“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.”
It was evident from Mr. Price's manner that he regarded the storekeeper as a member of the reform party.
“What did he say, Daddy?” asked Cynthia, as Wetherell stood staring after the flitting buggy in bewilderment.
“I haven't the faintest idea, Cynthia,” answered her father, and they walked on.
“Don't you know who 'Bije' is?
“No,” said her father, “and I don't care.”
It was almost criminal ignorance for a man who lived in that part of the country not to know Bijah Bixby of Clovelly, who was paying a little social visit to Coniston that day on his way home from the state capital,—tending, as it were, Jethro's flock. Still, Wetherell must be excused because he was an impractical literary man with troubles of his own. But how shall we chronicle Bijah's rank and precedence in the Jethro army, in which there are neither shoulder-straps nor annual registers? To designate him as the Chamberlain of that hill Rajah, the Honorable Heth Sutton, would not be far out of the way. The Honorable Heth, whom we all know and whom we shall see presently, is the man of substance and of broad acres in Clovelly: Bijah merely owns certain mortgages in that town, but he had created the Honorable Heth (politically) as surely as certain prime ministers we could name have created their sovereigns. The Honorable Heth was Bijah's creation, and a grand creation he was, as no one will doubt when they see him.