Coniston, Complete

W >> Winston Churchill >> Coniston, Complete


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

It was indeed Mr. Worthington, slightly more sunburned and less
citified-looking than on his arrival, and he wore a woollen cap of
Brampton make. Even then, despite his wavy hair and delicate appearance,
Isaac Worthington had the hawk-like look which became famous in later
years, 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, by
sneezing with all his might.

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

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

"No," answered Mr. Worthington, hastily. "If I were," he added, "I'd put
in 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 Englanders
are naturally progressive, I take it."

"W-what was it you took?"

"I was merely remarking on the enterprise of New Englanders," said
Worthington, flushing. "On my journey up here, beside the Merrimac, I had
the opportunity to inspect the new steam-boiler, the falling-mill, the
splitting machine, and other remarkable improvements. In fact, these
suggested one or two little things to me, which might be of interest to
you."

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

"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 and
settled himself comfortably on a pile of bark. He thought Jethro a
character, and he was not mistaken. On the other hand, Mr. Worthington
displayed a knowledge of the falling-mill and splitting-machine and the
process of tanneries in general that was surprising. Jethro, had Mr.
Worthington but known it, was more interested in animate machines: more
interested in Mr. Worthington than the falling-mill or, indeed, the
tannery business.

At length the visitor fell silent, his sense of superiority suddenly
gone. 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 kind
of 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 boots
crushing bark, to have him read within twenty minutes a cherished and
well-hidden ambition which Brampton had not discovered in a month (and
did not discover for many years) was sufficiently startling. Well might
Mr. Worthington tremble for his other ambitions, and they were many.

Jethro stepped out, passing Mr. Worthington as though he had already
forgotten that gentleman's existence, and seized an armful of bark that
lay under cover of a lean-to. Just then, heralded by a brightening of the
western sky, a girl appeared down the road, her head bent a little as in
thought, 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. Suddenly
Jake, implike, turned and stared at Worthington.

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

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

"Guess you have," answered Jake. "Cynthy goes to the Social Library, to
git 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 low
gable of the little parsonage under the elms on the hill beyond the
meeting-house. The visitor gave a short glance at it, swung around and
gave 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. Then
Mr. 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 at
Silas Wheelock's."

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

"That makes another," said Jake, significantly, "and Speedy Bates says he
never looks at wimmen. Godfrey, I wish I could see Moses now."

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

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

"You know my name!" he exclaimed.

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

"If it were your pond, Miss Cynthia," he responded gallantly, "I should
be 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 never
be content to be a little anything. So he had been judged twice in an
afternoon, 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 is
fortified by learning, since Miss Penniman tells me that you are quite
capable of taking a school in Boston."

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

"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 in
Brampton."

She did not answer this confession, but left him, and presently
disappeared beyond the triangle of the green, while Mr. Worthington
pursued his way to Brampton by the road,--his thoughts that evening not
on waterfalls or machinery. As for Cynthia's conduct, I do not defend or
explain it, for I have found out that the best and wisest of women can at
times be coquettish.

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

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

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

The celebrated Social Library, halfway up the street, occupied part of
Miss Lucretia's little house; or, it might better be said, Miss Lucretia
boarded with the Social Library. There Cynthia hitched her horse, gave
greeting to Mr. Ezra Graves and others who paused, and, before she was
fairly in the door, was clasped in Miss Lucretia's arms. There were new
books to be discussed, arrived by the stage the day before; but scarce
half 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." And
she went to the door. Cynthia thought it was not Ezra. Then came Miss
Lucretia'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 beaver
hat. No, he had not yet read the 'Last of the Mohicans.' There were
things in it that Mr. Worthington would like to discuss with Miss
Penniman. Was it not a social library? At this juncture there came a
giggle from within that made him turn scarlet, and he scarcely heard Miss
Lucretia offering to discuss the whole range of letters. Enter Mr.
Worthington, bows profoundly to Miss Lucretia's guest, his beaver in his
hand, and the discussion begins, Cynthia taking no part in it. Strangely
enough, Mr. Worthington's remarks on American Indians are not only
intelligent, but interesting. The clock strikes four, Miss Lucretia
starts up, suddenly remembering that she has promised to read to an
invalid, and with many regrets from Mr. Worthington, she departs. Then he
sits down again, twirling his beaver, while Cynthia looks at him in quiet
amusement.

"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 Coniston
Water. I shall begin to think you romantic, Mr. Worthington--perhaps a
poet."

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

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

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

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

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

Cynthia could not deny that these were laudable ambitions.

"Something tells me," he continued, "that I shall succeed. And that is
why 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 you
repose 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 knows
this?" she asked.

Mr. Worthington laughed.

"The only one of importance," he answered. "This week, when I went to
Coniston, I had a strange experience. I left the brook at a tannery, and
a most singular fellow was in the shed shovelling bark. I tried to get
him 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 a
mill.' He gave me a queer feeling. Do you have many such odd characters
in Coniston, Miss Cynthia? You're not going?"

Cynthia had risen, and all of the laugher was gone from her eyes. What
had happened to make her grow suddenly grave, Isaac Worthington never
knew.

"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," she
answered.

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 the
snow fell; and afterward, too, in Silas Wheelock's yellow sleigh through
the great drifts under the pines, the chestnut Morgan trotting to one
side in the tracks. On one of these excursions he fell in with that
singular character of a bumpkin who had interested him on his first
visit, in coonskin cap and overcoat and mittens. Jethro Bass was plodding
in the same direction, and Isaac Worthington, out of the goodness of his
heart, invited him into the sleigh. He was scarcely prepared for the
bumpkin's curt refusal, but put it down to native boorishness, and
thought no more about it then.

What troubled Mr. Worthington infinitely more was the progress of his
suit; for it had become a snit, though progress is a wrong word to use in
connection with it. So far had he got,--not a great distance,--and then
came to what he at length discovered was a wall, and apparently
impenetrable. He was not even allowed to look over it. Cynthia was kind,
engaging; even mirthful, at times, save when he approached it; and he
became convinced that a certain sorrow lay in the forbidden ground. The
nearest he had come to it was when he mentioned again, by accident, that
life of Napoleon.

That Cynthia would accept him, nobody doubted for an instant. It would be
madness not to. He was orthodox, so Deacon Ira had discovered, of good
habits, and there was the princely four hundred a year--almost a
minister's salary! Little people guessed that there was no
love-making--only endless discussions of books beside the great centre
chimney, and discussions of Isaac Worthington's career.

It is a fact--for future consideration--that Isaac Worthington proposed
to Cynthia Ware, although neither Speedy Bates nor Deacon Ira Perkins
heard him do so. It had been very carefully prepared, that speech, and
was 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--not
for what he was. He tendered to Cynthia a note for a large amount,
payable in some twenty years, with interest. The astonishing thing to
record is that in twenty years he could have more than paid the note,
although he could not have foreseen at that time the Worthington Free
Library and the Truro Railroad, and the stained-glass window in the
church and the great marble monument on the hill--to another woman. All
of these things, and more, Cynthia might have had if she had only
accepted that promise to pay! But she did not accept it. He was a trifle
more robust than when he came to Brampton in the summer, but perhaps she
doubted his promise to pay.

It may have been guessed, although the language we have used has been
purposely 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 with
Strength. The strength might gradually and eventually be refined. Such
was her hope, when she had any. It is hard, looking back upon that
virginal and cultured Cynthia, to be convinced that she could have loved
passionately, and such a man! But love she did, and passionately, too,
and hated herself for it, and prayed and struggled to cast out what she
believed, at times, to be a devil.

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

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

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

Even as Isaac D. Worthington did not dream of the Truro Railroad and of
an era in the haze of futurity, it did not occur to Jethro Bass that his
ambitions tended to the making of another era that was at hand. Makers of
eras are too busy thinking about themselves and like immediate matters to
worry about history. Jethro never heard the expression about "cracks in
the Constitution," and would not have known what it meant,--he merely had
the desire to get on top. But with Established Church Coniston tight in
the 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 rumors
of a Democratic ticket began to drift into Jonah Winch's store,--a
Democratic ticket headed by Fletcher Bartlett, of all men, as chairman of
the board. Moses laughed when he first heard of it, for Fletcher was an
easy-going farmer of the Methodist persuasion who was always in debt, and
the other members of the ticket, so far as Moses could learn of it--were
remarkable neither for orthodoxy or solidity. The rumors persisted, and
still Moses laughed, for the senior selectman was a big man with flesh on
him, who could laugh with dignity.

"Moses," said Deacon Lysander Richardson as they stood on the platform of
the store one sunny Saturday in February, "somebody's put Fletcher up to
this. 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, who
was making a new coat for the minister, heard these remarks, and stood
thoughtfully staring at the blue coat-tails of the elders. A brass button
was gone from Deacon Lysander's, and she wanted to sew it on. Suddenly
she looked up, and saw Jock Hallowell standing beside her. Jock
winked--and Cynthia blushed and hurried homeward without a word. She
remembered, vividly enough, what Jack had told her the spring before, and
several times during the week that followed she thought of waylaying him
and asking what he knew. But she could not summon the courage. As a
matter of fact, Jock knew nothing, but he had a theory. He was a strange
man, Jock, who whistled all day on roof and steeple and meddled with
nobody's business, as a rule. What had impelled him to talk to Cynthia in
the way he had must remain a mystery.

Meanwhile the disquieting rumors continued to come in. Jabez Miller, on
the north slope, had told Samuel Todd, who told Ephraim Williams, that he
was going to vote for Fletcher. Moses Hatch hitched up his team and went
out to see Jabez, spent an hour in general conversation, and then plumped
the question, taking, as he said, that means of finding out. Jabez hemmed
and hawed, said his farm was mortgaged; spoke at some length about the
American citizen, however humble, having a right to vote as he chose. A
most unusual line for Jabez, and the whole matter very mysterious and not
a little ominous. Moses drove homeward that sparkling day, shutting his
eyes to the glare of the ice crystals on the pines, and thinking
profoundly. He made other excursions, enough to satisfy himself that this
disease, so new and unheard of (the right of the unfit to hold office),
actually existed. Where the germ began that caused it, Moses knew no
better than the deacon, since those who were suspected of leanings toward
Fletcher Bartlett were strangely secretive. The practical result of
Moses' profound thought was a meeting, in his own house, without respect
to party, Democrats and Whigs alike, opened by a prayer from the minister
himself. The meeting, after a futile session, broke up dismally. Sedition
and 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 a
cold, and was not so strong as he used to be, and should not have gone to
the meeting at all. At supper, Cynthia listened with her eyes on her
plate while he told her of the affair.

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

Cynthia kept her eyes on her plate, but she felt as though her body were
afire. Little did the minister imagine, as he went off to write his
sermon, that his daughter might have given him the clew to the mystery.
Yes, Cynthia guessed; and she could not read that evening because of the
tumult of her thoughts. What was her duty in the matter? To tell her
father her suspicions? They were only suspicions, after all, and she
could make no accusations. And Jethro! Although she condemned him, there
was something in the situation that appealed to a most reprehensible
sense of humor. Cynthia caught herself smiling once or twice, and knew
that it was wicked. She excused Jethro, and told herself that, with his
lack of training, he could know no better. Then an idea came to her, and
the very boldness of it made her grow hot again. She would appeal to him
tell him that that power he had over other men could be put to better and
finer 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 we
go around Coniston with Jethro behind his little red Morgan, we shall
come back with nothing but--suspicions. They will amount to convictions,
yet we cannot prove them. The reader very naturally demands some specific
information--how did Jethro do it? I confess that I can only indicate in
a very general way: I can prove nothing. Nobody ever could prove anything
against Jethro Bass. Bring the following evidence before any grand jury
in the country, and see if they don't throw it out of court.

Jethro in the course of his weekly round of strictly business visits
throughout the town, drives into Samuel Todd's farmyard, and hitches on
the sunny side of the red barns. The town of Coniston, it must be
explained 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 Samuel
Todd comes out. He is a little man, and has a habit of rubbing the sharp
ridge of his nose.

"How be you, Jethro?" says Samuel. "Killed the brindle Thursday. Finest
hide 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.