The Laughing Mill and Other Stories

pproach was between gradually rising walls of rock, which were highest just where I stood. Thence was a precipitous descent into a smal

ract-wise into a deep pool below, whence overflowing it rushed down a rugged incline, and, having leapt an

had then clambered down the slope to the bottom of the gorge. The bridge had not been entirely of stone; but a stout plank had probably spanned the flood, secured at either end by rough masonry. It must have been a ticklish passage without a handrail, for a f

hin a mile-whose wide-spreading branches cast a deep shadow on the earth beneath. So thickly clustered the leaves on the stalwart boughs, and so dark was their tint of green, the whole great tree seemed to have been steeped in night. The gorge, though full of sunlight and verdure,

blackened by age and weather that one might have fancied it charred by fire. Its parts were fastened together with great nails and clamps of iron, the strength of which, however, was now but a deceptive appearance, for the metal was eaten away by red rust, so that a hearty s

bosom this gaunt relic of man's handiwork. With but partial success; for all the magic of her beautiful adornments could not annul the odd feeling of repulsion-or was it perverted fascination?-with which this sullen wheel began to affect me. I know not how to interpret, even to my own mind, the nature of this impression. Solitary as I stood there, I yet could not rid myself of the notion that I was not (in the ordinary sense of the w

, huddled against the southern acclivity of the gorge, was the carcase of a dismantled and deserted house. The roof had fallen in, the window frames and sashes were gone, and the lifeless rooms stood open to the air. The stone walls had formerly been overlaid with plaster, but this had mostly fallen away, and what patches remained here and there were stained with greenish mould. A tall clump of barberry bushes was growing just within the threshold of the doorway, as if to dispute the entrance of any chance in

ment produced by old Jack Poyntz's strange yarn, I had been through a good deal for an invalid, and had earned the right to a little rest. Looking about me for a seat, my eye fell upon a small mound which lay between me and the base of the oak, with a bit of gray stone jutting out from one end of it. It might once have been a bench; at all events it would serve my turn, so I threw myself dow

ich had all along been hovering about me) suddenly intensified itself to the pitch of conviction. Sitting up with something of a start, I glanced nervously towards the mill, and at once had the pleasure of seeing my conviction justified. The figure of a man was actually standing on the opposite side of the stream, one hand resting upon the wheel, while h

t better describe it than by saying that it seemed to indicate loss, loss beyond remedy either in this world or the next. Its effect upon me resembled that wrought by the desolate house, but was more potent, because humanised. The man seemed beyond middle-age, judging from the furrows on his brow and the stoop on his shoulders; and yet there was a kind of immaturity

; notwithstanding which I felt an antipathy against him, and was half-minded to admonish him that his presence was unwelcome. That I did not yield to this impulse was due, perhaps, less to courtesy than to the strong sentiment of

t the presence of a companion. I was in a nervous and abnormal state, and though far from superstitious-no lawyer could venture to be that-I preferred society to solitude in a place which had the reputation of being haunted. It was healthier to converse about such follies-even with an unsympathetic interlocutor-than to brood over them in private. This old-fashioned personage, mo