when the people's minds had had a little time to cool, they were ready enough to acknowledge their mistake in imagining a similarity between general blood-and-thunder's truculent physiognomy and the benign visage on the mountain-side. but now, again, there were reports and many paragraphs in the newspapers, affirming that the likeness of the great stone face had appeared upon the broad shoulders of a certain eminent statesman. he, like mr. gathergold and old blood-and-thunder, was a native of the valley, but had left it in his early days, and taken up the trades of law and politics. instead of the rich man's wealth and the warrior's sword, he had but a tongue, and it was mightier than both together. so wonderfully eloquent was he, that whatever he might choose to say, his auditors had no choice but to believe him; wrong looked like right, and right like wrong; for when it pleased him, he could make a kind of illuminated fog with his mere breath, and obscure the natural daylight with it. his tongue, indeed, was a magic instrument: