William Wetherell

“ William Wetherell went. There is no need to go into the psychology of the matter. It may have been numbness; it may have been temporary insanity caused by the excitement of the battle he had witnessed, for his brain was in a whirl; or Mr. Bixby may have hypnotized him. As they walked through the silent streets toward the Opera House, he listened perforce to Mr. Bixby's comments upon some of the innumerable details which Jethro had planned and quietly carried out while sitting, in the window of the Throne Room. A great light dawned on William Wetherell, but too late. ”

“ One beautiful afternoon William Wetherell stood on the platform of the store, looking off at Coniston, talking to Moses Hatch—young Moses, who is father of six children now and has forgotten Cynthia Ware. Old Moses sleeps on the hillside, let us hope in the peace of the orthodox and the righteous. A cloud of dust arose above the road to the southward, and out of it came a country wagon drawn by a fat horse, and in the wagon the strangest couple Wetherell had ever seen. ”

“ It was perhaps inevitable, with such a helpless father, that the girl should grow up with a sense of responsibility, being what she was. Did William Wetherell go to Brampton, Cynthia examined his apparel, and he was marched shamefacedly back to his room to change; did he read too late at night, some unseen messenger summoned her out of her sleep, and he was packed off to bed. Miss Millicent Skinner, too, was in a like mysterious way compelled to abdicate her high place in favor of Cynthia, and Wetherell was utterly unable to explain how this miracle was accomplished. ”

“ The locket fell open in William Wetherell's hand, for the clasp had become worn with time, and there was a picture of little Cynthia within: of little Cynthia,—not so little now,—a photograph taken in Brampton the year before. Wetherell laid it beside the daguerreotype.
"She looks like her," he said aloud; "but the child is more vigorous, more human—less like a spirit. I have always thought of Cynthia Ware as a spirit."
Jethro turned at the words, and came and stood looking over Wetherell's shoulder at the pictures of mother and daughter. ”

“ She could not help liking Janet Duncan, mere flesh and blood not being proof against such compliments.
“I suppose it's because my father was an educated man,” she said; “he taught me to read and speak when I was young.”
“Why, you are just like a person out of a novel! Who was your father?”
“He kept the store at Coniston,” answered Cynthia, smiling a little sadly. She would have liked to have added that William Wetherell would have been a great man if he had had health, but she found it difficult to give out confidences, especially when they were in the nature of surmises. ”

“ William Wetherell was beginning to think that Jethro knew something also of such refinements of cruelty as were practised by Caligula. He drew forth his cowhide wallet and produced from it a folded piece of newspaper which must, Wetherell felt sure, contain the mortgage in question.
"There's one power I always wished I had," he observed, "the power to make folks see some things as I see 'em. ”

“ 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 prosperous Portsmouth merchant in the West India trade, a man of many attainments, who had failed and died of a broken heart; and William, at two and twenty, was a clerk in the little jewellery shop of Mr. Judson in Cornhill. ”

“ When Jethro was farming,—so it was said,—he would not stop to talk politics even with the President of the United States were that dignitary to lean over his pasture fence and beckon to him. On a sultry Friday morning, when William Wetherell was seated at Jonah Winch's desk in the cool recesses of the store slowly and painfully going over certain troublesome accounts which seemed hopeless, he was thrown into a panic by the sight of one staring at him from the far side of a counter. History sometimes reverses itself. ”

“ Jethro sits silent at the head of the table eating his crackers and milk, with Cynthia on his left and William Wetherell on his right. Poor William, greatly embarrassed by his sudden projection into the limelight, is helpless in the clutches of a lady-waitress who is demanding somewhat fiercely that he make an immediate choice from a list of dishes which she is shooting at him with astonishing rapidity. But who is this, sitting beside him, who comes to William's rescue, and demands that the lady repeat the bill of fare? ”

“ When William Wetherell and Cynthia had reached the last turn in the road in Northcutt's woods, quarter of a mile from Coniston, they met the nasal Mr. Samuel Price driving silently in the other direction. The word “silently” is used deliberately, because to Mr. Price appertained a certain ghostlike quality of flitting, and to Mr. Price's horse and wagon likewise. He drew up for a brief moment when he saw Wetherell.
“Wouldn't hurry back if I was you, Will.”
“Why not?”
Mr. Price leaned out of the wagon.
“Bije has come over from Clovelly to spy around a little mite.” ”

“ William Wetherell ventured to ask Jethro who the man was.
"N-name's Lovejoy," said Jethro.
"Lovejoy!" ejaculated the storekeeper, thinking of what Mr. Merrill had told him of the opponents of the Truro Franchise Bill. "President of the 'Northwestern' Railroad?"
Jethro gave his friend a shrewd look.
"G-gettin' posted—hain't you, Will?" he said.
"Is she going to marry that old man?" asked Cynthia.
Jethro smiled a little. "G-guess not," said he, "g-guess not, if the old man can help it. Nobody's married him yet, and hain't likely to." ”

“ He says, 'Bije, you get 'em.' I understood."
William Wetherell began to realize the futility of trying to convince Mr.
Bixby of his innocence in political matters, and glanced at Jethro.
"You wouldn't think he was listenin', would you, Will?" Mr. Bixby remarked.
"Listening?"
"Ears are sharp as a dog's. Callate he kin hear as far as the governor's table, and he don't look as if he knows anything. One way he built up his power—listenin' when they're talkin' sly out there in the rotunda. They're almighty surprised when they l'arn he knows what they're up to. ”

“ Merril!” he went on presently, “I want you to promise me that you will never speak to Jethro, of this, or to my daughter, Cynthia.”
Mr. Merrill merely nodded his head in assent. Still he could not speak.
“They might think it was this that caused my death. It was not. I know very well that I am worn out, and that I should have gone soon in any case. And I must leave Cynthia to him. He loves her as his own child.”
William Wetherell, his faith in Jethro restored, was facing death as he had never faced life. Mr. Merrill was greatly affected. ”

“ But it had been otherwise with many in Coniston and Brampton and Harwich. Some of these, when the drafting came, had fled in bands to the mountain and defied capture. Mr. Dudley Worthington, now a mill owner, had found a substitute; Heth Sutton of Clovelly had been drafted and had driven over the mountain to implore Jethro Bass abjectly to get him out of it. In short, many funny things had happened—funny things to Sergeant Ephraim, but not at all to William Wetherell, who sympathized with Heth in his panic.
"So Jethro Bass has become a great man," said Wetherell. ”

“ William Wetherell avoided a reply to this very pointed inquiry by escaping into the meeting-house, where he found Jethro and Cynthia and Ephraim already seated halfway up the aisle.
On the platform, behind a bank of flowers, are the velvet covered chairs which contain the dignitaries of the occasion. The chief of these is, of course, Mr. Isaac Worthington, the one with the hawk-like look, sitting next to the Rev. Mr. Sweet, who is rather pudgy by contrast. On the other side of Mr. Sweet, next to the parlor organ and the quartette, is the genial little railroad president Mr. ”

“ Wetherell asked.
Ephraim ruminated. Suddenly he stuck his hand into the bosom of his blue coat, and his face lighted and even gushed as he drew out a crumpled letter.
“It don't take much gumption to run a store, does it, William? Guess you could run a store, couldn't you?”
“I would try anything,” said Wetherell.
“Well,” said Ephraim' “there's the store at Coniston. With folks goin' West, and all that, nobody seems to want it much.” He looked at the letter. “Lem Hallowell' says there hain't nobody to take it.”
“Jonah Winch's!” exclaimed Wetherell. ”

“ He has contributed numerous articles and occasional verse to magazines and journals, and was at one time a regular contributor of unsigned articles to a Toronto newspaper. He has often lectured on educational and literary topics. Mr. Wetherell married (1) Rebecca Randle, daughter of William Nason, Weston (died May, 1912) ; and (2) Margaret, daughter of Henry Smith, Thorold. He has three children, two sons and a daughter. He is a member of the Canadian Club and a charter member of the Champlain Society. He attends St. Paul’s Anglican Church. ”

“ She died in 1831, and in 1838 he married Harriet Elizabeth, second daughter of Colonel Warneford, of Warneford Place, Wiltshire. There was no surviving issue of either marriage. Wetherell, who had inherited a considerable fortune on his father's death in 1807, accumulated a very large one himself. He died intestate, leaving upwards of 200,000l. personalty, and a great deal of landed property. A statue of him was erected at Clifton in 1839.
Wetherell's reputation has suffered by the indiscretion and violence of his speeches as an ultra tory and protestant champion from 1826 to 1832. ”

“ If a man or a woman behaved straight to him, he behaved straight to them; if they behaved crooked, he behaved crooked. That was him, all the world over. Mr. Wetherell added that if he were then and there to undertake to write his own epitaph, he would simply take a pen, dip it in the ink, seat himself at the table and write these words: "He was as open as the day." Unfortunately, it appeared that there were people about who did not appreciate all this. The dusty old landlady came forward at this point, and asked whether Mr. ”

“ Mr. Merrill, who sat at Jethro's table next to Cynthia that evening, did a great deal of joking with the Honorable Heth about having to preside aver a woodchuck session, which the Speaker, so Mr. Wetherell thought, took in astonishingly good part, and seemed very willing to make the great sacrifice which his duty required of him.
After supper Mr. Wetherell took a seat in the rotunda. As an observer of human nature, he had begun to find a fascination in watching the group of politicians there. ”

“ Watson, the first of the prisoners to be tried, was found not guilty and the government did not then proceed against Thistlewood, for whom also Wetherell was retained, or against the other prisoners. Wetherell distinguished himself by the ability and vigour of his defence, and the strength of the language in which, though a tory, he denounced the tory government and their informer witnesses, but he did nothing to advance himself towards office. ”

“ Sir John Wetheral spoke very seriously to his daughter during their rapid transit: he pointed out the crime of sacrificing principle and content upon earth, to bow to idols which tempted the worst passions of human nature, and gave the soul to mammon. ”

“ Finally he commanded that the case be put on the top of the counter, and Wetherell humored him. Whereupon he picked up the locket he had first chosen. It looked very delicate in his huge, rough hand, and Wetherell was surprised that the eyes of Mr. Bass had been caught by the most expensive, for it was far from being the showiest.
"T-twenty dollars?" he asked.
"We may as well call it that," laughed Wetherell.
"It's not too good for Cynthy," he said.
"Nothing's too good for Cynthy," answered Mr. Wetherell, mockingly, little knowing how he might come to mean it. ”

“ I point the finger of truth at him, comrides, and see how he cowes before—"
"I ain't cowing," protested the interrupter.
"The more shame to you!" bawled Mr. Wetherell. "Comrides, enough of this. My time is up, but before I step down let me say this: That true liberty consists, not in making slives of each other, not in following blindly the dictates of others, but in acting in accordance with your own consciences, your own mind, and your own menly common-sense."
Wetherell came panting through the crowd, and spoke to Mord Em'ly. ”

“ Nevertheless, though its land was fruitful as for that country, yet had Wethermel no great name for luck, and folk who had the choice would liever dwell otherwhere, so that it was hard for the good-man to get men to work there for hire. Many folk deemed that this ill-luck came because the knoll had been of old time a dwelling of the Dwarfs or the Land-wights, and that they grudged it that the children of Adam had supplanted them, and that corn grew on the very roof of their ancient house. ”

“ Soon cometh home the goodman, and they tell him the tidings, and he grows wondrous glad, and says that luck has come to Wethermel at last. But thereafter they found that horse much bettered, so that he was the best nag in all the Wethermel pastures. ”

“ And there are certain souls which cannot stand the jars of life—souls created to register thoughts and sentiments too fine for those of coarser construction. Such was the soul of the storekeeper of Coniston. Whether or not he was one of those immortalized in the famous Elegy, it is not for us to say. A celebrated poet who read the letters to the Guardian—at Miss Lucretia Penniman's request—has declared Mr. Wetherell to have been a genius. ”