Josh and the Vicar were down at the
mill in good time the next morning, to find Will and
his father in the bright sunshine under a cloudless
sky, on the bank overlooking the wide pool, and, just
as they reached them, with a hearty “Good-morning!”
Manners came up.
Overhead, all was bright and clear,
and, from Nature’s newly washed face, a fresh,
sweet scent rose into the air; but the lower part of
the valley seemed quite transformed. Sluices
and waterfalls were gushing down everywhere, making
for the main stream, which added to the general roar
of water as it rushed along, racing for the overcharged
river far away.
Every moment some fresh sign of the
mischief which had been done by the flood glided by.
The stream was no longer crystal-like and clear, but
turgid with the soil swept from high up the banks;
leaves, twigs, broken branches, and even trees, mostly
root upwards, went bobbing by, every now and then
to become anchored for a few moments amongst the stones,
and forming some little dam which kept the water back
till there was weight enough to overcome the obstacle
and send it onwards with a rush.
“Well,” cried Manners,
in his bluff way, “how is it, Mr Willows?
I woke up this morning, looked out of the window,
and then dressed in a flurry, to hurry down, half
expecting that the mill had been swept away.”
“I, too,” said the Vicar,
“felt a bit nervous; the storm was awful, and
I wondered whether such a weight of waters might not
have made an opening somewhere in your dam.”
“Well, to be candid,”
said Mr Willows, “I woke long before daybreak
and came out with Will here to see how we stood.
But we are all right. My ancestors were simple
men, but what they did they did with all their hearts.
It must have been very slow work year by year, the
quarrying and bringing down all these stones; but
they planted them well, the lime they burned was of
the best, and it is harder now than the stone itself.
The dam has stood two hundred years, and it is so solid
that it looks as if it would stand two hundred more.”
“Then we are all right,” cried Manners,
heartily.
“Yes, we are all right,”
said Mr Willows, smiling and holding out his hand;
“and this is nice and neighbourly of you, a stranger,
Mr Manners, to speak like this.”
“Neighbourly?” said Manners,
colouring through his well-tanned skin. “Oh,
I don’t know about that. Only, you see,
coming down year after year, and seeing so much of
the boys, one seems to know you all so well.”
“Exactly,” said the Vicar,
smiling; “Willows is quite right; it is neighbourly,
or we will say brotherly, if you like.”
“No, no, no!” cried the
artist. “Here, I’ll tell you what
to say nothing. But I am heartily
glad there is no serious mischief done.”
“None at all,” said Willows.
“Rather good. The big pool was getting
very low. Now we shall be all right for months.
The water’s falling fast, and in half an hour
I shall have the waste water-sluices closed, and by
mid-day the stream will be running much as usual.”
“That’s right,”
cried Manners. “I say, boys; lucky we had
our fishing last night. Why, every trout will
have been washed down-stream and out to sea.”
“Not one,” cried Will. “Will
they, father?”
“No, my boy; I don’t suppose
they will; they’ll have got into the eddies
and backwaters, driven down a good deal here and there;
but their natural habit is to make their way higher
and higher up to the shallows in search of food.
There, Mr Manners, I don’t think that you’ll
miss any of your sport. My experience is that
places which swarm with trout one day are empty the
next, and vacant spots where you have thrown a fly
in vain will another time give you a fish at nearly
every cast.”
“Well,” said Manners,
“as I have had my fright for nothing, my nature’s
beginning to assert itself, and the main question now
with me is breakfast. Now, boys, will you come
and join me? I can’t smell them, but I
can almost venture to say for certain that Mrs Drinkwater
is frying trout. What do you say?”
“No, thank you, Mr Manners,”
replied Will; “my father will want me, perhaps,
to give orders to the men; but Josh has got to pass
the cottage.”
“Of course,” cried Manners;
“and you might honour me too, Mr Carlile.”
“Thanks, no,” said the
Vicar. “Josh can stay, and he will be glad.
I’ll go on, for they would be waiting breakfast
at home.”
The artist gave a tug at a thick chain,
and dragged out a heavy, old-fashioned, gold watch.
“Five o’clock,”
he cried. “We should be done by six.
Why, you’d be quite ready for a second breakfast,
sir, by eight or nine.”
“Do come, father.”
“Very well,” said the
Vicar, smiling; and the artist carried them off, leaving
Willows with his son to walk slowly on to the broad
dam where the foam-covered water brimmed the stones,
as if only wanting the impulse of a puff of wind to
sweep over the top.
They stopped about the middle, to
stand looking up the vale.
“I say, father, do you feel that?” cried
Will.
“What? the quivering sensation, my
boy?”
“Yes; it is just as if the water was shaking
the stones all loose.”
“Yes, but it is only the vibration
caused by the water rushing through the open sluices
on either side; they are open as wide as they will
go, and have just been large enough to do their work
well and keep the flood down. I fully expected
to find it foaming over the top. What are you
looking at?”
“Don’t take any notice,
father. I’m going to look away. Just
turn your eyes quietly up to the old stone bench on
the top there by the lookout.”
There was a pause of a moment or two,
during which the mill-owner stooped to pick up a piece
of sodden, dead wood, to throw it outward into the
current tearing through one of the open sluices.
Then turning right away, he said, quietly
“Yes, there’s someone’s
face looking over from the back. Who can it
be?”
“Can’t you see, father?”
“No; unless it’s James.”
“It is, father; I saw his face
just now quite clear. What does he want there?
Does he want to speak to you about coming back?”
“Hardly so soon as this, my
boy,” said Will’s father, rather sadly.
“Brought here by curiosity, I suppose, like our
other friends a good sign, Will.
He takes an interest in the old mill, after all.”