at this time, a singular falling-off in the attendance of the
Brampton Club. Ephraim sat alone most of the day in his Windsor chair
by the stove, pretending to read newspapers. But he did not mention this
fact to Cynthia. He was more lonesome than ever on the Saturdays and
Sundays which she spent with Jethro Bass.

Jethro Bass! It is he who might be made the theme of the music of the
snarling trumpets. What was he about during those six weeks? That is
what the state at large was beginning to wonder, and the state at large
was looking on at a drama, too. A rumor reached the capital and radiated
thence to every city and town and hamlet, and was followed by other
rumors like confirmations. Jethro Bass, for the first time in a long
life of activity, was inactive: inactive, too, at this most critical
period of his career, the climax of it, with a war to be waged which for
bitterness and ferocity would have no precedent; with the town meetings
at hand, where the frontier fighting was to be done, and no quarter
given. Lieutenants had gone to Coniston for further orders and
instructions, and had come back without either. Achilles was sulking in
the tannery house--some said a broken Achilles. Not a word could be got
out of him, or the sign of an intention. Jake Wheeler moped through the
days in Rias Richardson's store, too sore at heart to speak to any man,
and could have wept if tears had been a relief to him. No more blithe
errands over the mountain to Clovelly and elsewhere, though Jake
knew the issue now and itched for the battle, and the vassals of
the hill-Rajah under a jubilant Bijah Bixby were arming cap-a-pie.
Lieutenant-General-and-Senator Peleg Hartington of Brampton, in his
office over the livery stable, shook his head like a mournful stork
when questioned by brother officers from afar. Operations were at a
standstill, and the sinews of war relaxed. Rural givers of mortgages,
who had not had the opportunity of selling them or had feared to do
so, began (mirabile dictu) to express opinions. Most ominous sign of
all--the proprietor of the Pelican Hotel had confessed that the Throne
Room had not been engaged for the coming session.

Was it possible that Jethro Bass lay crushed under the weight of the
accusations which had been printed, and were still being printed, in
the Newcastle Guardian? He did not answer them, or retaliate in other
newspapers, but Jethro Bass had never made use of newspapers in this
way. Still, no