It was late when I again woke, and I leaped into my clothes and hurried
to the kitchen.  No one was there; Rorie and the black had both
stealthily departed long before; and my heart stood still at the
discovery.  I could rely on Rorie's heart, but I placed no trust in his
discretion.  If he had thus set out without a word, he was plainly bent
upon some service to my uncle.  But what service could he hope to render
even alone, far less in the company of the man in whom my uncle found his
fears incarnated?  Even if I were not already too late to prevent some
deadly mischief, it was plain I must delay no longer.  With the thought I
was out of the house; and often as I have run on the rough sides of Aros,
I never ran as I did that fatal morning.  I do not believe I put twelve
minutes to the whole ascent.

My uncle was gone from his perch.  The basket had indeed been torn open
and the meat scattered on the turf; but, as we found afterwards, no
mouthful had been tasted; and there was not another trace of human
existence in that wide field of view.  Day had already filled the clear
heavens; the sun already lighted in a rosy bloom upon the crest of Ben
Kyaw; but all below me the rude knolls of Aros and the shield of sea lay
steeped in the clear darkling twilight of the dawn.

'Rorie!' I cried; and again 'Rorie!'  My voice died in the silence, but
there came no answer back.  If there were indeed an enterprise afoot to
catch my uncle, it was plainly not in fleetness of foot, but in dexterity
of stalking, that the hunters placed their trust.  I ran on farther,
keeping the higher spurs, and looking right and left, nor did I pause
again till I was on the mount above Sandag.  I could see the wreck, the
uncovered belt of sand, the waves idly beating, the long ledge of rocks,
and on either hand the tumbled knolls, boulders, and gullies of the
island.  But still no human thing.

At a stride the sunshine fell on Aros, and the shadows and colours leaped
into being.  Not half a moment later, below me to the west, sheep began
to scatter as in a panic.  There came a cry.  I saw my uncle running.  I
saw the black jump up in hot pursuit; and before I had time to
understand, Rorie also had appeared, calling directions in Gaelic as to a
dog herding sheep.

I took to my heels to interfere, and perhaps I had done better to have
waited where I was, for I was the means of cutting off the madman's last
escape.  There was nothing before him from that moment but the grave, the
wreck, and the sea in Sandag Bay.  And yet Heaven knows that what I did
was for the best.

My uncle Gordon saw in what direction, horrible to him, the chase was
driving him.  He doubled, darting to the right and left; but high as the
fever ran in his veins, the black was still the swifter.  Turn where he
would, he was still forestalled, still driven toward the scene of his
crime.  Suddenly he began to shriek aloud, so that the coast re-echoed;
and now both I and Rorie were calling on the black to stop.  But all was
vain, for it was written otherwise.  The pursuer still ran, the chase
still sped before him screaming; they avoided the grave, and skimmed
close past the timbers of the wreck; in a breath they had cleared the
sand; and still my kinsman did not pause, but dashed straight into the
surf; and the black, now almost within reach, still followed swiftly
behind him.  Rorie and I both stopped, for the thing was now beyond the
hands of men, and these were the decrees of God that came to pass before
our eyes.  There was never a sharper ending.  On that steep beach they
were beyond their depth at a bound; neither could swim; the black rose
once for a moment with a throttling cry; but the current had them, racing
seaward; and if ever they came up again, which God alone can tell, it
would be ten minutes after, at the far end of Aros Roost, where the
seabirds hover fishing.




WILL O' THE MILL.


CHAPTER I.  THE PLAIN AND THE STARS.


The Mill here Will lived with his adopted parents stood in a falling
valley between pinewoods and great mountains.  Above, hill after hill,
soared upwards until they soared out of the depth of the hardiest timber,
and stood naked against the sky.  Some way up, a long grey village lay
like a seam or a ray of vapour on a wooded hillside; and when the wind
was favourable, the sound of the church bells would drop down, thin and
silvery, to Will.  Below, the valley grew ever steeper and steeper, and
at the same time widened out on either hand; and from an eminence beside
the mill it was possible to see its whole length and away beyond it over
a wide plain, where the river turned and shone, and moved on from city to
city on its voyage towards the sea.  It chanced that over this valley
there lay a pass into a neighbouring kingdom; so that, quiet and rural as
it was, the road that ran along beside the river was a high thoroughfare
between two splendid and powerful societies.  All through the summer,
travelling-carriages came crawling up, or went plunging briskly downwards
past the mill; and as it happened that the other side was very much
easier of ascent, the path was not much frequented, except by people
going in one direction; and of all the carriages that Will saw go by,
five-sixths were plunging briskly downwards and only one-sixth crawling
up.  Much more was this the case with foot-passengers.  All the light-
footed tourists, all the pedlars laden with strange wares, were tending
downward like the river that accompanied their path.  Nor was this all;
for when Will was yet a child a disastrous war arose over a great part of
the world.  The newspapers were full of defeats and victories, the earth
rang with cavalry hoofs, and often for days together and for miles around
the coil of battle terrified good people from their labours in the field.
Of all this, nothing was heard for a long time in the valley; but at last
one of the commanders pushed an army over the pass by forced marches, and
for three days horse and foot, cannon and tumbril, drum and standard,
kept pouring downward past the mill.  All day the child stood and watched
them on their passage--the rhythmical stride, the pale, unshaven faces
tanned about the eyes, the discoloured regimentals and the tattered
flags, filled him with a sense of weariness, pity, and wonder; and all
night long, after he was in bed, he could hear the cannon pounding and
the feet trampling, and the great armament sweeping onward and downward
past the mill.  No one in the valley ever heard the fate of the
expedition, for they lay out of the way of gossip in those troublous
times; but Will saw one thing plainly, that not a man returned.  Whither
had they all gone?  Whither went all the tourists and pedlars with
strange wares? whither all the brisk barouches with servants in the
dicky? whither the water of the stream, ever coursing downward and ever
renewed from above?  Even the wind blew oftener down the valley, and
carried the dead leaves along with it in the fall.  It seemed like a
great conspiracy of things animate and inanimate; they all went downward,
fleetly and gaily downward, and only he, it seemed, remained behind, like
a stock upon the wayside.  It sometimes made him glad when he noticed how
the fishes kept their heads up stream.  They, at least, stood faithfully
by him, while all else were posting downward to the unknown world.

One evening he asked the miller where the river went.

'It goes down the valley,' answered he, 'and turns a power of mills--six
score mills, they say, from here to Unterdeck--and is none the wearier
after all.  And then it goes out into the lowlands, and waters the great
corn country, and runs through a sight of fine cities (so they say) where
kings live all alone in great palaces, with a sentry walling up and down
before the door.  And it goes under bridges with stone men upon them,
looking down and smiling so curious it the water, and living folks
leaning their elbows on the wall and looking over too.  And then it goes
on and on, and down through marshes and sands, until at last it falls
into the sea, where the ships are that bring parrots and tobacco from the
Indies.  Ay, it has a long trot before it as it goes singing over our
weir, bless its heart!'

'And what is the sea?' asked Will.

'The sea!' cried the miller.  'Lord help us all, it is the greatest thing
God made!  That is where all the water in the world runs down into a
great salt lake.  There it lies, as flat as my hand and as innocent-like
as a child; but they do say when the wind blows it gets up into water-
mountains bigger than any of ours, and swallows down great ships bigger
than our mill, and makes such a roaring that you can hear it miles away
upon the land.  There are great fish in it five times bigger than a bull,
and one old serpent as lone as our river and as old as all the world,
with whiskers like a man, and a crown of silver on her head.'

Will thought he had never heard anything like this, and he kept on asking
question after question about the world that lay away down the river,
with all its perils and marvels, until the old miller became quite
interested himself, and at last took him by the hand and led him to the
hilltop that overlooks the valley and the plain.  The sun was near
setting, and hung low down in a cloudless sky.  Everything was defined
and glorified in golden light.  Will had never seen so great an expanse
of country in his life; he stood and gazed with all his eyes.  He could
see the cities, and the woods and fields, and the bright curves of the
river, and far away to where the rim of the plain trenched along the
shining heavens.  An over-mastering emotion seized upon the boy, soul and
body; his heart beat so thickly that he could not breathe; the scene swam
before his eyes; the sun seemed to wheel round and round, and throw off,
as it turned, strange shapes which disappeared with the rapidity of
thought, and were succeeded by others.  Will covered his face with his
hands, and burst into a violent fit of tears; and the poor miller, sadly
disappointed and perplexed, saw nothing better for it than to take him up
in his arms and carry him home in silence.

From that day forward Will was full of new hopes and longings.  Something
kept tugging at his heart-strings; the running water carried his desires
along with it as he dreamed over its fleeting surface; the wind, as it
ran over innumerable tree-tops, hailed him with encouraging words;
branches beckoned downward; the open road, as it shouldered round the
angles and went turning and vanishing fast and faster down the valley,
tortured him with its solicitations.  He spent long whiles on the
eminence, looking down the rivershed and abroad on the fat lowlands, and
watched the clouds that travelled forth upon the sluggish wind and
trailed their purple shadows on the plain; or he would linger by the
wayside, and follow the carriages with his eyes as they rattled downward
by the river.  It did not matter what it was; everything that went that
way, were it cloud or carriage, bird or brown water in the stream, he
felt his heart flow out after it in an ecstasy of longing.

We are told by men of science that all the ventures of mariners on the
sea, all that counter-marching of tribes and races that confounds old
history with its dust and rumour, sprang from nothing more abstruse than
the laws of supply and demand, and a certain natural instinct for cheap
rations.  To any one thinking deeply, this will seem a dull and pitiful
explanation.  The tribes that came swarming out of the North and East, if
they were indeed pressed onward from behind by others, were drawn at the
same time by the magnetic influence of the South and West.  The fame of
other lands had reached them; the name of the eternal city rang in their
ears; they were not colonists, but pilgrims; they travelled towards wine
and gold and sunshine, but their hearts were set on something higher.
That divine unrest, that old stinging trouble of humanity that makes all
high achievements and all miserable failure, the same that spread wings
with Icarus, the same that sent Columbus into the desolate Atlantic,
inspired and supported these barbarians on their perilous march.  There
is one legend which profoundly represents their spirit, of how a flying
party of these wanderers encountered a very old man shod with iron.  The
old man asked them whither they were going; and they answered with one
voice: 'To the Eternal City!'  He looked upon them gravely.  'I have
sought it,' he said, 'over the most part of the world.  Three such pairs
as I now carry on my feet have I worn out upon this pilgrimage, and now
the fourth is growing slender underneath my steps.  And all this while I
have not found the city.'  And he turned and went his own way alone,
leaving them astonished.

And yet this would scarcely parallel the intensity of Will's feeling for
the plain.  If he could only go far enough out there, he felt as if his
eyesight would be purged and clarified, as if his hearing would grow more
delicate, and his very breath would come and go with luxury.  He was
transplanted and withering where he was; he lay in a strange country and
was sick for home.  Bit by bit, he pieced together broken notions of the
world below: of the river, ever moving and growing until it sailed forth
into the majestic ocean; of the cities, full of brisk and beautiful
people, playing fountains, bands of music and marble palaces, and lighted
up at night from end to end with artificial stars of gold; of the great
churches, wise universities, brave armies, and untold money lying stored
in vaults; of the high-flying vice that moved in the sunshine, and the
stealth and swiftness of midnight murder.  I have said he was sick as if
for home: the figure halts.  He was like some one lying in twilit,
formless preexistence, and stretching out his hands lovingly towards many-
coloured, many-sounding life.  It was no wonder he was unhappy, he would
go and tell the fish: they were made for their life, wished for no more
than worms and running water, and a hole below a falling bank; but he was
differently designed, full of desires and aspirations, itching at the
fingers, lusting with the eyes, whom the whole variegated world could not
satisfy with aspects.  The true life, the true bright sunshine, lay far
out upon the plain.  And O! to see this sunlight once before he died! to
move with a jocund spirit in a golden land! to hear the trained singers
and sweet church bells, and see the holiday gardens!  'And O fish!' he
would cry, 'if you would only turn your noses down stream, you could swim
so easily into the fabled waters and see the vast ships passing over your
head like clouds, and hear the great water-hills making music over you
all day long!'  But the fish kept looking patiently in their own
direction, until Will hardly knew whether to laugh or cry.

Hitherto the traffic on the road had passed by Will, like something seen
in a picture: he had perhaps exchanged salutations with a tourist, or
caught sight of an old gentleman in a travelling cap at a carriage
window; but for the most part it had been a mere symbol, which he
contemplated from apart and with something of a superstitious feeling.  A
time came at last when this was to be changed.  The miller, who was a
greedy man in his way, and never forewent an opportunity of honest
profit, turned the mill-house into a little wayside inn, and, several
pieces of good fortune falling in opportunely, built stables and got the
position of post master on the road.  It now became Will's duty to wait
upon people, as they sat to break their fasts in the little arbour at the
top of the mill garden; and you may be sure that he kept his ears open,
and learned many new things about the outside world as he brought the
omelette or the wine.  Nay, he would often get into conversation with
single guests, and by adroit questions and polite attention, not only
gratify his own curiosity, but win the goodwill of the travellers.  Many
complimented the old couple on their serving-boy; and a professor was
eager to take him away with him, and have him properly educated in the
plain.  The miller and his wife were mightily astonished and even more
pleased.  They thought it a very good thing that they should have opened
their inn.  'You see,' the old man would remark, 'he has a kind of talent
for a publican; he never would have made anything else!'  And so life
wagged on in the valley, with high satisfaction to all concerned but
Will.  Every carriage that left the inn-door seemed to take a part of him
away with it; and when people jestingly offered him a lift, he could with
difficulty command his emotion.  Night after night he would dream that he
was awakened by flustered servants, and that a splendid equipage waited
at the door to carry him down into the plain; night after night; until
the dream, which had seemed all jollity to him at first, began to take on
a colour of gravity, and the nocturnal summons and waiting equipage
occupied a place in his mind as something to be both feared and hoped
for.

One day, when Will was about sixteen, a fat young man arrived at sunset
to pass the night.  He was a contented-looking fellow, with a jolly eye,
and carried a knapsack.  While dinner was preparing, he sat in the arbour
to read a book; but as soon as he had begun to observe Will, the book was
laid aside; he was plainly one of those who prefer living people to
people made of ink and paper.  Will, on his part, although he had not
been much interested in the stranger at first sight, soon began to take a
great deal of pleasure in his talk, which was full of good nature and
good sense, and at last conceived a great respect for his character and
wisdom.  They sat far into the night; and about two in the morning Will
opened his heart to the young man, and told him how he longed to leave
the valley and what bright hopes he had connected with the cities of the
plain.  The young man whistled, and then broke into a smile.

'My young friend,' he remarked, 'you are a very curious little fellow to
be sure, and wish a great many things which you will never get.  Why, you
would feel quite ashamed if you knew how the little fellows in these
fairy cities of yours are all after the same sort of nonsense, and keep
breaking their hearts to get up into the mountains.  And let me tell you,
those who go down into the plains are a very short while there before
they wish themselves heartily back again.  The air is not so light nor so
pure; nor is the sun any brighter.  As for the beautiful men and women,
you would see many of them in rags and many of them deformed with
horrible disorders; and a city is so hard a place for people who are poor
and sensitive that many choose to die by their own hand.'

'You must think me very simple,' answered Will.  'Although I have never
been out of this valley, believe me, I have used my eyes.  I know how one
thing lives on another; for instance, how the fish hangs in the eddy to
catch his fellows; and the shepherd, who makes so pretty a picture
carrying home the lamb, is only carrying it home for dinner.  I do not
expect to find all things right in your cities.  That is not what
troubles me; it might have been that once upon a time; but although I
live here always, I have asked many questions and learned a great deal in
these last years, and certainly enough to cure me of my old fancies.  But
you would not have me die like a dog and not see all that is to be seen,
and do all that a man can do, let it be good or evil? you would not have
me spend all my days between this road here and the river, and not so
much as make a motion to be up and live my life?--I would rather die out
of hand,' he cried, 'than linger on as I am doing.'

'Thousands of people,' said the young man, 'live and die like you, and
are none the less happy.'

'Ah!' said Will, 'if there are thousands who would like, why should not
one of them have my place?'

It was quite dark; there was a hanging lamp in the arbour which lit up
the table and the faces of the speakers; and along the arch, the leaves
upon the trellis stood out illuminated against the night sky, a pattern
of transparent green upon a dusky purple.  The fat young man rose, and,
taking Will by the arm, led him out under the open heavens.

'Did you ever look at the stars?' he asked, pointing upwards.

'Often and often,' answered Will.

'And do you know what they are?'

'I have fancied many things.'

'They are worlds like ours,' said the young man.  'Some of them less;
many of them a million times greater; and some of the least sparkles that
you see are not only worlds, but whole clusters of worlds turning about
each other in the midst of space.  We do not know what there may be in
any of them; perhaps the answer to all our difficulties or the cure of
all our sufferings: and yet we can never reach them; not all the skill of
the craftiest of men can fit out a ship for the nearest of these our
neighbours, nor would the life of the most aged suffice for such a
journey.  When a great battle has been lost or a dear friend is dead,
when we are hipped or in high spirits, there they are unweariedly shining
overhead.  We may stand down here, a whole army of us together, and shout
until we break our hearts, and not a whisper reaches them.  We may climb
the highest mountain, and we are no nearer them.  All we can do is to
stand down here in the garden and take off our hats; the starshine lights
upon our heads, and where mine is a little bald, I dare say you can see
it glisten in the darkness.  The mountain and the mouse.  That is like to
be all we shall ever have to do with Arcturus or Aldebaran.  Can you
apply a parable?' he added, laying his hand upon Will's shoulder.  'It is
not the same thing as a reason, but usually vastly more convincing.'

Will hung his head a little, and then raised it once more to heaven.  The
stars seemed to expand and emit a sharper brilliancy; and as he kept
turning his eyes higher and higher, they seemed to increase in multitude
under his gaze.

'I see,' he said, turning to the young man.  'We are in a rat-trap.'

'Something of that size.  Did you ever see a squirrel turning in a cage?
and another squirrel sitting philosophically over his nuts?  I needn't
ask you which of them looked more of a fool.'



CHAPTER II.  THE PARSON'S MARJORY.


After some years the old people died, both in one winter, very carefully
tended by their adopted son, and very quietly mourned when they were
gone.  People who had heard of his roving fancies supposed he would
hasten to sell the property, and go down the river to push his fortunes.
But there was never any sign of such in intention on the part of Will.  On
the contrary, he had the inn set on a better footing, and hired a couple
of servants to assist him in carrying it on; and there he settled down, a
kind, talkative, inscrutable young man, six feet three in his stockings,
with an iron constitution and a friendly voice.  He soon began to take
rank in the district as a bit of an oddity: it was not much to be
wondered at from the first, for he was always full of notions, and kept
calling the plainest common-sense in question; but what most raised the
report upon him was the odd circumstance of his courtship with the
parson's Marjory.

The parson's Marjory was a lass about nineteen, when Will would be about
thirty; well enough looking, and much better educated than any other girl
in that part of the country, as became her parentage.  She held her head
very high, and had already refused several offers of marriage with a
grand air, which had got her hard names among the neighbours.  For all
that she was a good girl, and one that would have made any man well
contented.

Will had never seen much of her; for although the church and parsonage
were only two miles from his own door, he was never known to go there but
on Sundays.  It chanced, however, that the parsonage fell into disrepair,
and had to be dismantled; and the parson and his daughter took lodgings
for a month or so, on very much reduced terms, at Will's inn.  Now, what
with the inn, and the mill, and the old miller's savings, our friend was
a man of substance; and besides that, he had a name for good temper and
shrewdness, which make a capital portion in marriage; and so it was
currently gossiped, among their ill-wishers, that the parson and his
daughter had not chosen their temporary lodging with their eyes shut.
Will was about the last man in the world to be cajoled or frightened into
marriage.  You had only to look into his eyes, limpid and still like
pools of water, and yet with a sort of clear light that seemed to come
from within, and you would understand at once that here was one who knew
his own mind, and would stand to it immovably.  Marjory herself was no
weakling by her looks, with strong, steady eyes and a resolute and quiet
bearing.  It might be a question whether she was not Will's match in
stedfastness, after all, or which of them would rule the roast in
marriage.  But Marjory had never given it a thought, and accompanied her
father with the most unshaken innocence and unconcern.

The season was still so early that Will's customers were few and far
between; but the lilacs were already flowering, and the weather was so
mild that the party took dinner under the trellice, with the noise of the
river in their ears and the woods ringing about them with the songs of
birds.  Will soon began to take a particular pleasure in these dinners.
The parson was rather a dull companion, with a habit of dozing at table;
but nothing rude or cruel ever fell from his lips.  And as for the
parson's daughter, she suited her surroundings with the best grace
imaginable; and whatever she said seemed so pat and pretty that Will
conceived a great idea of her talents.  He could see her face, as she
leaned forward, against a background of rising pinewoods; her eyes shone
peaceably; the light lay around her hair like a kerchief; something that
was hardly a smile rippled her pale cheeks, and Will could not contain
himself from gazing on her in an agreeable dismay.  She looked, even in
her quietest moments, so complete in herself, and so quick with life down
to her finger tips and the very skirts of her dress, that the remainder
of created things became no more than a blot by comparison; and if Will
glanced away from her to her surroundings, the trees looked inanimate and
senseless, the clouds hung in heaven like dead things, and even the
mountain tops were disenchanted.  The whole valley could not compare in
looks with this one girl.

Will was always observant in the society of his fellow-creatures; but his
observation became almost painfully eager in the case of Marjory.  He
listened to all she uttered, and read her eyes, at the same time, for the
unspoken commentary.  Many kind, simple, and sincere speeches found an
echo in his heart.  He became conscious of a soul beautifully poised upon
itself, nothing doubting, nothing desiring, clothed in peace.  It was not
possible to separate her thoughts from her appearance.  The turn of her
wrist, the still sound of her voice, the light in her eyes, the lines of
her body, fell in tune with her grave and gentle words, like the
accompaniment that sustains and harmonises the voice of the singer.  Her
influence was one thing, not to be divided or discussed, only to be felt
with gratitude and joy.  To Will, her presence recalled something of his
childhood, and the thought of her took its place in his mind beside that
of dawn, of running water, and of the earliest violets and lilacs.  It is
the property of things seen for the first time, or for the first time
after long, like the flowers in spring, to reawaken in us the sharp edge
of sense and that impression of mystic strangeness which otherwise passes
out of life with the coming of years; but the sight of a loved face is
what renews a man's character from the fountain upwards.

One day after dinner Will took a stroll among the firs; a grave beatitude
possessed him from top to toe, and he kept smiling to himself and the
landscape as he went.  The river ran between the stepping-stones with a
pretty wimple; a bird sang loudly in the wood; the hill-tops looked
immeasurably high, and as he glanced at them from time to time seemed to
contemplate his movements with a beneficent but awful curiosity.  His way
took him to the eminence which overlooked the plain; and there he sat
down upon a stone, and fell into deep and pleasant thought.  The plain
lay abroad with its cities and silver river; everything was asleep,
except a great eddy of birds which kept rising and falling and going
round and round in the blue air.  He repeated Marjory's name aloud, and
the sound of it gratified his ear.  He shut his eyes, and her image
sprang up before him, quietly luminous and attended with good thoughts.
The river might run for ever; the birds fly higher and higher till they
touched the stars.  He saw it was empty bustle after all; for here,
without stirring a feet, waiting patiently in his own narrow valley, he
also had attained the better sunlight.

The next day Will made a sort of declaration across the dinner-table,
while the parson was filling his pipe.

'Miss Marjory,' he said, 'I never knew any one I liked so well as you.  I
am mostly a cold, unkindly sort of man; not from want of heart, but out
of strangeness in my way of thinking; and people seem far away from me.
'Tis as if there were a circle round me, which kept every one out but
you; I can hear the others talking and laughing; but you come quite
close.  Maybe, this is disagreeable to you?' he asked.

Marjory made no answer.

'Speak up, girl,' said the parson.

'Nay, now,' returned Will, 'I wouldn't press her, parson.  I feel tongue-
tied myself, who am not used to it; and she's a woman, and little more
than a child, when all is said.  But for my part, as far as I can
understand what people mean by it, I fancy I must be what they call in
love.  I do not wish to be held as committing myself; for I may be wrong;
but that is how I believe things are with me.  And if Miss Marjory should
feel any otherwise on her part, mayhap she would be so kind as shake her
head.'

Marjory was silent, and gave no sign that she had heard.

'How is that, parson?' asked Will.

'The girl must speak,' replied the parson, laying down his pipe.  'Here's
our neighbour who says he loves you, Madge.  Do you love him, ay or no?'

'I think I do,' said Marjory, faintly.

'Well then, that's all that could be wished!' cried Will, heartily.  And
he took her hand across the table, and held it a moment in both of his
with great satisfaction.

'You must marry,' observed the parson, replacing his pipe in his mouth.

'Is that the right thing to do, think you?' demanded Will.

'It is indispensable,' said the parson.

'Very well,' replied the wooer.

Two or three days passed away with great delight to Will, although a
bystander might scarce have found it out.  He continued to take his meals
opposite Marjory, and to talk with her and gaze upon her in her father's
presence; but he made no attempt to see her alone, nor in any other way
changed his conduct towards her from what it had been since the
beginning.  Perhaps the girl was a little disappointed, and perhaps not
unjustly; and yet if it had been enough to be always in the thoughts of
another person, and so pervade and alter his whole life, she might have
been thoroughly contented.  For she was never out of Will's mind for an
instant.  He sat over the stream, and watched the dust of the eddy, and
the poised fish, and straining weeds; he wandered out alone into the
purple even, with all the blackbirds piping round him in the wood; he
rose early in the morning, and saw the sky turn from grey to gold, and
the light leap upon the hill-tops; and all the while he kept wondering if
he had never seen such things before, or how it was that they should look
so different now.  The sound of his own mill-wheel, or of the wind among
the trees, confounded and charmed his heart.  The most enchanting
thoughts presented themselves unbidden in his mind.  He was so happy that
he could not sleep at night, and so restless, that he could hardly sit
still out of her company.  And yet it seemed as if he avoided her rather
than sought her out.

One day, as he was coming home from a ramble, Will found Marjory in the
garden picking flowers, and as he came up with her, slackened his pace
and continued walking by her side.

'You like flowers?' he said.

'Indeed I love them dearly,' she replied.  'Do you?'

'Why, no,' said he, 'not so much.  They are a very small affair, when all
is done.  I can fancy people caring for them greatly, but not doing as
you are just now.'

'How?' she asked, pausing and looking up at him.

'Plucking them,' said he.  'They are a deal better off where they are,
and look a deal prettier, if you go to that.'

'I wish to have them for my own,' she answered, 'to carry them near my
heart, and keep them in my room.  They tempt me when they grow here; they
seem to say, "Come and do something with us;" but once I have cut them
and put them by, the charm is laid, and I can look at them with quite an
easy heart.'

'You wish to possess them,' replied Will, 'in order to think no more
about them.  It's a bit like killing the goose with the golden eggs.  It's
a bit like what I wished to do when I was a boy.  Because I had a fancy
for looking out over the plain, I wished to go down there--where I
couldn't look out over it any longer.  Was not that fine reasoning?  Dear,
dear, if they only thought of it, all the world would do like me; and you
would let your flowers alone, just as I stay up here in the mountains.'
Suddenly he broke off sharp.  'By the Lord!' he cried.  And when she
asked him what was wrong, he turned the question off and walked away into
the house with rather a humorous expression of face.

He was silent at table; and after the night hid fallen and the stars had
come out overhead, he walked up and down for hours in the courtyard and
garden with an uneven pace.  There was still a light in the window of
Marjory's room: one little oblong patch of orange in a world of dark blue
hills and silver starlight.  Will's mind ran a great deal on the window;
but his thoughts were not very lover-like.  'There she is in her room,'
he thought, 'and there are the stars overhead:--a blessing upon both!'
Both were good influences in his life; both soothed and braced him in his
profound contentment with the world.  And what more should he desire with
either?  The fat young man and his councils were so present to his mind,
that he threw back his head, and, putting his hands before his mouth,
shouted aloud to the populous heavens.  Whether from the position of his
head or the sudden strain of the exertion, he seemed to see a momentary
shock among the stars, and a diffusion of frosty light pass from one to
another along the sky.  At the same instant, a corner of the blind was
lifted and lowered again at once.  He laughed a loud ho-ho!  'One and
another!' thought Will.  'The stars tremble, and the blind goes up.  Why,
before Heaven, what a great magician I must be!  Now if I were only a
fool, should not I be in a pretty way?'  And he went off to bed,
chuckling to himself: 'If I were only a fool!'

The next morning, pretty early, he saw her once more in the garden, and
sought her out.

'I have been thinking about getting married,' he began abruptly; 'and
after having turned it all over, I have made up my mind it's not
worthwhile.'

She turned upon him for a single moment; but his radiant, kindly
appearance would, under the circumstances, have disconcerted an angel,
and she looked down again upon the ground in silence.  He could see her
tremble.

'I hope you don't mind,' he went on, a little taken aback.  'You ought
not.  I have turned it all over, and upon my soul there's nothing in it.
We should never be one whit nearer than we are just now, and, if I am a
wise man, nothing like so happy.'

'It is unnecessary to go round about with me,' she said.  'I very well
remember that you refused to commit yourself; and now that I see you were
mistaken, and in reality have never cared for me, I can only feel sad
that I have been so far misled.'

'I ask your pardon,' said Will stoutly; 'you do not understand my
meaning.  As to whether I have ever loved you or not, I must leave that
to others.  But for one thing, my feeling is not changed; and for
another, you may make it your boast that you have made my whole life and
character something different from what they were.  I mean what I say; no
less.  I do not think getting married is worth while.  I would rather you
went on living with your father, so that I could walk over and see you
once, or maybe twice a week, as people go to church, and then we should
both be all the happier between whiles.  That's my notion.  But I'll
marry you if you will,' he added.

'Do you know that you are insulting me?' she broke out.

'Not I, Marjory,' said he; 'if there is anything in a clear conscience,
not I.  I offer all my heart's best affection; you can take it or want
it, though I suspect it's beyond either your power or mine to change what
has once been done, and set me fancy-free.  I'll marry you, if you like;
but I tell you again and again, it's not worth while, and we had best
stay friends.  Though I am a quiet man I have noticed a heap of things in
my life.  Trust in me, and take things as I propose; or, if you don't
like that, say the word, and I'll marry you out of hand.'

There was a considerable pause, and Will, who began to feel uneasy, began
to grow angry in consequence.

'It seems you are too proud to say your mind,' he said.  'Believe me
that's a pity.  A clean shrift makes simple living.  Can a man be more
downright or honourable, to a woman than I have been?  I have said my
say, and given you your choice.  Do you want me to marry you? or will you
take my friendship, as I think best? or have you had enough of me for
good?  Speak out for the dear God's sake!  You know your father told you
a girl should speak her mind in these affairs.'

She seemed to recover herself at that, turned without a word, walked
rapidly through the garden, and disappeared into the house, leaving Will
in some confusion as to the result.  He walked up and down the garden,
whistling softly to himself.  Sometimes he stopped and contemplated the
sky and hill-tops; sometimes he went down to the tail of the weir and sat
there, looking foolishly in the water.  All this dubiety and perturbation
was so foreign to his nature and the life which he had resolutely chosen
for himself, that he began to regret Marjory's arrival.  'After all,' he
thought, 'I was as happy as a man need be.  I could come down here and
watch my fishes all day long if I wanted: I was as settled and contented
as my old mill.'

Marjory came down to dinner, looking very trim and quiet; and no sooner
were all three at table than she made her father a speech, with her eyes
fixed upon her plate, but showing no other sign of embarrassment or
distress.

'Father,' she began, 'Mr. Will and I have been talking things over.  We
see that we have each made a mistake about our feelings, and he has
agreed, at my request, to give up all idea of marriage, and be no more
than my very good friend, as in the past.  You see, there is no shadow of
a quarrel, and indeed I hope we shall see a great deal of him in the
future, for his visits will always be welcome in our house.  Of course,
father, you will know best, but perhaps we should do better to leave Mr.
Will's house for the present.  I believe, after what has passed, we
should hardly be agreeable inmates for some days.'

Will, who had commanded himself with difficulty from the first, broke out
upon this into an inarticulate noise, and raised one hand with an
appearance of real dismay, as if he were about to interfere and
contradict.  But she checked him at once looking up at him with a swift
glance and an angry flush upon her cheek.

'You will perhaps have the good grace,' she said, 'to let me explain
these matters for myself.'

Will was put entirely out of countenance by her expression and the ring
of her voice.  He held his peace, concluding that there were some things
about this girl beyond his comprehension, in which he was exactly right.

The poor parson was quite crestfallen.  He tried to prove that this was
no more than a true lovers' tiff, which would pass off before night; and
when he was dislodged from that position, he went on to argue that where
there was no quarrel there could be no call for a separation; for the
good man liked both his entertainment and his host.  It was curious to
see how the girl managed them, saying little all the time, and that very
quietly, and yet twisting them round her finger and insensibly leading
them wherever she would by feminine tact and generalship.  It scarcely
seemed to have been her doing--it seemed as if things had merely so
fallen out--that she and her father took their departure that same
afternoon in a farm-cart, and went farther down the valley, to wait,
until their own house was ready for them, in another hamlet.  But Will
had been observing closely, and was well aware of her dexterity and
resolution.  When he found himself alone he had a great many curious
matters to turn over in his mind.  He was very sad and solitary, to begin
with.  All the interest had gone out of his life, and he might look up at
the stars as long as he pleased, he somehow failed to find support or
consolation.  And then he was in such a turmoil of spirit about Marjory.
He had been puzzled and irritated at her behaviour, and yet he could not
keep himself from admiring it.  He thought he recognised a fine, perverse
angel in that still soul which he had never hitherto suspected; and
though he saw it was an influence that would fit but ill with his own
life of artificial calm, he could not keep himself from ardently desiring
to possess it.  Like a man who has lived among shadows and now meets the
sun, he was both pained and delighted.

As the days went forward he passed from one extreme to another; now
pluming himself on the strength of his determination, now despising his
timid and silly caution.  The former was, perhaps, the true thought of
his heart, and represented the regular tenor of the man's reflections;
but the latter burst forth from time to time with an unruly violence, and
then he would forget all consideration, and go up and down his house and
garden or walk among the fir-woods like one who is beside himself with
remorse.  To equable, steady-minded Will this state of matters was
intolerable; and he determined, at whatever cost, to bring it to an end.
So, one warm summer afternoon he put on his best clothes, took a thorn
switch in his hand, and set out down the valley by the river.  As soon as
he had taken his determination, he had regained at a bound his customary
peace of heart, and he enjoyed the bright weather and the variety of the
scene without any admixture of alarm or unpleasant eagerness.  It was
nearly the same to him how the matter turned out.  If she accepted him he
would have to marry her this time, which perhaps was, all for the best.
If she refused him, he would have done his utmost, and might follow his
own way in the future with an untroubled conscience.  He hoped, on the
whole, she would refuse him; and then, again, as he saw the brown roof
which sheltered her, peeping through some willows at an angle of the
stream, he was half inclined to reverse the wish, and more than half
ashamed of himself for this infirmity of purpose.

Marjory seemed glad to see him, and gave him her hand without affectation
or delay.

'I have been thinking about this marriage,' he began.

'So have I,' she answered.  'And I respect you more and more for a very
wise man.  You understood me better than I understood myself; and I am
now quite certain that things are all for the best as they are.'

'At the same time--,' ventured Will.

'You must be tired,' she interrupted.  'Take a seat and let me fetch you
a glass of wine.  The afternoon is so warm; and I wish you not to be
displeased with your visit.  You must come quite often; once a week, if
you can spare the time; I am always so glad to see my friends.'

'O, very well,' thought Will to himself.  'It appears I was right after
all.'  And he paid a very agreeable visit, walked home again in capital
spirits, and gave himself no further concern about the matter.

For nearly three years Will and Marjory continued on these terms, seeing
each other once or twice a week without any word of love between them;
and for all that time I believe Will was nearly as happy as a man can be.
He rather stinted himself the pleasure of seeing her; and he would often
walk half-way over to the parsonage, and then back again, as if to whet
his appetite.  Indeed there was one corner of the road, whence he could
see the church-spire wedged into a crevice of the valley between sloping
firwoods, with a triangular snatch of plain by way of background, which
he greatly affected as a place to sit and moralise in before returning
homewards; and the peasants got so much into the habit of finding him
there in the twilight that they gave it the name of 'Will o' the Mill's
Corner.'

At the end of the three years Marjory played him a sad trick by suddenly
marrying somebody else.  Will kept his countenance bravely, and merely
remarked that, for as little as he knew of women, he had acted very
prudently in not marrying her himself three years before.  She plainly
knew very little of her own mind, and, in spite of a deceptive manner,
was as fickle and flighty as the rest of them.  He had to congratulate
himself on an escape, he said, and would take a higher opinion of his own
wisdom in consequence.  But at heart, he was reasonably displeased, moped
a good deal for a month or two, and fell away in flesh, to the
astonishment of his serving-lads.

It was perhaps a year after this marriage that Will was awakened late one
night by the sound of a horse galloping on the road, followed by
precipitate knocking at the inn-door.  He opened his window and saw a
farm servant, mounted and holding a led horse by the bridle, who told him
to make what haste he could and go along with him; for Marjory was dying,
and had sent urgently to fetch him to her bedside.  Will was no horseman,
and made so little speed upon the way that the poor young wife was very
near her end before he arrived.  But they had some minutes' talk in
private, and he was present and wept very bitterly while she breathed her
last.



CHAPTER III.  DEATH


Year after year went away into nothing, with great explosions and
outcries in the cities on the plain: red revolt springing up and being
suppressed in blood, battle swaying hither and thither, patient
astronomers in observatory towers picking out and christening new stars,
plays being performed in lighted theatres, people being carried into
hospital on stretchers, and all the usual turmoil and agitation of men's
lives in crowded centres.  Up in Will's valley only the winds and seasons
made an epoch; the fish hung in the swift stream, the birds circled
overhead, the pine-tops rustled underneath the stars, the tall hills
stood over all; and Will went to and fro, minding his wayside inn, until
the snow began to thicken on his head.  His heart was young and vigorous;
and if his pulses kept a sober time, they still beat strong and steady in
his wrists.  He carried a ruddy stain on either cheek, like a ripe apple;
he stooped a little, but his step was still firm; and his sinewy hands
were reached out to all men with a friendly pressure.  His face was
covered with those wrinkles which are got in open air, and which rightly
looked at, are no more than a sort of permanent sunburning; such wrinkles
heighten the stupidity of stupid faces; but to a person like Will, with
his clear eyes and smiling mouth, only give another charm by testifying
to a simple and easy life.  His talk was full of wise sayings.  He had a
taste for other people; and other people had a taste for him.  When the
valley was full of tourists in the season, there were merry nights in
Will's arbour; and his views, which seemed whimsical to his neighbours,
were often enough admired by learned people out of towns and colleges.
Indeed, he had a very noble old age, and grew daily better known; so that
his fame was heard of in the cities of the plain; and young men who had
been summer travellers spoke together in _cafes_ of Will o' the Mill and
his rough philosophy.  Many and many an invitation, you may be sure, he
had; but nothing could tempt him from his upland valley.  He would shake
his head and smile over his tobacco-pipe with a deal of meaning.  'You
come too late,' he would answer.  'I am a dead man now: I have lived and
died already.  Fifty years ago you would have brought my heart into my
mouth; and now you do not even tempt me.  But that is the object of long
living, that man should cease to care about life.'  And again: 'There is
only one difference between a long life and a good dinner: that, in the
dinner, the sweets come last.'  Or once more: 'When I was a boy, I was a
bit puzzled, and hardly knew whether it was myself or the world that was
curious and worth looking into.  Now, I know it is myself, and stick to
that.'

He never showed any symptom of frailty, but kept stalwart and firm to the
last; but they say he grew less talkative towards the end, and would
listen to other people by the hour in an amused and sympathetic silence.
Only, when he did speak, it was more to the point and more charged with
old experience.  He drank a bottle of wine gladly; above all, at sunset
on the hill-top or quite late at night under the stars in the arbour.  The
sight of something attractive and unatttainable seasoned his enjoyment,
he would say; and he professed he had lived long enough to admire a
candle all the more when he could compare it with a planet.