The Essential Winston Churchill Collection. Winston Churchill
wildly. At length Jethro put down the paper without glancing at his companion.
"There's somethin' about that that fetches you spinnin' through the air," he said slowly. "Sh-showed it to Jim Willard, editor of the Newcastle Guardian. Er--what do you think he said?"
"I don't know," said Wetherell, in a low voice.
"Willard said, 'Bass, w-wish you'd find me that man. I'll give him five dollars every week for a letter like that--er--five dollars a week.'"
He paused, folded up the paper again and put it in his pocket, took out a card and handed it to Wetherell.
James G. Willard, Editor. Newcastle Guardian.
"That's his address," said Jethro. "Er--guess you'll know what to do with it. Er--five dollars a week--five dollars a week."
"How did you know I wrote this article?" said Wetherell, as the card trembled between his fingers.
"K-knowed the place was Coniston seen from the 'east, knowed there wahn't any one is Brampton or Harwich could have done it--g-guessed the rest--guessed the rest."
Wetherell could only stare at him like a man who, with the halter about his neck, has been suddenly reprieved. But Jethro Bass did not appear to be waiting for thanks. He cleared his throat, and had Wetherell not been in such a condition himself, he would actually have suspected him of embarrassment.
"Er--Wetherell?"
"Yes?"
"W-won't say nothin' about the mortgage--p-pay it when you can."
This roused the storekeeper to a burst of protest, but he stemmed it.
"Hain't got the money, have you?"
"No--but--"
"If I needed money, d'ye suppose I'd bought the mortgage?"
"No," answered the still bewildered Wetherell, "of course not." There he stuck, that other suspicion of political coercion suddenly rising uppermost. Could this be what the man meant? Wetherell put his hand to his head, but he did not dare to ask the question. Then Jethro Bass fixed his eyes upon him.
"Hain't never mixed any in politics--hev you n-never mixed any?"
Wetherell's heart sank.
"No," he answered.
"D-don't--take my advice--d-don't."
"What!" cried the storekeeper, so loudly that he frightened himself.
"D-don't," repeated Jethro, imperturbably.
There was a short silence, the storekeeper being unable to speak. Coniston Water, at the foot of the garden, sang the same song, but it seemed to Wetherell to have changed its note from sorrow to joy.
"H-hear things, don't you--hear things in the store?"
"Yes."
"Don't hear 'em. Keep out of politics, Will, s-stick to store-keepin' and--and literature."
Jethro got to his feet and turned his back on the storekeeper and picked up the parcel he had brought.
"C-Cynthy well?" he inquired.
"I--I'll call her," said Wetherell, huskily. "She--she was down by the brook when you came."
But Jethro Bass did not wait. He took his parcel and strode down to Coniston Water, and there he found Cynthia seated on a rock with her toes in a pool.
"How be you, Cynthy?" said he, looking down at her.
"I'm well, Uncle Jethro," said Cynthia.
"R-remembered what I told you to call me, hev you," said Jethro, plainly pleased. "Th-that's right. Cynthy?"
Cynthia looked up at him inquiringly.
"S-said you liked books--didn't you? S-said you liked books?"
"Yes, I do," she replied simply, "very much."
He undid the wrapping of the parcel, and there lay disclosed a book with a very gorgeous cover. He thrust it into the child's lap.
"It's 'Robinson Crusoe'!" she exclaimed, and gave a little shiver of delight that made ripples in the pool. Then she opened it--not without awe, for William Wetherell's hooks were not clothed in this magnificent manner. "It's full of pictures," cried Cynthia. "See, there he is making a ship!"
"Y-you read it, Cynthy?" asked Jethro, a little anxiously.
No, Cynthia hadn't.
"L-like it, Cynthy--l-like it?" said he, not quite so anxiously.
Cynthia looked up at him with a puzzled expression.
"F-fetched it up from the capital for you, Cynthy--for you."
"For me!"
A strange thrill ran through Jethro Bass as he gazed upon the wonder and delight in the face of the child.
"F-fetched it for you, Cynthy."
For a moment Cynthia sat very still, and then she slowly closed the book and stared at the cover again, Jethro looking down at her the while. To tell the truth, she found it difficult to express the emotions which the event had summoned up.
"Thank you--Uncle Jethro," she said.
Jethro, however, understood. He had, indeed, never failed to understand her from the beginning. He parted his coat tails and sat down on the rock beside her, and very gently opened the book again, to the first chapter.
"G-goin' to read it, Cynthy?"
"Oh, yes," she said, and trembled again.
"Er--read it to me?"
So Cynthia read "Robinson Crusoe" to him while the summer afternoon wore away, and the shadows across the pool grew longer and longer.
CHAPTER XI
Thus William Wetherell became established in Coniston, and was started at last--poor man--upon a life that was fairly tranquil. Lem Hallowell had once covered him with blushes by unfolding a newspaper in the store and reading an editorial beginning: "We publish today a new and attractive feature of the Guardian, a weekly contribution from a correspondent whose modesty is to be compared only with his genius as a writer. We are confident that the readers of our Raper will appreciate the letter in another column signed 'W. W.'" And from that day William was accorded much of the deference due to a litterateur which the fates had hitherto denied him. Indeed, during the six years which we are about to skip over so lightly, he became a marked man in Coniston, and it was voted in towns meeting that he be intrusted with that most important of literary labors, the Town History of Coniston.
During this period, too, there sprang up the strangest of intimacies between him and Jethro Bass. Surely no more dissimilar men than these have ever been friends, and that the friendship was sometimes misjudged was one of the clouds on William Wetherell's horizon. As the years went on he was still unable to pay off the mortgage; and sometimes, indeed, he could not even meet the interest, in spite of the princely sum he received from Mr. Willard of the Guardian. This was one of the clouds on Jethro's horizon, too, if men had but known it, and he took such moneys as Wetherell insisted upon giving him grudgingly enough. It is needless