THE OLD MILL.

Auckland Star, Volume XVIII, Issue 55, 4 July 1887, Page 6

THE OLD MILL.

Translated From the French ox Saint Martin.

The old mill still goos round; I hear and see it now, with the burr of its grindstones and the clatter of its wheels; the old roof sinking beneath the weight of its thatch; its black walls sustained I know not how upon •worm-eaten beams and crumbling stones. Yes, it still goes round in the midst of its meadow and its group of willows, from which escape all the murmuring and sinking noises of the mill dam, the chickens and the birds, hidden in the bushes. But it does no ■work, it grinds no grain, and the manufactory has taken its place in the landscape which once it enlivened so beautifully and gayly. The lord and master of this mill, a certain Francois Estanoche, died last winter of a heavy cold, and died with conscience burdened by a grievous sin, as you will learn from this true recital. Three years ago all Paris was talking of young Raymond de B , the hero of a very touching adventure which had-giv-en him great notoriety, as he had saved the life of the most celebrated woman in Paris. Alas ! how quickly was the distance leaped between this noble and brilliant debut and the sad and vulgar episode which terminated the career of this unfortunate young man. One day, after five or six years of a life of pleasure, light loves and feverish passion—to the youth of France the charm of Paris—Raymond was seized with a longing for . his mother and his home. Twenty-four hours later he saluted through the rifts in a curtain of poplars the village in which he had passed his infancy, a group of black houses upon a background of green, then a pile of yellow and crumbling stones that had once been the feudal chateau of his fathers, and beside it, under the shadow of the trees, a heavy modern house in which lived his beloved mother.

The first days of spring had surrounded this humble city of the province with the magnificent verdure and profusion of flowers which April spreads with such generous hands over this land of the mistral and the sun. Blossoming almond trees turned the hills into pyramids of pink and white, and the valleys into sheets of lace, and there floated between earth and sky a golden dust like amber. It was good simply to exist, and Raymond, intoxicated with the sweetness of life and nature, felt himself filled with a crowd of emotions hitherto unknown to him.

Moreover, he would soon be with his mother, and she it was who had subtly infused into him the desire to quit Paris, for though she had said nothing about it as yet, it was nevertheless arranged that he should wed— a marriage as it should be in all respects 1 —with Mile, de Verrier, one of the most beautiful and lovable of girls and the playmate of his childhood. Here, where his mother was so good, and the skies so blue, his soul expanded like a flower in the sun, but alas! these beautiful ideas, noble projects, and happy dreams were not destined to come to maturity. • One evening Raymond, while going tip the steep and unpaved street which led from the village to the old house under the shadow of the trees, perceived before him, charming and rosy under her bonnet of white calico, a slender, alert, and graceful little figure which barred his passage/ Great dark eyes flashed like flame under the edge of her head-dress, and the colour of the rose shone through the whiteness of her cheeks, a colour which the women of the South preserve even unto this day. This beautiful woman was known in the village as ' Tregour's Denise, , but recalled herself to M. Raymond as the daughter of oae of his father's former tenants. He remembered her well, and the picture she had made wandering over the hills with her flocks of goats and turkeys. Her love for flowers had been a passion with her, and many a time he, had met her upon the cliffs of Trevarease in rags and tatters, but always wearing pinned upon the bosom of her gown a bunch of wild flowers exquisitely arranged.

' That little one of Trego.ur's,' said the village crones, ' would have made her fortune in a florist's shop. . For several years past this charming peasant, intelligent, amiable and good, had been the wife of the miller, Estanoche. Ah, what a miller he was —so coarse, so brutal, so disagreeable, to inhabit this delicious valley ; and what a contrast to the tender traditions of the legendary miller of the opera comique. Estanoche was taciturn, ugly, and jealous ; an industrious worker, but ill-tempered. Raymond alone, who had fallen into the habit o: coming every evening to pass an hour at the mill, seemed to have power to soften this sullen humour. There, seated upon a straw chair, all dusty with flour, he would join the miller in a bottle of home-made wine, while they talked of various things, for our dainty Parisian took the greatest pleasure in mingling with the rural world, and only laughed good-hmnouredly when inadvertently rubbed by a sack of wheat or rye. He loved the fresh odour of the newly-ground grain always floating in clouds through the mill, and the miller who had once been a soldier, and served., his time in the garrison at Paris, liked nothing so well as to talk of the capital, and the deeds he had there performed. .Raymond listened very patiently, though sometimes strongly tempted to laugh, for the miller spoke the most abominable French and remained an incorrigible provincial. .: Four months had run by since Raymond left Paris,, tut neither the efforts nor the prayers of his mother had beenable to make him accept the marriage that she had planned, for him,

He was willing enough to identify himself for a time with this rustic place which refreshed and strengthened his tired energies, even to mingle in the daily life of the peasants , who surrounded him-; but to him it was ouly a. ' season in the field ;' Avhen autumn came it would find him en route for Paris. An inveterate hunter, he came and went across the sunny valleys, waiting for the leaves to gather under the ; hedges and the pine trees now browning under an ardent sun. Seated in the tufts of thyme and lavender, his gun between his knees and his dogs beside him, he dreamed of Paris— always of Paris — where so many tender memories drew him. Soon a very common-place incident occurred, Raymond had become very attentive to Denise, and Denise loved Raymond. Estanoche was not long ignorant of the turn things had taken. In great cities the husband is the last to hear of such a thing, but in a village, where vice is badly concealed, it is different. Did he suffer , ? His heart at this revelation, was it torn like the beach on a tempestuous night ? The character of Estanoche. if you will remember, was very taciturn, and does riot permit me to pronounce upon that point; however, as this is not a physiological study, let us pass on. What a charming hour it is ! The biro's intoxicated with dew, make haimoruous uproar in the bushes and the willows; the babbling of the brook within its banks has a crazy gaiety. Never was anything more beautiful than these summer mornings in Provence. The milldam is closed, but the clean, fresh water rushes through the sluices and spreads itself out like a long white cloth before it throws itself headlong into the heart of the Hourgouse, the deep green Hourgouse that runs between banks of rocks and mosses. The pines on the side sing like harps, and the village bells add to the concert the joyous notes of their Sunday chimes. Passing along the road the other side of the millrace, the peasants in their Sunday clothing salute the miller with cheerful bon jours, but upright before his door ho remains impassable and sullen, his arms crossed and his white hat pulled abqut his ears. Denise had gone to the city at the first peep of day to arrange with a citizen for the grinding of his wheat. The miller's eyes are turned to the east, over there beyond the river : he watches and waits, At last a form appears, grey against the sea of verdure made by the forest of pines. It is Raymond returning from shooting partridges. Five minutes later he arrives at the mill. Laying his gun and game bag on the ground at his feet, he dries his brow and seats himself upon the bench beside the door. ' And Denise, where is she V he asks of his companion. ' Gone to the city, Monsieur Raymend.' ' Rather early, is it not V ' No, not at all: you might have met her at St. Bachbi if you had passed there about 4 o'clock this morning-' • I came from the other side—from Valmale. But what are you keeping Holy Sunday for. Master Estanocho % It isn't your custom, is it , ?' • No, it is the millstone which commands here to-day. It will not work.' 'What's the matter with it?' said Raymond, laughing at the miller's tone. ' Anything serious V ' That I cannot tell you, but I fear that a wing of the wheel has been broken, and the fragments have stopped the arm of the lever which turns the stone. Do you understand V 'Of course,' answered Raymond.

• "Well, on account of it 1 am forced to stand still, which isn't very cheerful, for I've a hundred sacks to grind in the next three days.' " But all that can be, arranged V 'Perhaps so, , said the miller, 'but now I must go and try and repair it,' and talking thus Estauoclie takes the lantern from the wall, lights it and starts towards the mill dam, Raymond following him. The wheel to which jEstanoche referred rested upon a pivot at the bottom of a deep and . artificial gulf, into which the waters of the mill dam flung themselves with irresistible fury. The force of this water, when the gates were open, falling upon the wings of the wheel, hollowed like shells, and which occupied nearly all the space of this narrow chamber, forced it to turn, and with it the millstone which ground the grain in the hopper above. • Permit me/Monsieur Raymond, t p descend into the pit,' and hanging his ladder over the edge of the 'black and slimy gulf, Estanoche disappeared from sight.

* c It is nothing,' he cried, a moment later, ' and no need of a hand ; the eye is sufficient f but all the same the milier did not reappear, but continued to hammer and nail, the noise rising from the depths to be repeated by the echo.. . .'Bad luck to it!' he shouted; 'this will never go, the wfieel is clogged; three days of work lost—three whole days!' ■. , . It was with difficulty Raymond could distinguish what the miller said, the depth of the vault was so great. 'Poor fellow,' said the Parisian to himself,' he is having a time of it. Can't you raise the wheel ?' he called to Estanoche, leaning over and peering into the darkness. 'Too difficult for a single arm. Now, if Matthieu was only there; but the loiterer's at the mass.' In a moment Raymond's foot was on the round of the ladder. He was really sorry for the man whose guttural voice sent up from the pit such volleys of growls and fierce imprecations, and in the twipkling of an eye he had descended to the bottom, the. millwheel outlined against the sky looking above them like a monstrous octopus,

1 What are you doing here, M. Eaymond V cried the miller, who had heard him feeling his way down the ladder; ' you'll take your death in this dungeon of a place. Take care, take care ; you're in a country you were never in beforo, in spite of all your voyages.' Light came to them only through the openings beneath the wings of the wheel, but narrow as they were, Raymond could still see below them the dark-green waters of the Hourgouse bordered by vines and trailing ivy. The lantern hooked to the side of the vault smoked behind its dirty glasses, throwing a dim and feeble light up on the face of the miller, stripped to his shirt sleeves and pounding and lifting with the strength of a giant. ' Without troubling you, M. Raymond,' said Estanoche at last, 'a' stroke of the hand will raise the wheel now—that is, when I connect the arm of the lever,' and with a step like the wind he climbed toward the opening. A slight grating was heard, and as Raymond looked above him the ladder was disappearing over the edge of the wheel pit. Had you passed along the road at this moment, you would have seen under the arch of the willows the figure of a man—a man with burning eyes — who frantically and with ferocious curses turned with both arms the crank of the water gates, opening them wide. The mill dam had been closed since early dawn, and as Estanoche had taken care that the side gates were shut, the accumulated water precipitated itself into the empty space in heavy and roaring cataracts as if it expressed all the hatred and all the shame of the frantic husband, maddened with rage and jealousy; and the mill wheel, under the enormous pressure, growled and whirled with a terrible uproar. One morning, perhaps a fortnight later, Estanoche was seated before the mill, which peacefully murmured and whirled its stones, when the rural postman came up the path and handed him the little village paper. As he glanced through its columns, his eye fell upon the following lines:—'M. Raymond de B , the young son of Mine, the Countess de B , has been missing for many days; it

is impossible to find any trace of him Everyone is lost in conjecture as to this mysterious event. This amiable young man was without an enemy in the w<jr!d, and it is feared that he has met with a terrible accident. We beg our readers to send to this paper any information that may aid in the discovery of the truth.' ' Information of him!' cried tlie miller, with a scowl; ' information of him ! Well, let them ask the cray-fish of the Hourgouse; they, and they alone, can tell them where he is 1'