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.

To this day the railroad has not reached Coniston Village—­nay, nor Coniston Flat, four miles nearer Brampton.  The village lies on its own little shelf under the forest-clad slope of the mountain, and in the midst of its dozen houses is the green triangle where the militia used to drill on June days.  At one end of the triangle is the great pine mast that graced no frigate of George’s, but flew the stars and stripes on many a liberty day.  Across the road is Jonah Winch’s store, with a platform so high that a man may step off his horse directly on to it; with its checker-paned windows, with its dark interior smelling of coffee and apples and molasses, yes, and of Endea rum—­for this was before the days of the revivals.

How those checker-paned windows bring back the picture of that village green!  The meeting-house has them, lantern-like, wide and high, in three sashes—­white meeting-house, seat alike of government and religion, with its terraced steeple, with its classic porches north and south.  Behind it is the long shed, and in front, rising out of the milkweed and the flowering thistle, the horse block of the first meeting-house, where many a pillion has left its burden in times bygone.  Honest Jock Hallowell built that second meeting-house—­was, indeed, still building it at the time of which we write.  He had hewn every beam and king post in it, and set every plate and slip.  And Jock Hallowell is the man who, unwittingly starts this chronicle.