The Project Gutenberg EBook of Coniston, Book II., by Winston Churchill

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Title: Coniston, Book II.

Author: Winston Churchill

Release Date: October 17, 2004 [EBook #3763]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONISTON, BOOK II. ***

Produced by Pat Castevans and David Widger

CONISTON

By Winston Churchill

BOOK 2.

CHAPTER IX

When William Wetherell and Cynthia had reached the last turn in the road
in Northcutt's woods, quarter of a mile from Coniston, they met the nasal
Mr. Samuel Price driving silently in the other direction. The word
"silently" is used deliberately, because to Mr. Price appertained a
certain ghostlike quality of flitting, and to Mr. Price's horse and wagon
likewise. He drew up for a brief moment when he saw Wetherell.

"Wouldn't hurry back if I was you, Will."

"Why not?"

Mr. Price leaned out of the wagon.

"Bije has come over from Clovelly to spy around a little mite."

It was evident from Mr. Price's manner that he regarded the storekeeper
as a member of the reform party.

"What did he say, Daddy?" asked Cynthia, as Wetherell stood staring after
the flitting buggy in bewilderment.

"I haven't the faintest idea, Cynthia," answered her father, and they
walked on.

"Don't you know who 'Bije' is?

"No," said her father, "and I don't care."

It was almost criminal ignorance for a man who lived in that part of the
country not to know Bijah Bixby of Clovelly, who was paying a little
social visit to Coniston that day on his way home from the state
capital,--tending, as it were, Jethro's flock. Still, Wetherell must be
excused because he was an impractical literary man with troubles of his
own. But how shall we chronicle Bijah's rank and precedence in the Jethro
army, in which there are neither shoulder-straps nor annual registers? To
designate him as the Chamberlain of that hill Rajah, the Honorable Heth
Sutton, would not be far out of the way. The Honorable Heth, whom we all
know and whom we shall see presently, is the man of substance and of
broad acres in Clovelly: Bijah merely owns certain mortgages in that
town, but he had created the Honorable