The Miller Of Old Church

ees. Frost still sparkled on the bright green grasses that had overgrown the sides of the mill-race, and the poplar log over the stream was as wet as though the dancing shallows ha

, where there was an increasing demand for the coarse, water-ground sort. Some day he purposed to turn out the old worn-out machinery and supply its place with modern inventions, but as yet this ambition was remote, and the mill, worked after the process of an earlier century, had raised his position to one of comparative comfort and respectability. He was known to be a man of character and ambition. Already his name had been mentioned as a possible future representative of the labouring classes in the Virginia assembly. "There is no bett

nd swept the smooth bare floor, which was polished like that of a ballroom by the sacks of meal that had been dragged back and forth over the boards. From the rafters above, long pa

the wooden crank at the side, when a shadow fell over the threshold, and Archie R

ck, Abel," he said, "I'm off for the morning. That's a g

pulses and dogged obstinacy of his mother's stock, yet because of his person

bel, "but for heaven's sake, bring home a string of hares to put ma into a

lly Merryweather. Great Scott, I'm glad I don't stand in either of your shoes when it comes

Church if I wanted to, and what on earth has she got against Mr. Mullen anyway, except that he cou

r and scattered the pile in the centre. A white dust had settled on his hair and clothes, and this acce

would be sure to hate any woman she thought I'd fallen in love with. It's born in her t

se one that would make it worth my while at the end. I wouldn't put up with all that hectori

d threateningly und

sn't right-I'll be hanged if it is!-that every man in the county should be down on a little thing like

and so do all the dogs and the children. The trouble seems to be, doesn't it, merely t

you want to black

meant that she was a flirt, and you know that

azy for ten years before she died, and she taught M

carelessly, "only look out that you don'

some empty barrels in a dark corner, he shoulde

at the moving wheel under the gauzy shadows. The sound of the water as it rushed through the mill-race into the buckets and then fell from the buckets into the whirlpool beneath, was loud in his ears while his quick glance, passing over the drifting yellow leaves of the sycamore, discerned a spot of vivid red in the cornlands beyond. The throbbing of his pulses rather than the assurance of his eyes told him that Molly was approaching; and as the bit of colour drew nearer amid the stubble, he recognized the jacket o

inutes before he had vowed to himself that she had used him badly and he would hold off until she made suf

s going by-that I'd stop a

by her presence. "You didn't treat me

that. I quite meant to go with y

excuse, isn't it,

fied with it as well. He asked me, too, and when I forgot I'd promised you, I said I'd go with him to see

meet Mr. Jonathan at the cross-ro

nd grown cautious, but a certain blithe indifference to the consequenc

d-looking, don't you?

hould think not-a

of course, I didn't mean that he w

hat danced under her like light. His eyes warmed to her, yet he held back, gripped by a passion of jealousy.

y, and a minute later she stood in the s

t in her temperament to draw back while her prey showed an inclination for flight. But it was his nature to wa

olly!" he exclaimed reproachful

ting, could I? It was y

ve he reached for her hand, which was wit

a generosity that did him small service. "

point of condemning her and forever relenting before the appealing sweetness of her look. He told himself twenty times a day that she flirted outrageously with him, though he still refused to admit that in her heart she wa

ut almost fiercely,

r eyes, but a slight frow

I shall never marry anybody," she

ou'd ma

marry somebody, I'd rather m

o like me

ttle-but all men are the same-m

st stood, like the angel with the drawn sword, before the closed gates of his paradise. He remembered her as a passionate frail creature,

e was ill, she wasn't herself, you must know it. All men are not alik

d a devil that drives me on and perhaps she was right-it may be that devil that drives me on and won't let me stop even when I'm tired, and it all bores me. The rector thinks that I'll marry him and turn pious and take to Dorcas societies, and Jim Halloween thinks I'll marry him and grow thrifty and take to turkey raising-and you believe in the bottom of your heart that i

give you up! Some day you'

ed you and it isn't my fault

me a little, have

own de

like you-

keep on hop

k, but this time i

d, "at least," she corrected provok

g-and, Molly, if you marry me, you know

though I'm not go

I'll show you where our house will stand. Do yo

it," her ton

ip of pine-you can see it over there against the horizon. I've half a mind

o sign of it in the movement with whi

g. There isn't the least bit of a

you may take your choice and I

use I've promised Mr. Mu

d a look like that of an animal

him, Molly, you owe me t

man, and he preaches s

es, but I love you a

as you do," she retorted. "If I lost my hair or my teeth h

ove you just as I do now,"

lf tender sound br

ry one of you, fall hea

ch?" she

ever badly you treat me. I'm sometimes tempted to think, Mo

oman, and I pity the wif

ce at the mention of Sarah's name, a

aid after a moment, "she has a kind heart at bottom, a

she kept her from going to church and made t

u were only a month old

ot even at the Day of J

puni

e loyalty to her mother, the blood of the Gays ran thicker in her veins than that of the Merryweathers. Her impulsiveness, her pride, her lack of self-control, all these marked her kinship not to Reuben Merryweather, but to Jonathan Gay. The qua

ried his patience almost to breaking, yet in the very strain and suffering she put upon h

ouldn't have stopped to speak to you," she r

and the sunburnt colour in his face paling a little. Then when she had fini

t. "For God's sake speak, Abel," she said at last, "what pleasure

ck; you may keep up y

it if I'd known you'

me to pick you up and t

r expression at this minute. It's all your fault anyway, f

wear the patience of a Job out at last. It seems that you can'

e?" she said a little s

ed on the green rise of

t as soon as they were

ed them

bitterness, "is why in thunder a man or a woman who

d came slowly back to his side, w

e love-making. When I see that look in a man's face and feel the touch of his hands upon me I want to st

ou fault, Molly, a

nburnt neck, rising from the collar of his blue flannel shirt, and she saw that his hair ended in a short, boyish ripp

sing me just once, if you'

d because she had felt sorry she had allowed him to kiss her. "Only I meant him to do it gently and soberly," she thought, "and he was so rough and fierce that he frightened me. I suppose most girls like that kin

ds from the highway, she met the old family carriage from Jordan's Journey returning with the two ladies on the rear seat. The younger, a still pretty woman of fifty years, with sh

only a quarter of a mile

one, for your grandfather. It worried us last winter

d, and her eyes spa

nner of distant politeness. "I've been trying to persuad

ement to the masculine eye, appeared to defeat the single end for which woman was formed. As her very right to existence lay in her possible power to attract, the denial of that power by nature, or the frustration of it by circumstances, had deprived her, almost from the cradle, of her o

lly," said Mrs. Gay, in a flutter of emot

ok supper at our house

surprise. Was h

t it was the first time I

sure you won't get in

very careful of

obstinately after the carriage, was enveloped shortl