CONISTON

BOOK I

CHAPTER I

First I am to write a love-story of long ago, of a time some little while after General Jackson had got into the White House and had shown the world what a real democracy was.  The Era of the first six Presidents had closed, and a new Era had begun.  I am speaking of political Eras.  Certain gentlemen, with a pious belief in democracy, but with a firmer determination to get on top, arose,—­and got in top.  So many of these gentlemen arose in the different states, and they were so clever, and they found so many chinks in the Constitution to crawl through and steal the people’s chestnuts, that the Era may be called the Boss-Era.  After the Boss came along certain Things without souls, but of many minds, and found more chinks in the Constitution:  bigger chinks, for the Things were bigger, and they stole more chestnuts.  But I am getting far ahead of my love-story—­and of my book.

The reader is warned that this first love-story will, in a few chapters, come to an end:  and not to a happy end—­otherwise there would be no book.  Lest he should throw the book away when he arrives at this page, it is only fair to tell him that there is another and a much longer love story later on, if he will only continue to read, in which, it is hoped, he may not be disappointed.

The hills seem to leap up against the sky as I describe that region where Cynthia Ware was born, and the very old country names help to summon up the picture.  Coniston Mountain, called by some the Blue Mountain, clad in Hercynian forests, ten good miles in length, north and south, with its notch road that winds over the saddle behind the withers of it.  Coniston Water, that oozes out from under the loam in a hundred places, on the eastern slope, gathers into a rushing stream to cleave the very granite, flows southward around the south end of Coniston Mountain, and having turned the mills at Brampton, idles through meadows westward in its own green valley until it comes to Harwich, where it works again and tumbles into a river.  Brampton and Harwich are rivals, but Coniston Water gives of its power impartially to each.  From the little farm clearings on the western slope of Coniston Mountain you can sweep the broad valley of a certain broad river where grew (and grow still) the giant pines that gave many a mast to King George’s navy as tribute for the land.  And beyond that river rises beautiful Farewell Mountain of many colors, now sapphire, now amethyst, its crest rimmed about at evening with saffron flame; and, beyond Farewell, the emerald billows of the western peaks catching the level light.  A dozen little brooks are born high among the western spruces on Coniston to score deep, cool valleys in their way through Clovelly township to the broad music of the water and fresh river-valleys full of the music of the water and fresh with the odor of the ferns.