History repeats itself, even among lions and jackals. Thirty-six
years before there had been a town-meeting in Coniston and a surprise.
Established Church, decent and orderly selectmen and proceedings
had been toppled over that day, every outlying farm sending its
representative through the sleet to do it. And now retribution was at
hand. This March-meeting day was mild, the grass showing a green color
on the south slopes where the snow had melted, and the outlying farmers
drove through mud-holes up to the axles. Drove, albeit, in procession
along the roads, grimly enough, and the sheds Jock Hallowell had built
around the meeting-house could not hold the horses; they lined the
fences and usurped the hitching posts of the village street, and still
they came. Their owners trooped with muddy boots into the meeting-house,
and when the moderator rapped for order the Chairman of the Board of
Selectmen, Jethro Bass, was not in his place; never, indeed, would be
there again. Six and thirty years he had been supreme in that town--long
enough for any man. The beams and king posts would know him no more. Mr.
Amos Cuthbert was elected Chairman, not without a gallant and desperate
but unsupported fight of a minority led by Mr. Jake Wheeler, whose
loyalty must be taken as a tribute to his species. Farmer Cuthbert was
elected, and his mortgage was not foreclosed! Had it been, there was
more money in the Harwich bank.

There was no telegraph to Coniston in these days, and so Mr. Sam Price,
with his horse in a lather, might have been seen driving with unseemly
haste toward Brampton, where in due time he arrived. Half an hour later
there was excitement at Newcastle, sixty-five miles away, in the office
of the Guardian, and the next morning the excitement had spread over the
whole state.

Jethro Bass was dethroned in Coniston--discredited in his own town!

And where was Jethro? Did his heart ache, did he bow his head as
he thought of that supremacy, so hardly won, so superbly held, gone
forever? Many were the curious eyes on the tannery house that day, and
for days after, but its owner gave no signs of concern. He read and
thought and chopped wood in the tannery shed as usual. Never, I believe,
did man, shorn of power, accept his lot more quietly. His struggle was
over, his battle was fought, a greater peace than he had ever thought to
hope for was won. For the opinion and regard of the world he had never
cared. A greater reward await