maledictions of his enemies; who rose to take his oath of office as
unconcerned as though the house were empty, albeit Deacon Lysander could
scarcely get the words out. And then Jethro sat down again in his
chair--not to leave it for six and thirty years. From this time forth
that chair became a seat of power, and of dominion over a state.

Thus it was that Jock Hallowell's prophecy, so lightly uttered, came to
pass.

How the remainder of that Jacksonian ticket was elected, down to the very
hog-reeves, and amid what turmoil of the Democracy and bitterness of
spirit of the orthodox, I need not recount. There is no moral to the
story, alas--it was one of those things which inscrutable heaven
permitted to be done. After that dark town-meeting day some of those
stern old fathers became broken men, and it is said in Coniston that this
calamity to righteous government, and not the storm, gave to Priest Ware
his death-stroke.




CHAPTER VI

And now we must go back for a chapter--a very short chapter--to the day
before that town meeting which had so momentous an influence upon the
history of Coniston and of the state. That Monday, too, it will be
remembered, dawned in storm, the sleet hissing in the wide throats of the
centre-chimneys, and bearing down great boughs of trees until they broke
in agony. Dusk came early, and howling darkness that hid a muffled figure
on the ice-bound road staring at the yellow cracks in the tannery door.