The Laughing Mill and Other Stories

Half incredulous of the evidence of her own ears, she paused to listen. Certainly there was no mistake-the mill was going! She stepped to the window and looked

once (for the machinery, having been so long out of use, had doubtless become very rusty) an unearthly peal of laughter-or what seemed such-was launched upon the evening air. It partly died away; then it again burst forth, clinging to the listener's ears and stabb

he window and lifting her voice to her shrillest pitch,

of rejoicing," he answered. "The prayer that I prayed is coming to pass

no grist-the m

coming. It comes! it comes! Let the gre

following upon his departure the young mother had maintained a singularly passive demeanour, only occasionally disturbed by seasons of vague and tremulous anxiety. The housekeeper had looked in upon her several times that afternoon. She lay quietly in one position, her eyes open and fixed, save when the baby claimed her attention. She did not speak, and seemed scarcely aware of outward things. Even the uproar of the mil

e-way. He seemed to carry something in his hand. She could not make out what it was, and he immediately hid it beneath his coat. To her inquiries he replied that he was going forth to resume his old practice of walking,

ors. She strove to cheer herself with picturing her son's arrival; but even that had now become a source of apprehension rather than of comfort. All the time she was oppressed by an indefinable sensation that someone was prowling about outside the house; and once, after the wheel had delivered itself of an outpouring of inhuman mirth, Jael fancied the strain was taken up in a no less wild, though not so penetrating key. Was it possible that Gloam was lurking in the gorge? And, if so, what could he be

ace, which was its favourite plaything. After sitting tense and still for a moment, Swanhilda got out of bed, huddled on some clothes, kissed the unconscious baby twice or thrice, and then silently left the room. In another minute she had stolen down the stairs, and was standing between the house and the stream in the open air. She looked first one way and then another, and finally, without an

teps; then he would be upon the bridge, and she would rise and meet him there. Had he not promised, months ago, that he would never leave her? and though he had been driven away for a time, she had never doubted that he would return. He loved her; soon, soon she would feel his arms about her, his kisses o

shed a dim lustre over the little gorge. The light glanced on the curve of the cataract, and twinkled in the eddies of the pool, and danced along the tumultuous rapid, and glistened upon the froth of the mill-race. There the black wheel still plunged to its work, whirling its gaunt a

w paces of the bridge, he halted and peered forward earnestly. What figure was that that seemed to stand expectantly on the other side? It could not be Swanhilda-ay, but it was! He gave a little laugh, and then his ha

ell, clasped in each other's arms-headlong down over the fall, down to the bottom of the eddying pool; up again, and over in the rapids, whirling round and round, dashed against the jagged stones, bleeding piteously; stunned, let us trust, already, but still clinging to each other. Now the last plunge: and so, at length, with a final shriek of heaven-defying laughter, the hungry demon of the wheel grappled its prey. Ay, snat

was wedged beneath the lower rim of the wheel and the bed of the stream, and a long mass of yellow hair floated out along the black water, a

e and misery. "Your father was his. You have murde

hilda loved him and not me. Thank God I was the brother of the man she loved; the same blood ran in our veins-she loved a

bjects were still discernible: yet nowhere, neither beneath the Black Oak, nor beside the Laughing Wheel, nor anywhere in the gorge, could I