across the trembling floors of the forest tops to lonely sentinel
mountains fourscore miles away.

No one takes the state turnpike nowadays except crazy tourists who are
willing to risk their necks and their horses' legs for the sake of
scenery. The tough little Morgans of that time, which kept their feet
like cats, have all but disappeared, but there were places on that road
where Lyman Hull put the shoes under his wheels for four miles at a
stretch. He was not a companion many people would have chosen with whom
to enjoy the beauties of such a trip, and nearly everybody in Coniston
was afraid of him. Jethro Bass would sit silent on the seat for hours
and--it is a fact to be noted that when he told Lyman to do a thing,
Lyman did it; not, perhaps, without cursing and grumbling. Lyman was a
profane and wicked man--drover, farmer, trader, anything. He had a cider
mill on his farm on the south slopes of Coniston which Mr. Ware had
mentioned in his sermons, and which was the resort of the ungodly. The
cider was not so good as Squire Northcutt's, but cheaper. Jethro was not
afraid of Lyman, and he had a mortgage on the six-horse team, and on the
farm and the cider mill.

After six days, Jethro and Lyman drove over Charlestown bridge and into
the crooked streets of Boston, and at length arrived at a drover's hotel,
or lodging-house that did not, we may be sure, front on Mount Vernon
Street or face the Mall. Lyman proceeded to get drunk, and Jethro to sell
the hides and other merchandise which Lyman had hauled for him.

There was a young man in Boston, when Jethro arrived in Lyman Hull's
team, named William Wetherell. By extraordinary circumstances he and
another connected with him are to take no small part in this story, which
is a sufficient excuse for his introduction. His father had been a