The Laughing Mill and Other Stories

e had-Scholar Gloam, I mean-and by which it was as I first came acquainted with him. As long as the sun was over the horizon line he'd stay indoors, behind the lock of his s

there was no one there to talk to-leastways that I could see. 'Twas a queer thing, I say, for a slender, delicate-looking gentleman like him to be out so by night, in all weathers, seeming not to know the difference whether it blew, or rained, or snowed, or all three together. Some folks used for to shake their heads over it, and say he was gone da

the books that were hid in his library-and of which many were writ in strange tongues as are not spoken in our Christian times. But it's not for me to be repeating of 'em now, only, as I was a-telling ye, it was such-like things brought us acquainted; and very good chums we were, allowing for his b

it or not, any ship that gets caught in the tide this weather is bound to wreck; so I'll hope, says I to myself, that they'll give us a wide berth. Howbe, I wasn't sleepy, so I loaded my pipe, and, thinks I, I'll have a snug smoke and a drop of grog alongside the kitchen fire afore turning in. No chance, thinks I, of my Scholar happening in this night; he never could beat up against that wind, not if he had Davy Jones himself to pilot him. Well, the

iling him at the maintop, such a noise the wind made; 'ye'll g

than the one without; and then he pointed down seawards, and, thinks I, 'tis a ship he's seen or heard on the Devil's Ribs. And though I knew well we could no more help any poor wrecked souls than if they was in the moon, yet it wasn't in me to back out of going with him to see what there was to see. So jus

from the black wave behind it like the going off of a big gun. Howsoever, I presently stumbled round the corner of a big boulder-ye may see it yonder, sir, in a line with the face of the lighthouse and the top of the pine stump-and there he was on his knees beside something wrapped up and still; and when I looked, 'twas seemingly a young girl, about twelve to thirteen years old, with no life in her. She had come as

hat could be done; and after nigh a couple of hours' work, she moved the least mite in the world, and fetched a sigh. With that I sings out like I'd come upon a chest full of gold dollars, and says I, 'All's well, Scholar Gloam; she's a-coming to, and she'll live to smile on us yet!' And then what does he do, sir, but just throws his head back with a little laugh, and topples over in a dead faint. 'Twas the exhaustion, ye

l necklace that ye've seen Agatha wearing, sir. Well, she looked at me for a bit, and seemed like to cry, not knowing who I was, or where she'd got to, d'ye see; and then she said something, repeating it over twice or thrice; but I couldn't understand her, by reason of her speaking some foreign lingo as was unknown to me. Howsoever, I took for granted

foam, and when I came to the beach there was naught there but a few shattered timbers and bits of spars and rigging; whatever else there may have been had gone down within the whirlpool of the Devil's Ribs, and would never see daylight more; nor was there anything to tell where the wrecked ship hailed from, or what she was, or whither she was bound. Nay, a man might well have doubted whether there'd been any wreck at al

od, so as it might float, and I think it must have come ashore along with the raft that brought the little girl. Just as I laid hands on it, and cut away the lashings, I sighte

have robbed her sweet young life?' With that he kisses her little hands, and says somewhat to her again in her own tongue. It touched my heart to see the two together, sir; for, d'ye see, the Scholar had never seemed to be aware, as I may say, of women or children until now; he had moved through life without seeing them or speaking to them, save at times in an absent, dreamy sort of a way, as though they were in different worlds. But now he was full of earnestness and a kind of joyful trembling surprise, as one who had all of a sudden opened his eyes to a great treasure, and was delighting in it all the more for that he had been unknowing of it before. He was all in all a changed man, and softened, and waked up inside, so that his eyes seemed to be a-s

nd more; and I will cherish her always and make her happy. And when the village folks find out that I have her (as soon of course they must), they shall be told that she is a good fairy come to bring me fortune and delight. I'd say that she rose up one morning out of the deep clear pool just above the mill-race; and that though appearing as a human being, she is in very truth not mortal, but

s happ