An Old English Home

ithout one. The lord of the manor had certain rights over the mill and

ntly an old building; it has ancient trees standing round it; there is the

, his face lighted up with the consciousness that though

ept. I have known many mills, but I never knew a slattern among miller'

f the farmer and the gleanings of the poor, and took his toll from each sack, his fist full and m

e with their sacks of corn to the mill to have it ground. The element of jealousy of the miller breaks out in a great many country songs. The good nature, the joviality, the

esque, romantic about the miller. He was a type of the genial, self-reliant Englishman

miller once lived

morn till night; no la

en of his song fo

no, not I, if nob

shrewd man appears from such songs a

e is goodly, but a type of neatness, and "cleanliness comes next to goodliness." The new machinery and steam are fast displacing the old mills that we

ered all purposes required in the village. But a few years ago a new venture was started-a great mill worked by steam, and with electric lig

ver the fire to this miller, "

rs next Mi

t your wife? When did

bbies. Us knowed each other as long as us knowed anything at all. Us went to school together-us larned

first think of m

ll; I never thought other from the time I began

you ch

ing well. We haven't to blush for any of

ught to be

and us should be but

oiling yo

hat but the customers? I've no electric light here, water costs nothing. Coals costs twenty-one shillings a ton, and it takes a deal o' coals to make the ingen march. Who pays for the coals? Who pays for the electric light? The customers get the flour at the same price as I send it out with none of them jangangles. How do they manage it? I reckon the corn is tampered with-there's white china-clay or something put wi' the flour. It can't be done ot

d couple I visited them. I made a point of

f old port. Several friends had remembered them-even the miller in the new style, who had electric light and steam power, had contributed a cake. There were nuts and oranges-but

be so tremenjous old you must be orful babies. I think you will want a doll, so i sends you wun, wi

d content, of good nature and neatness, it is not always so. I remember one mill which carries with it a sadness whenev

st the temptation of taking more than was good for his head. He did a very respectable business, and turned over a good deal of money, and was altogether a "warm" man. One day he went to market and gathered in there several debts that were owing him, and put all hi

and inky. Whether it were that he had drunk too much or that the road was too dark to see his

nd helped Pike, the miller, into his seat again. Pike was shaken but not hurt. He was confused in

and going upstairs, took off his overcoat, found it was torn and in a

tea made for him by his mother-he was a widower without children, and his mother kept house for him-he began to recall events more distinctly, and then, with

of the upset, and they were plain in the mud and the bruised twigs of the bushes. Not a trace of the bag that contained s

anything. No-Crooke had not observed anything. Indeed, as he remarked, the night was too dark, and the blackness under the trees was too complete for him to have seen anything that had been droppe

en over the by-road that morning before he examined it, as

f the money? Had

couple of fields. There was no doubt that he had borrowed some of the money requisite; he said he had saved the rest. Was that

s his own by rights. Crooke had bought it with the miller's money taken from him on the night when he was upset. Crooke had taken advantage of

s was directed against Richard Crooke. He brooded over his wrong. He did not venture openly to accuse the man he suspected, but he

ight fall upon it. But it throve, the ears were heavy, it was harv

lly, and by someone who bore Crooke a grudge. Richard had not insured, and the loss to him was a very serio

t nobody doubted who the incendiary had be

ke's stack was consumed, and he somewhat ostentatiously gave half a sovereign to the brief. He was angry a

e went more frequently to the public-house, he n

n wont to put away things he valued and did not desire should be meddled with. A sudden thought, a suspicion, flashed across his mind. He started f

it in this hiding-place, and forgotten all about it. He hastily dressed himself-he would eat no breakfast, but drank bra

hat Crooke had robbed him, had fired the stack; and that when he found out his mistake, in s