sleet as herapped on the table. 

"Seventy-five votes have been cast for Jethro Bass--sixty-three for MosesHatch. Necessary for a choice, seventy--and Jethro Bass is elected seniorSelectman. "

The deacon sat down, and men say that a great sob shook him, whileJacksonian Democracy went wild--not looking into future years to see whatthey were going wild about. Jethro Bass Chairman of the Board ofSelectmen, in the honored place of Deacon Moses Hatch! Bourbon royalistsnever looked with greater abhorrence on the Corsican adventurer andusurper of the throne than did the orthodox in Coniston on this tanner, who had earned no right to aspire to any distinction, and who by hiswiles had acquired the highest office in the town government. FletcherBartlett in, as a leader of the irresponsible opposition, would have beencalamity enough. But Jethro Bass!

This man whom they had despised was the master mind who had organized andmarshalled the loose vote, was the author of that ticket, who sat in hiscorner unmoved alike by the congratulations of his friends and themaledictions of his enemies; who rose to take his oath of office asunconcerned as though the house were empty, albeit Deacon Lysander couldscarcely get the words out. And then Jethro sat down again in hischair--not to leave it for six and thirty years. From this time forththat chair became a seat of power, and of dominion over a state. 

Thus it was that Jock Hallowell's prophecy, so lightly uttered, came topass. 

How the remainder of that Jacksonian ticket was elected, down to the veryhog-reeves, and amid what turmoil of the Democracy and bitterness ofspirit of the orthodox, I need not recount. There is no moral to thestory, alas--it was one of those things which inscrutable heavenpermitted to be done. After that dark town-meeting day some of thosestern old fathers became broken men, and it is said in Coniston that thiscalamity to righteous government, and not the storm, gave to Priest Warehis death-stroke. 

CHAPTER VI

And now we must go back for a chapter--a very short chapter--to the daybefore that town meeting which had so momentous an influence upon thehistory of Coniston and of the state. That Monday, too, it will beremembered, dawned in storm, the sleet hissing in the wide throats of thecentre-chimneys, and bearing down great boughs of trees until they brokein agony. Dusk came early, and howling darkness that hid a muffled figureon the ice-bound road staring at the yellow cracks in the tannery door. Presently the figure crossed the yard; the door, flying open, released ashaft of light that shot across the white ground, revealed a face beneatha hood to him who stood within. 

"Jethro!"

She darted swiftly past him, seizing the door and drawing it closed afterher. A lantern hung on the central post and flung its rays upon his face. Her own, mercifully, was in the shadow, and burning now with a shame thatwas insupportable. Now that she was there, beside him, her strengthfailed her, and her courage--courage that she had been storing for thisdread undertaking throughout the whole of that dreadful day. Now that shewas there, she would have given her life to have been able to retrace hersteps, to lose herself in the wild, dark places of the mountain. 

"Cynthy!" His voice betrayed the passion which her presence hadquickened. 

The words she would have spoken would not come. She could think ofnothing but that she was alone with him, and in bodily terror of him. Sheturned to the door again, to grasp the wooden latch; but he barred theway, and she fell back. 

"Let me go, " she cried. "I did not mean to come. Do you hear?--let mego!"

To her amazement he stepped aside--a most unaccountable action for him. More unaccountable still, she did not move, now that she was free, butstood poised for flight, held by she knew not what. 

"G-go if you've a mind to, Cynthy--if you've a mind to. "

"I've come to say something to you, " she faltered. It was not, at all theway she had pictured herself as saying it. 

"H-haven't took' Moses--have you?"

"Oh, " she cried, "do you think I came here to speak of such a thing asthat?"

"H-haven't took--Moses, have you?"

She was trembling, and yet she could almost have smiled at thiswell-remembered trick of pertinacity. 

"No, " she said, and immediately hated herself for answering him. 

"H-haven't took that Worthington cuss?"

He was jealous!

"I didn't come to discuss Mr. Worthington, " she replied. 

"Folks say it's only a matter of time, " said he. "Made up your mind totake him, Cynthy? M-made up your mind?"

"You've no right to talk to me in this way, " she said, and added, thewords seeming to slip of themselves from her lips, "Why do you do it?"

"Because I'm--interested, " he said. 

"You haven't shown it, " she flashed back, forgetting the place, and thestorm, and her errand even, forgetting that Jake Wheeler, or any one inConiston, might come and surprise her there. 

He took a step toward her, and she retreated. The light struck her face, and he bent over her as though searching it for a sign. The cape on hershoulders rose and fell as she breathed. 

"'Twahn't charity, Cynthy--was it? 'Twahn't charity?"

"It was you who called it such, " she answered, in a low voice. 

A sleet-charged gust hurled itself against the door, and the lanternflickered. 

"Wahn't it charity. "

"It was friendship, Jethro. You ought to have known that, and you shouldnot have brought back the book. "

"Friendship, " he repeated, "y-you said friendship?"

"Yes. "

"M-meant friendship?"

"Yes, " said Cynthia, but more faintly, and yet with a certain deliciousfright as she glanced at him shyly. Surely there had never been astranger man! Now he was apparently in a revery. 

"G-guess it's because I'm not good enough to be anything more, " heremarked suddenly. "Is that it?"

"You have not tried even to be a friend, " she said. 

"H-how about Worthington?" he persisted. "Just friends with him?"

"I won't talk about Mr. Worthington, " cried Cynthia, desperately, andretreated toward the lantern again. 

"J-just friends with Worthington?"

"Why?" she asked, her words barely heard above the gust, "why do you wantto know?"

He came after her. It was as if she had summoned some unseen, uncontrollable power, only to be appalled by it, and the mountain-stormwithout seemed the symbol of it. His very voice seemed to partake of itsstrength. 

"Cynthy, " he said, "if you'd took him, I'd have killed him. Cynthy, Ilove you--I want you to be my woman--"

"Your woman!"

He caught her, struggling wildly, terror-stricken, in his arms, beat downher hands, flung back her hood, and kissed her forehead--her hair, blownby the wind--her lips. In that moment she felt the mystery of heaven andhell, of all kinds of power. In that moment she was like a seed flying inthe storm above the mountain spruces whither, she knew not, cared not. There was one thought that drifted across the chaos like a blue light ofthe spirit: Could she control the storm? Could she say whither the windsmight blow, where the seed might be planted? Then she found herselflistening, struggling no longer, for he held her powerless. Strangest ofall, most hopeful of all, his own mind was working, though his soulrocked with passion. 

"Cynthy--ever since we stopped that day on the road in Northcutt's woods, I've thought of nothin' but to marry you--m-marry you. Then you give methat book--I hain't had much education, but it come across me if you wasto help me that way--And when I seed you with Worthington, I could havekilled him easy as breakin' bark. "

"Hush, Jethro. "

She struggled free and leaped away from him, panting, while he tore openhis coat and drew forth something which gleamed in the lantern's rays--asilver locket. Cynthia scarcely saw it. Her blood was throbbing in hertemples, she could not reason, but she knew that the appeal for the sakeof which she had stooped must be delivered now. 

"Jethro, " she said, "do you know why I came here--why I came to you?"

"No, " he said. "No. W--wanted me, didn't you? Wanted me--I wanted you, Cynthy. "

"I would never have come to you for that, " she cried, "never!"

"L-love me, Cynthy--love me, don't you?"

How could he ask, seeing that she had been in his arms, and had not fled?And yet she must go through with what she had come to do, at any cost. 

"Jethro, I have come to speak to you about the town meeting tomorrow. "

He halted as though he had been struck, his hand tightening over thelocket. 

"T-town meetin'?"

"Yes. All this new organization is your doing, " she cried. "Do you thinkthat I am foolish enough to believe that Fletcher Bartlett or Sam Priceplanned this thing? No, Jethro. I know who has done it, and I could havetold them if they had asked me. "

He looked at her, and the light of a new admiration was in his eye. 

"Knowed it--did you?"

"Yes, " she answered, a little defiantly, "I did. "

"H-how'd you know it--how'd you know it, Cynthy?" How did she know it, indeed?

"I guessed it, " said Cynthia, desperately, "knowing you, I guessed it. "

"A-always thought you was smart, Cynthy. "

"Tell me, did you do this thing?"

"Th-thought you knowed it--th-thought you knowed. "

"I believe that these men are doing your bidding. "

"Hain't you guessin' a little mite too much; Cynthy?"

"Jethro, " she said, "you told me just now that--that you loved me. Don'ttouch me!" she cried, when he would have taken her in his arms again. "Ifyou love me, you will tell me why you have done such a thing. "

What instinct there was in the man which forbade him speaking out to her, I know not. I do believe that he would have confessed, if he could. IsaacWorthington had been impelled to reveal his plans and aspirations, butJethro Bass was as powerless in this supreme moment of his life as wasConiston Mountain to move the granite on which it stood. Cynthia's heartsank, and a note of passionate appeal came into her voice. 

"Oh, Jethro!" she cried, "this is not the way to use your power, tocompel men like Eben Williams and Samuel Todd and--and Lyman Hull, who isa drunkard and a vagabond, to come in and vote for those who are not fitto hold office. " She was using the minister's own arguments. "We havealways had clean men, and honorable and good men. "

He did not speak, but dropped his hands to his sides. His thoughts werenot to be fathomed, yet Cynthia took the movement for silentconfession, --which it was not, and stood appalled at the very magnitudeof his accomplishment, astonished at the secrecy he had maintained. Shehad heard that his name had been mentioned in the meeting at the house ofMoses Hatch as having taken part in the matter, and she guessed somethingof certain of his methods. But she had felt his force, and knew that thiswas not the only secret of his power. 

What might he not aspire to, if properly guided? No, she did not believehim to be, unscrupulous--but merely ignorant: a man who was capable ofsuch love as she felt was in him, a man whom she could love, could notmean to be unscrupulous. Defence of him leaped to her own lips. 

"You did not know what you were doing, " she said. "I was sure of it, or Iwould not have come to you. Oh, Jethro! you must stop it--you mustprevent this election. "

Her eyes met his, her own pleading, and the very wind without seemed topause for his answer. But what she asked was impossible. That wind whichhe himself had loosed, which was to topple over institutions, was rising, and he could no more have stopped it then than he could have hushed thestorm. 

"You will not do what I ask--now?" she said, very slowly. Then her voicefailed her, she drew her hands together, and it was as if her heart hadceased to beat. Sorrow and anger and fierce shame overwhelmed her, andshe turned from him in silence and went to the door. 

"Cynthy, " he cried hoarsely, "Cynthy!"

"You must never speak to me again, " she said, and was gone into thestorm. 

Yes, she had failed. But she did not know that she had left somethingbehind which he treasured as long as he lived. 

In the spring, when the new leaves were green on the slopes of Coniston, Priest Ware ended a life of faithful service. The high pulpit, taken fromthe old meeting house, and the cricket on which he used to stand and theBible from which he used to preach have remained objects of veneration inConiston to this day. A fortnight later many tearful faces gazed afterthe Truro coach as it galloped out of Brampton in a cloud of dust, andone there was watching unseen from the spruces on the hill, who sawwithin it a girl dressed in black, dry-eyed, staring from the window. 

CHAPTER VII

Out of the stump of a blasted tree in the Coniston woods a flower willsometimes grow, and even so the story which I have now to tell springsfrom the love of Cynthia Ware and Jethro Bass. The flower, when it cameto bloom, was fair in life, and I hope that in these pages it will notlose too much of its beauty and sweetness. 

For a little while we are going to gallop through the years as before wehave ambled through the days, although the reader's breath may be takenaway in the process. How Cynthia Ware went over the Truro Pass to Boston, and how she became a teacher in a high school there;--largely through thekindness of that Miss Lucretia Penniman of whom we have spoken, who wrotein Cynthia's behalf to certain friends she had in that city; how she metone William Wetherell, no longer a clerk in Mr. Judson's jewellery shop, but a newspaper man with I know not what ambitions--and limitations instrength of body and will; how, many, many years afterward, she nursedhim tenderly through a sickness and--married him, is all told in aparagraph. Marry him she did, to take care of him, and told him so. Shemade no secret of the maternal in this love. 

One evening, the summer after their marriage, they were walking in theMall under the great elms that border the Common on the Tremont Streetside. They often used to wander there, talking of the books he was towrite when strength should come and a little leisure, and sometimes theirglances would linger longingly on Colonnade Row that Bulfinch builtacross the way, where dwelt the rich and powerful of the city--and yet hewould not have exchanged their lot for his. Could he have earned with hisown hands such a house, and sit Cynthia there in glory, what happiness!But, I stray. 

They were walking in the twilight, for the sun had sunk all red in themarshes of the Charles, when there chanced along a certain Mr. Judson, ajeweller, taking the air likewise. So there came into Wetherell's mindthat amusing adventure with the country lad and the locket. His name, byreason of some strange quality in it, he had never forgotten, andsuddenly he recalled that the place the countryman had come from wasConiston. 

"Cynthia, " said her husband, when Mr. Judson was gone, "did you know anyone in Coniston named Jethro Bass?"

She did not answer him. And, thinking she had not heard, he spoke again. 

"Why do you ask?" she said, in a low tone, without looking at him. 

He told her the story. Not until the end of it did the significance ofthe name engraved come to him--Cynthy. 

"Cynthy, from Jethro. "

"Why, it might have been you!" he said jestingly. "Was he an admirer ofyours, Cynthia, that strange, uncouth countryman? Did he give you thelocket?"

"No, " she answered, "he never did. "

Wetherell glanced at her in surprise, and saw that her lip was quivering, that tears were on her lashes. She laid her hand on his arm. 

"William, " she said, drawing him to a bench, "come, let us sit down, andI will tell you the story of Jethro Bass. We have been happy together, you and I, for I have found peace with you. I have tried to be honestwith you, William, and I will always be so. I told you before we weremarried that I loved another man. I have tried to forget him, but as Godis my judge, I cannot. I believe I shall love him until I die. "

They sat in the summer twilight, until darkness fell, and the lightsgleamed through the leaves, and a deep, cool breath coming up from thesea stirred the leaves above their heads. That she should have lovedJethro seemed as strange to her as to him, and yet Wetherell was to feelthe irresistible force of him. Hers was not a love that she chose, orwould have chosen, but something elemental that cried out from the man toher, and drew her. Something that had in it now, as of yore, much of painand even terror, but drew her. Strangest of all was that WilliamWetherell understood and was not jealous of this thing: which leads us tobelieve that some essence of virility was lacking in him, some substancethat makes the fighters and conquerors in this world. In such mood helistened to the story of Jethro Bass. 

"My dear husband, " said Cynthia, when she had finished, her handtightening over his, "I have never told you this for fear that it mighttrouble you as it has troubled me. I have found in your love sanctuary;and all that remains of myself I have given to you. "

"You have found a weakling to protect, and an invalid to nurse, " heanswered. "To have your compassion, Cynthia, is all I crave. "

So they lived through the happiest and swiftest years of his life, working side by side, sharing this strange secret between them. And afterthat night Cynthia talked to him often of Coniston, until he came to knowthe mountain that lay along the western sky, and the sweet hillsides byConiston Water under the blue haze of autumn, aye, and clothed in thecolors of spring, the bright blossoms of thorn and apple against thetender green of the woods and fields. So he grew to love the simplepeople there, but little did he foresee that he was to end his life amongthem!

But so it came to pass, she was taken from him, who had been the one joyand inspiration of his weary days, and he was driven, wandering, intounfrequented streets that he might not recall, the places where she hadonce trod, and through the wakeful nights her voice haunted him, --itslaughter, its sweet notes of seriousness; little ways and manners of herlook came to twist his heart, and he prayed God to take him, too, untilit seemed that Cynthia frowned upon him for his weakness. One mild Sundayafternoon, he took little Cynthia by the hand and led her, toddling, outinto the sunny Common, where he used to walk with her mother, and theinfant prattle seemed to bring--at last a strange peace to hisstorm-tossed soul. 

For many years these Sunday walks in the Common were Wetherell's greatestpleasure and solace, and it seemed as though little Cynthia had come intothe world with an instinct, as it were, of her mission that lent to herinfant words a sweet gravity and weight. Many people used to stop andspeak to the child, among them a great physician whom they grew to know. He was, there every Sunday, and at length it came to be a habit with himto sit down on the bench and take Cynthia on his knee, and his stern facewould soften as he talked to her. 

One Sunday when Cynthia was eight years old he missed them, and the next, and at dusk he strode into their little lodging behind the hill and up tothe bedside. He glanced at Wetherell, patting Cynthia on the head thewhile, and bade her cheerily to go out of the room. But she held tighthold of her father's hand and looked up at the doctor bravely. 

"I am taking care of my father, " she said. 

"So you shall, little woman, " he answered. "I would that we had suchnurses as you at the hospital. Why didn't you send for me at once?"

"I wanted to, " said Cynthia. 

"Bless her good sense;" said the doctor; "she has more than you, Wetherell. Why didn't you take her advice? If your father does not do asI tell him, he will be a very sick man indeed. He must go into thecountry and stay there. "

"But I must live, Doctor, " said William Wetherell. 

The doctor looked at Cynthia. 

"You will not live if you stay here, " he replied. 

"Then he will go, " said Cynthia, so quietly that he gave her anotherlook, strange and tender and comprehending. He, sat and talked of manythings: of the great war that was agonizing the nation; of the strong manwho, harassed and suffering himself, was striving to guide it, likeningLincoln unto a physician. So the doctor was wont to take the minds ofpatients from themselves. And before he left he gave poor Wetherell afortnight to decide. 

As he lay on his back in that room among the chimney tops trying vainlyto solve the problem of how he was to earn his salt in the country, avisitor was climbing the last steep flight of stairs. That visitor wasnone other than Sergeant Ephraim Prescott, son of Isaiah of thepitch-pipe, and own cousin of Cynthia Ware's. Sergeant Ephraim was justhome from the war and still clad in blue, and he walked with a slightlimp by reason of a bullet he had got in the Wilderness, and he had suchan honest, genial face that little Cynthia was on his knee in a moment. 

"How be you, Will? Kind of poorly, I callate. So Cynthy's b'en took, " hesaid sadly. "Always thought a sight of Cynthy. Little Cynthy favors hersome. Yes, thought I'd drop in and see how you be on my way home. "

Sergeant Ephraim had much to say about the great war, and about Coniston. True to the instincts of the blood of the Stark hero, he had left theplough and the furrow' at the first call, forty years of age though hewas. But it had been otherwise with many in Coniston and Brampton andHarwich. Some of these, when the drafting came, had fled in bands to themountain and defied capture. Mr. Dudley Worthington, now a mill owner, had found a substitute; Heth Sutton of Clovelly had been drafted and haddriven over the mountain to implore Jethro Bass abjectly to get him outof it. In short, many funny things had happened--funny things to SergeantEphraim, but not at all to William Wetherell, who sympathized with Hethin his panic. 

"So Jethro Bass has become a great man, " said Wetherell. 

"Great!" Ephraim ejaculated. "Guess he's the biggest man in the stateto-day. Queer how he got his power began twenty-four years ago when Iwahn't but twenty. I call that town meetin' to mind as if 'twas yesterdaynever was such an upset. Jethro's be'n first Selectman ever sense, thoughhe turned Republican in '60. Old folks don't fancy Jethro's kind ofpolitics much, but times change. Jethro saved my life, I guess. "

"Saved your life!" exclaimed Wetherell. 

"Got me a furlough, " said Ephraim. "Guess I would have died in thehospital if he hadn't got it so all-fired quick, and he druv down toBrampton to fetch me back. You'd have thought I was General Grant the wayfolks treated me. "

"You went back to the war after your leg healed?" Wetherell asked, inwondering admiration of the man's courage. 

"Well, " said Ephraim, simply, "the other boys was gettin' full of bulletsand dysentery, and it didn't seem just right. The leg troubles me some onwet days, but not to amount to much. You hain't thinkin' of dyin'yourself, be ye, William?"

William was thinking very seriously of it, but it was Cynthia who spoke, and startled them both. 

"The doctor says he will die if he doesn't go to the country. "

"Somethin' like consumption, William?" asked Ephraim. 

"So the doctor said. "

"So I callated, " said Ephraim. "Come back to Coniston with me; therehain't a healthier place in New England. "

"How could I support myself in Coniston?" Wetherell asked. 

Ephraim ruminated. Suddenly he stuck his hand into the bosom of his bluecoat, and his face lighted and even gushed as he drew out a crumpledletter. 

"It don't take much gumption to run a store, does it, William? Guess youcould run a store, couldn't you?"

"I would try anything, " said Wetherell. 

"Well, " said Ephraim' "there's the store at Coniston. With folks goin'West, and all that, nobody seems to want it much. " He looked at theletter. "Lem Hallowell' says there hain't nobody to take it. "

"Jonah Winch's!" exclaimed Wetherell. 

"Jonah made it go, but that was before all this hullabaloo aboutTemperance Cadets and what not. Jonah sold good rum, but now you can'tget nothin' in Coniston but hard cider and potato whiskey. Still, it'sthe place for somebody without much get-up, " and he eyed his cousin bymarriage. "Better come and try it, William. "

So much for dreams! Instead of a successor to Irving and Emerson, WilliamWetherell became a successor to Jonah Winch. 

That journey to Coniston was full of wonder to Cynthia, and of wonder andsadness to Wetherell, for it was the way his other Cynthia had come toBoston. From the state capital the railroad followed the same deep valleyas the old coach road, but ended at Truro, and then they took stage overTruro Pass for Brampton, where honest Ephraim awaited them and theirslender luggage with a team. Brampton, with its wide-shadowed green, andterrace-steepled church; home once of the Social Library and LucretiaPenniman, now famous; home now of Isaac Dudley Worthington, whose greatmills the stage driver had pointed out to them on Coniston Water as theyentered the town. 

Then came a drive through the cool evening to Coniston, Ephraim showingthem landmarks. There was Deacon Lysander's house, where little RiasRichardson lived now; and on that slope and hidden in its forest nook, among the birches and briers, the little schoolhouse where Cynthia hadlearned to spell; here, where the road made an aisle in the woods, shehad met Jethro. The choir of the birds was singing an evening anthem nowas then, to the lower notes of Coniston Water, and the moist, hothousefragrance of the ferns rose from the deep places. 

At last they came suddenly upon the little hamlet of Coniston itself. There was the flagpole and the triangular green, scene of many a muster;Jonah Winch's store, with its horse block and checker-paned windows, justas Jonah had left it; Nathan Bass's tannery shed, now weather-stained andneglected, for Jethro lived on Thousand Acre Hill now; the Prescotthouse, home of the Stark hero, where Ephraim lived, "innocent of paint"(as one of Coniston's sons has put it), "innocent of paint as a Conistonmaiden's face"; the white meeting-house, where Priest Ware hadpreached--and the parsonage. Cynthia and Wetherell loitered in front ofit, while the blue shadow of the mountain deepened into night, until Mr. Satterlee, the minister, found them there, and they went in and stoodreverently in the little chamber on the right of the door, which had beenCynthia's. 

Long Wetherell lay awake that night, in his room at the gable-end overthe store, listening to the rustling of the great oak beside the windows, to the whippoorwills calling across Coniston Water. But at last a peacedescended upon him, and he slept: yes, and awoke with the same sense ofpeace at little Cynthia's touch, to go out into the cool morning, whenthe mountain side was in myriad sheens of green under the rising sun. Behind the store was an old-fashioned garden, set about by a neat stonewall, hidden here and there by the masses of lilac and currant bushes, and at the south of it was a great rose-covered boulder of granite. Andbeyond, through the foliage of the willows and the low apple trees whichJonah Winch had set out, Coniston Water gleamed and tumbled. Under anarching elm near the house was the well, stone-rimmed, with its long poleand crotch, and bucket all green with the damp moss which clung to it. 

Ephraim Prescott had been right when he had declared that it did not takemuch gumption to keep store in Coniston. William Wetherell merely assumedcertain obligations at the Brampton bank, and Lem Hallowell, Jock's son, who now drove the Brampton stage, brought the goods to the door. LittleRias Richardson was willing to come in, and help move the barrels, and onsuch occasions wore carpet slippers to save his shoes. William still hadtime for his books; in that Coniston air he began to feel stronger, andto wonder whether he might not be a Washington Irving yet. And yet he hadone worry and one fear, and both of these concerned one man, --JethroBass. Him, by her own confession, Cynthia Ware had loved to her dyingday, hating herself for it: and he, William Wetherell, had married thiswoman whom Jethro had loved so violently, and must always love--soWetherell thought: that was the worry. How would Jethro treat him? thatwas the fear. William Wetherell was not the most courageous man in theworld. 

Jethro Bass had not been in Coniston since William's arrival. No need toask where he was. Jake Wheeler, Jethro's lieutenant in Coniston, gaveWilliam a glowing account of that Throne Room in the Pelican Hotel at thecapital, from whence Jethro ruled the state during the sessions of theGeneral Court. This legislature sat to him as a sort of advisorycommittee of three hundred and fifty: an expensive advisory committee tothe people, relic of an obsolete form of government. Many stories of thenow all-powerful Jethro William heard from the little coterie which madetheir headquarters in his store--stories of how those methods of which wehave read were gradually spread over other towns and other counties. Notthat Jethro held mortgages in these towns and counties, but the locallieutenants did, and bowed to him as an overlord. There were funnystories, and grim stories of vengeance which William Wetherell heard andtrembled at. Might not Jethro wish to take vengeance upon him?

One story he did not hear, because no one in Coniston knew it. No oneknew that Cynthia Ware and Jethro Bass had ever loved each other. 

At last, toward the end of June, it was noised about that the great manwas coming home for a few days. One beautiful afternoon William Wetherellstood on the platform of the store, looking off at Coniston, talking toMoses Hatch--young Moses, who is father of six children now and hasforgotten Cynthia Ware. Old Moses sleeps on the hillside, let us hope inthe peace of the orthodox and the righteous. A cloud of dust arose abovethe road to the southward, and out of it came a country wagon drawn by afat horse, and in the wagon the strangest couple Wetherell had ever seen. The little woman who sat retiringly at one end of the seat was all inbrilliant colors from bonnet to flounce, like a paroquet, red and greenpredominating. The man, big in build, large-headed, wore an old-fashionedblue swallow-tailed coat with brass buttons, a stock, and coonskin hat, though it was summer, and the thumping of William Wetherell's heart toldhim that this was Jethro Bass. He nodded briefly at Moses Hatch, whogreeted him with genial obsequiousness. 

"Legislatur' through?" shouted Moses. 

The great man shook his head and drove on. 

"Has Jethro Bass ever been a member of the Legislature?" asked thestorekeeper, for the sake of something to say. 

"Never would take any office but Chairman of the Selectmen, " answeredMoses, who apparently bore no ill will for his father's sake. "Jethrokind of fathers the Legislatur', I guess, though I don't take much stockin politics. Goes down sessions to see that they don't get too gumptiousand kick off the swaddlin' clothes. "

"And--was that his wife?" Wetherell asked, hesitatingly. 

"Aunt Listy, they call her. Nobody ever knew how he come to marry her. Jethro went up to Wisdom once, in the centre of the state, and come backwith her. Funny place to bring a wife from--Wisdom! Funnier place tobring Listy from. He loads her down with them ribbons and gewgaws--allthe shades of the rainbow! Says he wants her to be the best-dressed womanin the state. Callate she is, " added Moses, with conviction. "Listy's afine woman, but all she knows is enough to say, 'Yes, Jethro, ' and 'No, Jethro. '--Guess that's all Jethro wants in a wife; but he certainly isgood to her. "

"And why has he come back before the Legislature's over?" said Wetherell. 

"Cuttin' of his farms. Always comes back hayin' time. That's the wayJethro spends the money he makes in politics, and he hain't no more of afarmer than--" Moses looked at Wetherell. 

"Than I'm a storekeeper, " said the latter, smiling. 

"Than I'm a lawyer, " said Moses, politely. 

They were interrupted at this moment by the appearance of Jake Wheelerand Sam Price, who came gaping out of the darkness of the store. 

"Was that Jethro, Mose?" demanded Jake. "Guess we'll go along up and seeif there's any orders. "

"I suppose the humblest of God's critturs has their uses, " Moses remarkedcontemplatively, as he watched the retreating figures of Sam and Jake. "Leastwise that's Jethro's philosophy. When you come to know him, you'llnotice how much those fellers walk like him. Never seed a man who had somany imitators. Some of, 'em's took to talkie' like him, even tostutterin'. Bijah Bixby, over to Clovelly, comes pretty nigh it, too. "

Moses loaded his sugar and beans into his wagon, and drove off. 

An air of suppressed excitement seemed to pervade those who came thatafternoon to the store to trade and talk--mostly to talk. After suchpurchases as they could remember were made, they lingered on the barrelsand on the stoop, in the hope of seeing Jethro, whose habit; it was, apparently, to come down and dispense such news as he thought fit forcirculation. That Wetherell shared this excitement, too, he could notdeny, but for a different cause. At last, when the shadows of the bigtrees had crept across the green, he came, the customers flocking to theporch to greet him, Wetherell standing curiously behind them in the door. Heedless of the dust, he strode down the road with the awkward gait thatwas all his own, kicking up his heels behind. And behind him, heelskicking up likewise, followed Jake and Sam, Jethro apparently obliviousof their presence. A modest silence was maintained from the stoop, brokenat length by Lem Hallowell, who (men said) was an exact reproduction ofJock, the meeting-house builder. Lem alone was not abashed in thepresence of greatness. 

"How be you, Jethro?" he said heartily. "Air the Legislatur' behavin'themselves?"

"B-bout as common, " said Jethro. 

Surely nothing very profound in this remark, but received as though itwere Solomon's. 

Be prepared for a change in Jethro, after the galloping years. He is nowfifty-seven, but he might be any age. He is still smooth-shaven, his skinis clear, and his eye is bright, for he lives largely on bread and milk, and eschews stimulants. But the lines in his face have deepened and hisbig features seem to have grown bigger. 

"Who be you thinkin' of for next governor, Jethro?" queries RiasRichardson, timidly. 

"They say Alvy Hopkins of Gosport is willin' to pay for it, " said ChesterPerkins, sarcastically. Chester; we fear, is a born agitator, fated toremain always in opposition. He is still a Democrat, and Jethro, as iswell known, has extended the mortgage so as to include Chester's farm. 

"Wouldn't give a Red Brook Seedling for Alvy, " ejaculated the nasal Mr. Price. 

"D-don't like Red Brook Seedlings, Sam? D-don't like 'em?" said Jethro. He had parted his blue coat tails and seated himself on the stoop, hislong legs hanging over it. 

"Never seed a man who had a good word to say for 'em, " said Mr. Price, with less conviction. 

"Done well on mine, " said Jethro, "d-done well. I was satisfied with myRed Brook Seedlings. "

Mr. Price's sallow face looked as if he would have contradicted anotherman. 

"How was that, Jethro?" piped up Jake Wheeler, voicing the generaldesire. 

Jethro looked off into the blue space beyond the mountain line. 

"G-got mine when they first come round--seed cost me considerable. Raisedmore than a hundred bushels L-Listy put some of 'em on the table--t-thengave some to my old hoss Tom. Tom said: 'Hain't I always been a goodbeast, Jethro? Hain't I carried you faithful, summer and winter, for agood many years? And now you give me Red Brook Seedlings?'"

Here everybody laughed, and stopped abruptly, for Jethro still lookedcontemplative. 

"Give some of 'em to the hogs. W-wouldn't touch 'em. H-had over a hundredbushels on hand--n-new variety. W-what's that feller's name down to Ayer, Massachusetts, deals in all kinds of seeds? Ellett--that's it. Wrote toEllet, said I had a hundred bushels of Red Brooks to sell, as fine alookin' potato as I had in my cellar. Made up my mind to take what heoffered, if it was only five cents. He wrote back a dollar a bushel. I-Iwas always satisfied with my Red Brook Seedlings, Sam. But I never raisedany more--n-never raised any more. "

Uproarious laughter greeted the end of this story, and continued in fitsas some humorous point recurred to one or the other of the listeners. William Wetherell perceived that the conversation, for the moment atleast, was safely away from politics, and in that dubious state where itwas difficult to reopen. This was perhaps what Jethro wanted. Even JakeWheeler was tongue-tied, and Jethro appeared to be lost in reflection. 

At this instant a diversion occurred--a trifling diversion, so it seemedat the time. Around the corner of the store, her cheeks flushed and herdark hair flying, ran little Cynthia, her hands, browned already by theConiston sun, filled with wild strawberries. 

"See what I've found, Daddy!" she cried, "see what I've found!"

Jethro Bass started, and flung back his head like a man who has heard avoice from another world, and then he looked at the child with a kind ofstupefaction. The cry, died on Cynthia's lips, and she stopped, gazing upat him with wonder in her eyes. 

"F-found strawberries?" said Jethro, at last. 

"Yes, " she answered. She was very grave and serious now, as was hermanner in dealing with people. 

"S-show 'em to me, " said Jethro. 

Cynthia went to him, without embarrassment, and put her hand on his knee. Not once had he taken his eyes from her face. He put out his own handwith an awkward, shy movement, picked a strawberry from her fingers, andthrust it in his mouth. 

"Mm, " said Jethro, gravely. "Er--what's your name, little gal--what'syour name?"

"Cynthia. "

There was a long pause. 

"Er--er--Cynthia?" he said at length, "Cynthia?"

"Cynthia. "

"Er-er, Cynthia--not Cynthy?"

"Cynthia, " she said again. 

He bent over her and lowered his voice. 

"M-may I call you Cynthy--Cynthy?" he asked. 

"Y-yes, " answered Cynthia, looking up to her father and then glancingshyly at Jethro. 

His eyes were on the mountain, and he seemed to have forgotten her untilshe reached out to him, timidly, another strawberry. He seized her littlehand instead and held it between his own--much to the astonishment of hisfriends. 

"Whose little gal be you?" he asked. 

"Dad's. "

"She's Will Wetherell's daughter, " said Lem Hallowell. "He's took on thestore. Will, " he added, turning to Wetherell, "let me make you acquaintedwith Jethro Bass. "

Jethro rose slowly, and towered above Wetherell on the stoop. There wasan inscrutable look in his black eyes, as of one who sees without beingseen. Did he know who William Wetherell was? If so, he gave no sign, andtook Wetherell's hand limply. 

"Will's kinder hipped on book-l'arnin', " Lemuel continued kindly. "Comehere to keep store for his health. Guess you may have heerd, Jethro, thatWill married Cynthy Ware. You call Cynthy to mind, don't ye?"

Jethro Bass dropped Wetherell's hand, but answered nothing. 

CHAPTER VIII

A week passed, and Jethro did not appear in the village, report having itthat he was cutting his farms on Thousand Acre Hill. When Jethro wasfarming, --so it was said, --he would not stop to talk politics even withthe President of the United States were that dignitary to lean over hispasture fence and beckon to him. On a sultry Friday morning, when WilliamWetherell was seated at Jonah Winch's desk in the cool recesses of thestore slowly and painfully going over certain troublesome accounts whichseemed hopeless, he was thrown into a panic by the sight of one staringat him from the far side of a counter. History sometimes reverses itself. 

"What can I do for you--Mr. Bass?" asked the storekeeper, rather weakly. 

"Just stepped in--stepped in, " he answered. "W-where's Cynthy?"

"She was in the garden--shall I get her?"

"No, " he said, parting his coat tails and seating himself on the counter. "Go on figurin', don't mind me. "

The thing was manifestly impossible. Perhaps Wetherell indicated as muchby his answer. 

"Like storekeepin'?" Jethro asked presently, perceiving that he did notcontinue his work. 

"A man must live, Mr. Bass, " said Wetherell; "I had to leave the city formy health. I began life keeping store, " he added, "but I little thought Ishould end it so. "

"Given to book-l'arnin' then, wahn't you?" Jethro remarked. He did notsmile, but stared at the square of light that was the doorway, "Judson'sjewellery store, wahn't it? Judson's?"

"Yes, Judson's, " Wetherell answered, as soon as he recovered from hisamazement. There was no telling from Jethro's manner whether he wereenemy or friend; whether he bore the storekeeper a grudge for havingattained to a happiness that had not been his. 

"Hain't made a great deal out of life, hev you? N-not a great deal?"Jethro observed at last. 

Wetherell flushed, although Jethro had merely stated a truth which hadoften occurred to the storekeeper himself. 

"It isn't given to all of us to find Rome in brick and leave it inmarble, " he replied a little sadly. 

Jethro Bass looked at him quickly. 

"Er-what's that?" he demanded. "F-found Rome in brick, left it in marble. Fine thought. " He ruminated a little. "Never writ anything--didyou--never writ anything?"

"Nothing worth publishing, " answered poor William Wetherell. 

"J-just dreamed'--dreamed and kept store. S--something to havedreamed--eh--something to have dreamed?"

Wetherell forgot his uneasiness in the unexpected turn the conversationhad taken. It seemed very strange to him that he was at last face to faceagain wish the man whom Cynthia Ware had never been able to drive fromher heart. Would, he mention her? Had he continued to love her, in spiteof the woman he had married and adorned? Wetherell asked himself thesequestions before he spoke. 

"It is more to have accomplished, " he said. 

"S-something to have dreamed, " repeated Jethro, rising slowly from thecounter. He went toward the doorway that led into the garden, and therehe halted and stood listening. 

"C-Cynthy!" he said, "C-Cynthy!"

Wetherell dropped his pen at the sound of the name on Jethro's lips. Butit was little Cynthia he was calling little Cynthia in the garden. Thechild came at his voice, and stood looking up at him silently. 

"H-how old be you, Cynthy?"

"Nine, " answered Cynthia, promptly. 

"L-like the country, Cynthy--like the country better than the city?"

"Oh, yes, " said Cynthia. 

"And country folks? L--like country folks better than city folks?"

"I didn't know many city folks, " said Cynthia. "I liked the old doctorwho sent Daddy up here ever so much, and I liked Mrs. Darwin. "

"Mis' Darwin?"

"She kept the house we lived in. She used to give me cookies, " saidCynthia, "and bread to feed the pigeons. "

"Pigeons? F-folks keep pigeons in the city?"

"Oh, no, " said Cynthia, laughing at such an idea; "the pigeons came onthe roof under our window, and they used to fly right up on thewindow-sill and feed out of my hand. They kept me company while Daddy, was away, working. On Sundays we used to go into the Common and feedthem, before Daddy got sick. The Common was something like the country, only not half as nice. "

"C-couldn't pick flowers in the Common and go barefoot--e--couldn't gobarefoot, Cynthy?"

"Oh, no, " said Cynthia, laughing again at his sober face. 

"C-couldn't dig up the Common and plant flowers--could you?"

"Of course you couldn't. "

"P-plant 'em out there?" asked Jethro. 

"Oh, yes, " cried Cynthia; "I'll show you. " She hesitated a moment, andthen thrust her hand into his. "Do you want to see?"

"Guess I do, " said he, energetically, and she led him into the garden, pointing out with pride the rows of sweet peas and pansies, which she hadmade herself. Impelled by a strange curiosity, William Wetherell went tothe door and watched them. There was a look on the face of Jethro Bassthat was new to it as he listened to the child talk of the wondrousthings around them that summer's day, --the flowers and the bees and thebrook (they must go down and stand on the brink of it), and the songs ofthe vireo and the hermit thrush. 

"Hain't lonely here, Cynthy--hain't lonely here?" he said. 

"Not in the country, " said Cynthia. Suddenly she lifted her eyes to hiswith a questioning look. "Are you lonely, sometimes?"

He did not answer at once. 

"Not with you, Cynthy--not with you. "

By all of which it will be seen that the acquaintance was progressing. They sat down for a while on the old millstone that formed the step, andthere discussed Cynthia's tastes. She was too old for dolls, Jethrosupposed. Yes, Cynthia was too old for dolls. She did not say so, but theonly doll she had ever owned had become insipid when the delight of sucha reality as taking care of a helpless father had been thrust upon her. Books, suggested Jethro. Books she had known from her earliest infancy:they had been piled around that bedroom over the roof. Books and booklore and the command of the English tongue were William Wetherell's onlylegacies to his daughter, and many an evening that spring she had readhim to sleep from classic volumes of prose and poetry I hesitate to name, for fear you will think her precocious. They went across the green toCousin Ephraim Prescott's harness shop, where Jethro had tied his horse, and it was settled that Cynthia liked books. 

On the morning following this extraordinary conversation, Jethro Bass andhis wife departed for the state capital. Listy was bedecked in amazinggreens and yellows, and Jethro drove, looking neither to the right norleft, his coat tails hanging down behind the seat, the reins lying slackacross the plump quarters of his horse--the same fat Tom who, by the way, had so indignantly spurned the Iced Brook Seedlings. And Jake Wheelerwent along to bring back the team from Brampton. To such base uses arepolitical lieutenants sometimes put, although fate would have told you itwas an honor, and he came back to the store that evening fairly bristlingwith political secrets which he could not be induced to impart. 

One evening a fortnight later, while the lieutenant was holding forth incommendably general terms on the politics of the state to a speechless ifnot wholly admiring audience, a bomb burst in their midst. WilliamWetherell did not know that it was a periodical bomb, like those flung atregular intervals from the Union mortars into Vicksburg. These bombs, atany rate, never failed to cause consternation and fright in Coniston, although they never did any harm. One thing noticeable, they were alwaysfired in Jethro's absence. And the bombardier was always Chester Perkins, son of the most unbending and rigorous of tithing-men, but Chesterresembled his father in no particular save that he, too, was a deacon anda pillar of the church. Deacon Ira had been tall and gaunt and sunken anduncommunicative. Chester was stout, and said to perspire even in winter, apoplectic, irascible, talkative, and still, as has been said, aDemocrat. He drove up to the store this evening to the not inappropriaterumble of distant thunder, and he stood up in his wagon in front of thegathering and shook his fist in Jake Wheeler's face. 

"This town's tired of puttin' up with a King, " he cried. "Yes, King-=Isaid it, and I don't care who hears me. It's time to stop this one-manrule. You kin go and tell him I said it, Jake Wheeler, if you've a mindto. I guess there's plenty who'll do that. "

An uneasy silence followed--the silence which cries treason louder thanany voice. Some shifted uneasily, and spat, and Jake Wheeler thrust hishands in his pockets and walked away, as much as to say that it wastreason even to listen to such talk. Lem Hallowell seemed unperturbed. 

"On the rampage agin, Chet?" he remarked. 

"You'd ought to know better, Lem, " cried the enraged Chester; "hain't thehull road by the Four Corners ready to drop into the brook? What be youa-goin' to do about it?"

"I'll show you when I git to it, " answered Lem, quietly. And, show themhe did. 

"Git to it!" shouted Chester, scornfully, "I'll git to it. I'll tell youright now I'm a candidate for the Chairman of the Selectmen, if townmeetin' is eight months away. An', Sam Price, I'll expect the Democratsto git into line. "

With this ultimatum Chester drove away as rapidly as he had come. 

"I want to know!" said Sam Price, an exclamation peculiarly suited to hisvoice. But nevertheless Sam might be counted on in each of these littlerebellions. He, too, had remained steadfast to Jacksonian principles, andhe had never forgiven Jethro about a little matter of a state officewhich he (Sam) had failed to obtain. 

Before he went to bed Jake Wheeler had written a letter which he sent offto the state capital by the stage the next morning. In it he indicted noless than twenty of his fellow-townsmen for treason; and he also thoughtit wise to send over to Clovelly for Bijah Bixby, a lieutenant in thatsection, to come and look over the ground and ascertain by his well-knownmethods how far the treason had eaten into the body politic. Such wasJake's ordinary procedure when the bombs were fired, for Mr. Wheeler wasnothing if not cautious. 

Three mornings later, a little after seven o'clock, when the storekeeperand his small daughter were preparing to go to Brampton upon a verytroublesome errand, Chester Perkins appeared again. It is always easy tostir up dissatisfaction among the ne'er-do-wells (Jethro had once done ithimself), and during the three days which had elapsed since Chester hadflung down the gauntlet there had been more or less of downright treasonheard in the store. William Wetherell, who had perplexities of his own, had done his best to keep out of the discussions that had raged on hiscracker boxes and barrels, for his head was a jumble of figures whichwould not come right. And now as he stood there in the freshness of theearly summer morning, waiting for Lem Hallowell's stage, poor Wetherell'sheart was very heavy. 

"Will Wetherell, " said Chester, "you be a gentleman and a student, hain'tyou? Read history, hain't you?"

"I have read some, " said William Wetherell. 

"I callate that a man of parts, " said Chester, "such as you be, will helpus agin corruption and a dictator. I'm a-countin' on you, Will Wetherell. You've got the store, and you kin tell the boys the difference betweenright and wrong. They'll listen to you, because you're eddicated. "

"I don't know anything about politics, " answered Wetherell, with anappealing glance at the silent group, --group that was always there. RiasRichardson, who had donned the carpet slippers preparatory to tendingstore for the day, shuffled inside. Deacon Lysander, his father, wouldnot have done so. 

"You know somethin' about history and the Constitootion, don't ye?"demanded Chester, truculently. N'Jethro Bass don't hold your mortgage, does he? Bank in Brampton holds it--hain't that so? You hain't afeard ofJethro like the rest on 'em, be you?"

"I don't know what right you have to talk to me that way, Mr. Perkins, "said Wetherell. 

"What right? Jethro holds my mortgage--the hull town knows it-and he kinclose me out to-morrow if he's a mind to--"

"See here, Chester Perkins, " Lem Hallowell interposed, as he drove upwith the stage, "what kind of free principles be you preachin'? You'dought to know better'n coerce. "

"What be you a-goin' to do about that Four Corners road?" Chester criedto the stage driver. 

"I give 'em till to-morrow night to fix it, " said Lem. "Git in, Will. Cynthy's over to the harness shop with Eph. We'll stop as we go 'long. "

"Give 'em till to-morrow night!" Chester shouted after them. "What yougoin' to do then?"

But Lem did not answer this inquiry. He stopped at the harness shop, where Ephraim came limping out and lifted Cynthia to the seat beside herfather, and they joggled off to Brampton. The dew still lay in myriaddrops on the red herd's-grass, turning it to lavender in the morning sun, and the heavy scent of the wet ferns hung in the forest. Lem whistled, and joked with little Cynthia, and gave her the reins to drive, and oflast they came in sight of Brampton Street, with its terrace-steepledchurch and line of wagons hitched to the common rail, for it was marketday. Father and daughter walked up and down, hand in hand, under thegreat trees, and then they went to the bank. 

It was a brick building on a corner opposite the common, imposing forBrampton, and very imposing to Wetherell. It seemed like a tomb as heentered its door, Cynthia clutching his fingers, and never but once inhis life had he been so near to leaving all hope behind. He waitedpatiently by the barred windows until the clerk, who was counting bills, chose to look up at him. 

"Want to draw money?" he demanded. 

The words seemed charged with irony. William Wetherell told him, falteringly, his name and business, and he thought the man looked at himcompassionately. 

"You'll have to see Mr. Worthington, " he said; "he hasn't gone to themills yet. "

"Dudley Worthington?" exclaimed Wetherell. 

The teller smiled. 

"Yes. He's the president of this bank. "'

He opened a door in the partition, and leaving Cynthia dangling her feetfrom a chair, Wetherell was ushered, not without trepidation, into thegreat man's office, and found himself at last in the presence of Mr. Isaac D. Worthington, who used to wander up and down Coniston Watersearching for a mill site. 

He sat behind a table covered with green leather, on which papers werelaid with elaborate neatness, and he wore a double-breasted skirted coatof black, with braided lapels, a dark purple blanket cravat with a largered cameo pin. And Mr. Worthington's features harmonized perfectly withthis costume--those of a successful, ambitious man who followed customand convention blindly; clean-shaven, save for reddish chops, blue eyesof extreme keenness, and thin-upped mouth which had been tightening yearby year as the output of the Worthington Minx increased. 

"Well, sir, " he said sharply, "what can I do for you?"

"I am William Wetherell, the storekeeper at Coniston. "

"Not the Wetherell who married Cynthia Ware!"

No, Mr. Worthington did not say that. He did not know that Cynthia Warewas married, or alive or dead, and--let it be confessed at once--he didnot care. 

This is what he did say:--

"Wetherell--Wetherell. Oh, yes, you've come about that note--the mortgageon the store at Coniston. " He stared at William Wetherell, drummed withhis fingers on the table, and smiled slightly. "I am happy to say thatthe Brampton Bank does not own this note any longer. If we did, --merelyas a matter of business, you understand" (he coughed), --"we should havehad to foreclose. "

"Don't own the note!" exclaimed Wetherell. "Who does own it?"

"We sold it a little while ago--since you asked for the extension--toJethro Bass. "

"Jethro Bass!" Wetherell's feet seemed to give way under him, and he satdown. 

"Mr. Bass is a little quixotic--that is a charitable way to putit--quixotic. He does--strange things like this once in awhile. "

The storekeeper found no words to answer, but sat mutely staring at him. Mr. Worthington coughed again. 

"You appear to be an educated man. Haven't I heard some story of yourgiving up other pursuits in Boston to come up here for your health?Certainly I place you now. I confess to a little interest in literaturemyself--in libraries. "

In spite of his stupefaction at the news he had just received, Wetherellthought of Mr. Worthington's beaver hat, and of that gentleman's firstinterest in libraries, for Cynthia had told the story to her husband. 

"It is perhaps an open secret, " continued Mr. Worthington, "that in thenear future I intend to establish a free library in Brampton. I feel itmy duty to do all I can for the town where I have made my success, andthere is nothing which induces more to the popular welfare than a goodlibrary. " Whereupon he shot at Wetherell another of his keen looks. "I donot talk this way ordinarily to my customers, Mr. Wetherell, " he began;"but you interest me, and I am going to tell you something in confidence. I am sure it will not be betrayed. "

"Oh, no, " said the bewildered storekeeper, who was in no condition tolisten to confidences. 

He went quietly to the door, opened it, looked out, and closed it softly. Then he looked out of the window. 

"Have a care of this man Bass, " he said, in a lower voice. "He began manyyears ago by debauching the liberties of that little town of Coniston, and since then he has gradually debauched the whole state, judges andall. If I have a case to try" (he spoke now with more intensity andbitterness), "concerning my mills, or my bank, before I get through Ifind that rascal mixed up in it somewhere, and unless I arrange matterswith him, I--"

He paused abruptly, his eyes going out of the window, pointing with along finger at a grizzled man crossing the street with a yellow and redhorse blanket thrown over his shoulders. 

"That man, Judge Baker, holding court in this town now, Bass owns bodyand soul. "

"And the horse blanket?" Wetherell queried, irresistibly. 

Dudley Worthington did not smile. 

"Take my advice, Mr. Wetherell, and pay off that note somehow. " An odorof the stable pervaded the room, and a great unkempt grizzled head andshoulders, horse blanket and all, were stuck into it. 

"Mornin', Dudley, " said the head, "busy?"

"Come right in, Judge, " answered Mr. Worthington. "Never too busy to seeyou. " The head disappeared. 

"Take my advice, Mr. Wetherell. "

And then the storekeeper went into the bank. 

For some moments he stood dazed by what he had heard, the query ringingin his head: Why had Jethro Bass bought that note? Did he think that thestorekeeper at Coniston would be of use to him, politically? The wordsChester Perkins had spoken that morning came back to Wetherell as hestood in the door. And how was he to meet Jethro Bass again with no moneyto pay even the interest on the note? Then suddenly he missed Cynthia, hurried out, and spied her under the trees on the common so deep inconversation with a boy that she did not perceive him until he spoke toher. The boy looked up, smiling frankly at something Cynthia had said tohim. He had honest, humorous eyes, and a browned, freckled face, and was, perhaps, two years older than Cynthia. 

"What's the matter?" said Wetherell. 

Cynthia's face was flushed, and she was plainly vexed about something. 

"I gave her a whistle, " said the boy, with a little laugh of vexation, "and now she says she won't take it because I owned up I made it foranother girl. "

Cynthia held it out to him, not deigning to appeal her ease. 

"You must take it back, " she said. 

"But I want you to have it, " said the boy. 

"It wouldn't be right for me to take it when you made it for somebodyelse. "

After all, people with consciences are born, not made. But this was afiner distinction that the boy had ever met with in his experience. 

"I didn't know you when I made the whistle, " he objected, puzzled anddowncast. 

"That doesn't make any difference. "

"I like you better than the other girl. "

"You have no right to, " retorted the casuist; "you've known her longer. "

"That doesn't make any difference, " said the boy; "there are lots ofpeople I don't like I have always known. This girl doesn't live inBrampton, anyway. "

"Where does she live?" demanded Cynthia, --which was a step backward. 

"At the state capital. Her name's Janet Duncan. There, do you believe menow?"

William Wetherell had heard of Janet Duncan's father, Alexander Duncan, who had the reputation of being the richest man in the state. And hebegan to wonder who the boy could be. 

"I believe you, " said Cynthia; "but as long as you made it for her, it'shers. Will you take it?"

"No, " said he, determinedly. 

"Very well, " answered Cynthia. She laid down the whistle beside him onthe rail, and went off a little distance and seated herself on a bench. The boy laughed. 

"I like that girl, " he remarked; "the rest of 'em take everything I give'em, and ask for more. She's prettier'n any of 'em, too. "

"What is your name?" Wetherell asked him, curiously, forgetting his owntroubles. 

"Bob Worthington. "

"Are you the son of Dudley Worthington"

"Everybody asks me that, " he said; "I'm tired of it. When I grow up, they'll have to stop it. "

"But you should be proud of your father. "

"I am proud of him, everybody's proud of him, Brampton's proud ofhim--he's proud of himself. That's enough, ain't it?" He eyed Wetherellsomewhat defiantly, then his glance wandered to Cynthia, and he walkedover to her. He threw himself down on the grass in front of her, and laylooking up at her solemnly. For a while she continued to stare inflexiblyat the line of market wagons, and then she burst into a laugh. 

"Thought you wouldn't hold out forever, " he remarked. 

"It's because you're so foolish, " said Cynthia, "that's why I laughed. "Then she grew sober again and held out her hand to him. "Good-by. "

"Where are you going?"

"I must go back to my father. I--I think he doesn't feel very well. "

"Next time I'll make a whistle for you, " he called after her. 

"And give it to somebody else, " said Cynthia. 

She had hold of her father's hand by that, but he caught up with her, very red in the face. 

"You know that isn't true, " he cried angrily, and taking his way acrossBrampton Street, turned, and stood staring after them until they were outof sight. 

"Do you like him, Daddy?" asked Cynthia. 

William Wetherell did not answer. He had other things to think about. 

"Daddy?"

"Yes. "

"Does your trouble feel any better?"

"Some, Cynthia. But you mustn't think about it. "

"Daddy, why don't you ask Uncle Jethro to help you?"

At the name Wetherell started as if he had had a shock. 

"What put him into your head, Cynthia?" he asked sharply. "Why do youcall him 'Uncle Jethro'?"

"Because he asked me to. Because he likes me, and I like him. "

The whole thing was a riddle he could not solve--one that was best leftalone. They had agreed to walk back the ten miles to Coniston, to savethe money that dinner at the hotel would cost. And so they started, Cynthia flitting hither and thither along the roadside, picking thestately purple iris flowers in the marshy places, while Wetherellpondered.