The summer flew on apace, for Coniston.  Fragrant hay was cut on hillsides won from rock and forest, and Coniston Water sang a gentler melody—­save when the clouds floated among the spruces on the mountain and the rain beat on the shingles.  During the still days before the turn of the year,—­days of bending fruit boughs, crab-apples glistening red in the soft sunlight,—­rumor came from Brampton to wrinkle the forehead of Moses Hatch as he worked among his father’s orchards.

The rumor was of a Mr. Isaac Dudley Worthington, a name destined to make much rumor before it was to be carved on the marble.  Isaac D. Worthington, indeed, might by a stretch of the imagination be called the pioneer of all the genus to be known in the future as City Folks, who were, two generations later, to invade the country like a devouring army of locusts.

At that time a stranger in Brampton was enough to set the town agog.  But a young man of three and twenty, with an independent income of four hundred dollars a year!—­or any income at all not derived from his own labor—­was unheard of.  It is said that when the stage from over Truro Gap arrived in Brampton Street a hundred eyes gazed at him unseen, from various ambushes, and followed him up the walk to Silas Wheelock’s, where he was to board.  In half an hour Brampton knew the essentials of Isaac Worthington’s story, and Sam Price was on his way with it to Coniston for distribution at Jonah Winch’s store.

Young Mr. Worthington was from Boston—­no less; slim, pale, medium height, but with an alert look, and a high-bridged nose.  But his clothes!  Sam Price’s vocabulary was insufficient here, they were cut in such a way, and Mr. Worthington was downright distinguished-looking under his gray beaver.  Why had he come to Brampton? demanded Deacon Ira Perkins.  Sam had saved this for the last.  Young Mr. Worthington was threatened with consumption, and had been sent to live with his distant relative, Silas Wheelock.

The presence of a gentleman of leisure—­although threatened with consumption—­became an all-absorbing topic in two villages and three hamlets, and more than one swain, hitherto successful, felt the wind blow colder.  But in a fortnight it was known that a petticoat did not make Isaac Worthington even turn his head.  Curiosity centred on Silas Wheelock’s barn, where Mr. Worthington had fitted up a shop, and, presently various strange models of contrivances began to take shape there.  What these were, Silas himself knew not; and the gentleman of leisure was, alas! close-mouthed.  When he was not sawing and hammering and planing, he took long walks up and down Coniston Water, and was surprised deep in thought at several places.