Novelist.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume XX, Issue 2090, 8 July 1887, Page 1 (Supplement)

Novelist.

WILL O’ THE MILL.

The mill where Will lived with his adopted parents stood in a falling valley between pine woods and great mountains. Above, hill after hill soared upwarda until they soared out of the depth of the hardiest timber, and stood naked against the aky. Some way op, a long, gray village lay, like a seam or a ray of vapor on a wooded hillside ; and when the wind was favorable, the sound of the church bells would drop down, thin and silvery, to Will. Below, the valley grew ever steeper and ateeper, and at the same time widened oat on either hand; and from an eminence beaide the mill it waa possible to see its whole length and away beyond it over a wide plain, where the river turned and shone, and moved on from city to city on its voyage to the sea. It chanced that over this valley there lay a pass into a neighboring kingdom ; so that, quiet and rural as it was, the road that ran along beside the river waa a high thoroughfare between two splendid ana powerful societies. All through the summer travellingcarriages came crawling up, or went plunging briskly downward past the mill; and as it happened that the other side waa very much easier of ascent, the path was not ranch frequented, except by people going in one direction ; aud of all the carriages that Will saw go by, five-sixths were plunging briskly downward and only one-sixth crawling up. Much more was this the case with foot passengers. All the light-footed tourists, all the peddlers laden with strange wares, were tending downward, like the river that accompanied their path. Nor waa this all, for when Will was yet s child a disastrous war arose over a great part of the world. The newspapers were fall of defeats aud victories, the earth rang with cavalry hoofs, and often for days together and fur miles aronnd the coil of battle terrified good people from their labors in the field. Of all this nothing waa heard for a long time io4he valley ; but at last one of the commanders pushed an army over the pass by /•reed marches, sod for three days hone end foot, cannon and tumbril, drum and rtandard kept pouring down paat the mill. All day the child stood and watched them on their passage—the rythmical stride, the unshaven faces tanned about the eyes, the discoloured regimentals, and the tattered flag* filled him with a sense of weariness, pity, and wonder; and all night long, after he was in bed, he could hear t he cannon pounding and the feet trampling, and the great armament sweeping onward and downward past the mill. No one in the valley ever heard the fate of the expedition, for they lay ont of the way of geatip in those t onblesome times; but Will saw one thiig plainly-that not a man returned. V hither had they gone ? Whither went alfa he tourists and peddlers with strange ware ?—whither all the brisk barouches with aei vauts in the dicky V—whither the water of the stream, ever coursing downward and ever renewed from above ? Even the wind blew oftener down the valley, and carried dfead leaves with it in the fall. It seemed like a great conspiracy of things animate and inanimate ; they ail went downward, fleetly and gaily downward, and only he, it seemed, remained behind, like a stock upon the wayside. It sometimes made him glad when he noticed how the fishes kept their heads op stream. They, at least, stood faithfully fay him, while all else were posting downward to the unknown world.

One evening he asked the miller where the elver went.

“ It gMf down the valley,” answered he, “and tana a power of mills—six score (silk, they say, from here to Unterdeck, wad it none the wearier after all. And Umb it goea out into the lowlands, and water* the great corn country, and runs theeagh a site of fine cities (so they say), when king*lire all alone in great palaces, with a sentry walking up and down before the door. ■ And it goes under bridges with atoae men upon them, (poking down and ■ntljag io enrioos at the water, and living folk* *fisr| their elbows on the wall and looking over too. And then it goes on and on, and down through marshes and asnda, until at last it falls into the sea, whan the ships are that bring parrots and tohaesa from the Indies. Ay, it has a long trot before it as it goes singing over oar weir, bless its heart “ And what is the sea V" asked Will. “Thaasa!” cried the miller. “Lord help os all, it is the greatest thing Clod mans! That is where all the water in the world runs down into a great •alt lake. There it lies, as flat as my hand and aa innooent-like as a child ; but

they say that when the wind blows it gets up into water mountains bigger than any of ours, and swallows down great ships bigger than our mill, and makes such a roaring that you can hear it miles away upon the land. There are great tish in it, five times bigger than a bulk and one old serpent aa long as our river afad as old as the world, with whiskers like a man and a crown of silver on its head.”

Will thought he had never heard anything like this, and he kept on asking question after question about the world that lay away down the river, with all its perils and marvels, until the miller became quite interested himself, and at last took him by the hand and led him up to the hill-top that overlooks the valley and the plain. The sun was near setting, and hung low down in a cloudless sky. Every thing was defined and glorified in golden light. Will had never seen so great an expanse of country in his life ; he stood and gazed with all his eyes. He could see the cities, and the woods and fields, and the bright curves of the river, and far away to where the rim of the plain trenched along the shining heavens. An overmastering emotion seized upon the boy, soul and body; his heart beat so thickly that he could not breathe; the scene swam before his eyes; the sun seemed to wheel round and round, and throw off, as it turned, strange shapes, which disappeared with the rapidity of thought, and were succeeded by others. Will covered his face with his hands, and burst into a violent fit of tears; and the poor miller, sadly disappointed and perplexed, saw nothing better for it than to take him up in his arms and carry him home in silence.

From that day forward Will was full of new hopes and longings. Something kept tugging at his heart-strings ; the running water carried his desires along with it as he dreamed over its fleeting surface ; the wind, as it ran over innumerable treetops, hailed him with encouraging words; branches beckoned downward ; the open road, as it shouldered round the angles and went turning and vanishing fast and faster down the valley, tortured him with its solicitations. He spent long whiles on the eminence, looking down the river-shed and abroad on the flat lowlands, and watched the clouds that travelled forth upon the sluggish wind and trailed their purple shadows on the plain ; or he would linger by the wayside, and follow the carriages with his eyes as they rattled downward by the river. It did not matter what it was ; every thing that went that way, were it cloud or carriage, bird or brown water in the stream, he felt his heart flow out after it in an ecstasy of longing. We are told by men of science that all the ventures of mariners on the sea, all that counter-marching of tribes and races that confounds old history with its dust and rumor, sprang from nothing more abstruse than the laws of supply and demand, aud a certain natural instinct for cheap rations. To anyone thinking deeply, this will seem a dull and pitiful explanation. The tribes that came swarming out of the North and East, if they were, indeed, pressed onward from behind by others, were drawn at the same time by the magnetic influences of the South and West. The fame of other lands had reached them; the name of the eternal city rang in their ears; they were not colonists, but pilgrims; thev travelled toward wine gold, and sunshine but their hearts were set on something higher. The divine unrest, that old stinging trouble of humanity that makes all high achievement aud all miserable failure, the same that spread wings with Icarus, the same that sent Columbus into the desolate Atlantic,'inspired and supported these barbarians on their perilous march. There is one legend which profoundly represents their spirit, of how a flying party of these wanderers encountered a very old man shod with iron. The old man asked them whither they were going ; and they answered with one voice, “To the Eternal City!” He looked upon them gravely. “ I have sought it,” he said, over the most part of the world. Three such pairs as I now carry on my feet have I worn out upon this pilgrimage, and now the fourth is growing slender hnderneath ray steps. All this while I have not found the city.’ - And he turned and went his way alone, leaving them astonished. And yet this would scarcely parallel the intensity of Will’s feeling for the plain. If he could only go far enough out there, he felt as if his eyesight would be purged and clarified, as if his hearing would grow more delicate, and his very breath would come and go with luxury. He was transplanted and withering where he was ; he lay in a strange country and was sick fur home. Bit by bit, he pieced together broken notions of the world below ; of the river, ever moving and growing until it sailed forth into the majestic ocean ; of the cities, full of brisk and beautiful people, playing fountains, bands of music, and marble palaces, and lighted up at night from end to end with artificial stars of gold; of the great churches, wise universities, brave armies, and untold money lying stored in vaults, of the high flying vice that moved in the sunshine, and the stealth and swiftness-of midnight murder. 1 have said he was sick as if for home—the figure halts. He was like some one lying in twilit, formless, pre-existence, and stretching out his hands to manycolored, many-sounding life. It was no wonder he was unhappy, he would go aud tell the fish ; they were made for their life, wished for no more than worms and running water, aud a hole below a falling bank ; but he was differently designed, full of desires and inspirations, itching at the fingers, lusting with the eyes, whom the whole variegated world could not satisfy with aspects. The true life, the true bright sunshine, lay far out upon the plain. And, oh! to see this sunlight once before he died! to hear the trained singers and sweet church-bells, and see the holiday gardens ! “And, oh, fish!” ho would cry, “if you would only turn your noses down stream, you could swim so easily into the fabled waters ami sec the vast ships passing over your heads like clouds, and hear the great water-hills making music over you all day long!” But the fish kept looking patiently in their own direction,until Will hardly know whether to laugh or cry.

Hitherto the traffic on the road had passed by Will, like something seen in a picture ; he had perhaps exchanged salutations with a tourist, or caught sight of an old gentleman in a travelling cap at a carriage window ; but for the most part it had been a mere symbol, which he contemplated from apart and with something of a superstitious feeling. A time came at last when this was to bo changed. The miller, who was a greedy man in his way, and never forewent an opportunity of honest profit, turned the mill-house into a little wayside inn, and, several pieces of

good fortune falling in opportunely, built stables and got the position of postmaster on the road. It now became Will’s duty to wait upon people, as they sat to break their fasts in the little arbor, at the top of the mill garden ; and you may be sure that he kept his ears open, and learned many new things about the outside world as he brought the omelette or the wine. Nay, he would often get into conversation with single guests, and, by adroit questions and polite attention, not only gratify his own curiosity, but win the good will of the travellers. Many complimented the old couple on their serving boy ; and a professor was eager to take him away with him, and have him properly educated in the plain. The miller and his' wife were mightily astonished and even more pleased. They thought it a very good thing that they should have opened their inn. “ You see.” the old man would remark, “he has a kind of talent for a publican ; he never would have made anything else!” And so life wagged on in the valley, with high satisfaction to all concerned but Will. Every carriage that left the inn-door seemed to take a part of him away with it; and when people jestingly offered him a lift, he could with difficulty command his emotion. Night after night he would dream that ho was awakened by flustered servants, and that a splendid equipage awaited at the door to carry him down into the plain—night after night; until the dream which had seemed all jollity to him at first, began to take on a color of gravity, and the nocturnal summons and waiting equipage occupied a place in his mind as something to be both feared and hoped for. One day, when Will was about sixteen, a fat young man arrived about sunset to pass the night. He was a contented-look-ing fellow, with a jolly eye, and carried a knapsack. While dinner was preparing, he sat in the arbor to read a book ; but as soon as he had begun to observe Will, the book was laid aside ; he was plainly one of those who prefer living people to people made of ink and paper. Will, on his part, although he had not been much interested in the stranger at first sight, soon began to take a great deal of pleasure in his talk, which was full of good nature and good sense, and at last conceived a great respect for his character and wisdom. They act far into the night; and about two in the morning Will opened his heart to the young man, and told him how he longed to leave the valley and what bright hopes he had connected with the cities of the plain. The young man whistled, and then broke into a smile.

“My young friend,” he remarked, “you are a very curious little fellow to be sure, and wish a good many things which you will never get. Why, you would feel quite ashamed if you knew how the little fellows in these fairy cities of yours are all after the same sort of nonsense, and keep breaking their hearts to get into the mountains. And let me tell you, those who go dqwn into the plains are a very short while there before they wish themselves heartily back again. The air is not so light nor so pure; nor is the sun any brighter. As for the beautiful men and women, you would see many of them in rags and many of them deformed with horrible disorders ; and a city is so hard a place for people who are poor and sensitive that many choose to die by their own hand.” “You must think me very simple,” answered Will. “Although I have never been out of this valley, believe me, I have used my eyes. I know how one thing lives on another ; for instance, how the fish hangs in the eddy to catch his fellows ; and the shepherd who makes so pretty a picture carrying home the lamb, is only carrying it home for dinner. Ido not expect to find all things right in your cities. That is not what troubles me ; it might have been that once upon a time ; but although I live here always, I have asked many questions and learned a great deal in these last years, and certainly enough to cure me of ray old fancies. But you would not have me die like a dog aud not see all that is to bo seen, and do all that a man can do, let it be good or evil ? You would not have me spend all ray days between this road here and the river, andnot so much as make a motion to be up and live my life ?—I would rather die out of hand,” he cried, “ than linger on as I am doing. “ Thousands of people,” said the young man, ‘ • live and die like you, and are none the less happy.” “Ah!” said Will, “it there are thousands who would like, why should not one of them have my place ?” It was quite dark ; there was a banging lamp in the arbor which lit up the table and the faces of the speakers ; and along the arch, the loaves upon the trellis stood out illuminated against the night sky, a a pattern of transparent green upon a dusky purple. The fat young man rose, and taking Will by the arm, led him out under the open heavens. “Did you overlook at the stars V” he asked, pointing upward.

“ Often and often,” answered Will. “ And do you know what they are ?” “ I have fancied many things.” , “ They are worlds like ours,” said the young man. “ Some of them less ; many of them a million times greater ; and some of the least sparkles that you see are not only worlds, but whole clusters of worlds turning about each other in the midst of space. We do not know what there may be in any of them ; perhaps the answer to all our difficulties or the euro of all our sufferings ; and yet we can never reach them ; not all the skill of the craftiest of men can fit out a ship for the nearest of these our neighbors, nor would the life of the most aged suffice for such a journey. When a great battle has been lost or a dear friend is dead, when we are hipped or in high spirits, there they are unweariedly shining overhead. We may stand down here, a whole army of us together, and shout until we break our hearts, and not a whisper roaches them. Wo may climb the highest mountain, and we are no nearer them. All wc can do is to stand down hero in the garden and take off our hats ; the starshinc lights upon our heads, and where mine is a little bald, I dare say you can see it glisten in the darkness. The mountain and the mouse. That is like to be all we shall ever have to do with Ai'ctmus or AMebaran, Can you apply a parable?" he added, laying his hand upon Will's shoulder. “ It is not the same thing as a reason, but usually vastly more convincing."

“ Something of that size. Did you ever see a squirrel turning in a cage '■ and another squirrel sitting philosophically over his nuts ? I needn’t ask you which of them looked more like s fool.”

After some years the old people died, both in one winter, very carefully tended by their adopted son, and very quietly mourned when they gone. People who had heard of his roving fancies supposed he would hasten to sell the property, and go down the river to push his fortunes. But there was never my sign of such an intention on the part of Will. On the contrary, he had the inn set on a better footing, and hired a couple of servants to assist him in carrying it on ; and there he settled down, a kind, talkative, inscrutable young man, six feet three in his stockings, with an iron constitution and a friendly voice. He soon began to take rank in the district as a bit of an oddity : it was not much to be wondered at from the first, for ho was always full of notions, and kept calling the plainest com-mon-sense in question ; but what most raised the report upon him was the odd circumstances of his courtship with the parson’s Marjory. The parson’s Marjory was a lass about nineteen, when Will would be about thirty; well enough looking, and much better educated than any other girl in that part of the country, as became her parentage. She held her head very high, and had already refused several offers of marriage with a grand air, which had got her hard names among the neighbors. For all that she was a good girl, and ono that would have made any man well contented. Will had never seen much of her ; for although the church and parsonage was only two miles from his own door, he was never known to go there but on Sundays. It chanced, however, that the parsonage fell into disrepair, and had to be dismantled ; and the parson and his daughter took lodging for a month or so, on very much reduced terms, at Will’s inn. Now, what with the inn, and the mill, and the old miller’s savings, our friend was a man of substance; and besides that, he had a name for good temper and shrewdness, which make a capital portion in marriage ; and so it was currently gossiped, among their ill-wishers, that the parson and his daughter had not chosen their temporary lodgings with their eyes shut. Will was about the last man in the world to be cajoled or frightened into marriage. You had only to look into his eyes, limpid and still like pools of water, and yet with a sort of clear light that seemed to come from within, and you would understand at once that he was one who knew his own mind, and would stand to it immovably. Marjory herself was no weakling by her looks, with strong, steady eyes and a resolute and quiet bearing. It might be a question whether she was not Will’s match in steadfastness, after all, or which of them would rule the roast in marriage. But Marjory had never given it a thought, and accompanied her father with the most unshaken innocence and unconcern.

The season was still so early that Will’s customers were few and far between ; but the lilacs were already flowering, and the weather was so mild that the party took dinner under the trellis, and the noise of the river in their ears and the woods ringing about them with the songs of birds. Will soon began to take particular pleasure in these dinners. The parson was rather a dull companion, with a habit of dozing at table; but nothing rude or cruel ever fell from his lips. And as for the parson’s daughter, she suited her surroundings with the best grace imaginable ; and whatever she said seemed so pat and pretty that Will conceived a great idea of her talents. He could see her face, as she leaned forward, against a background of rising pinewoods ; her eyes shone peaceably ; the light lay around her hair like a kerchief ; something that was hardly a smile rippled her pale cheeks, and Will could not contain himself from gazing on her in an agreeable dismay. She looked, even in her quietest moments, so complete in herself, and so quick with life down to her finger tips and the very skirts of her dress, that the remainder of created things became no more than a blot by comparison; and if Will glanced away from her to her surroundings, the trees looked inanimate and senseless, the clouds hung in heaven like dead things, and even the mountain tops were disenchanted. The whole valley could not compare in looks with this one girl. Will was always observant in the society of his fellow creatures; but his observation became almost painfully eager in the case of Marjory. He listened to all she uttered, and read her eyes, at the same time, for the unspoken commentary. Many kind, simple, and sincere speeches found an echo in his heart. Ho became conscious of a soul beautifully poised upon itself, nothing doubting, nothing desiring, clothed in peace. It was not possible to separate her thoughts from her appearance. The turn of her wrist, the still sound of her voice, the light in her eyes, the lines of her body fell in tune with her grave and gentle words, like the accompaniment that sustains and harmonises the voice of the singer. Her influence was one thing, not to be divided or discussed, only to be felt with gratitude and joy. To Will, her presence recalled something of his childhood, and the thought of her took its place in his mind beside that of dawn, of running water, and of the earliest violets and lilacs. It is the property of things seen for the first time, or for the first time after long, like the flowers in spring, to re-awaken in us the sharp edge of sense and that impression of mystic strangeness which otherwise passes out of life with the coming of years ; but the sight of f loved face is what renews a man’s character from the fountain upwards.

One day after dinner Will took a stroll among the firs ; a grave beatitude possessed him from top to toe, and ho kept smiling to himself and the landscape as ho went. The river ran between the stepping stones with a pretty wimple ; a bird sang loudly in the wood ; the hill-tops looked immoasiireably high, and as he glanced at them, from time to time, seemed to contemplate his movements with a beneficent but awful curiosity. His way took him to the eminence which overlooked the plain; and there he sat down upon a stone, and fell into deep and pleasant thought. The plain lay abroad with its cities and silver river ; everything was asleep except a great eddy of birds which kept rising and falling and going round and round in the blue air. Ho repeated Majory’s name aloud, and the sound of it gratified his ear. He shut his eyes, and her image sprang up before him, quite luminous and attended with good thoughts. The river might run forever; the birds fly higher and higher till they

Will hung his head a little, and then raised it once more to heaven. The stars seemed to expand and emit a sharper brilliancy ; and as he kept turning his eyes higher and higher, they seemed to increase in multitude under his gaze. “I sec,” he said, turning to the young man. “Wo arc in a rat-trap."

touched the stars. Ho saw it was empty bustle after all; for here, without stirring a foot, waiting patiently in his own narrow valley, he also had attained the better sunlight. The next day Will made a sort of declaration across the dinner-table, while the parson was filling his pipe. “Miss Marjory,’’ he said, “I never knew any one I liked so well as you. I am mostly a cold, unkindly sort of a man; not from want of heart, but out of strangeness in my way of thinking ; and people seem far away from me. ’Tis as if there were a circle round me, which kept every one out but you ; I can bear the others talking and laughing; but you come quite close. Maybe, this is disagreeable to you?" he asked.

Marjory made no reply. “Speak up, girl,” said the parson. “Nay, now,” returned Will, “I wouldn’t press her, parson, I feel tonguetied myself, who am not used to it; and she’s a woman, and little more than a child, when all is said. But for my part,as far as I can understand what people mean by it, I fancy I must bo what they call in love. Ido not wish to be held as committing myself; tor I may be wrong ; but that is how I believe things are with me. And if Miss Marjory should feel any otherwise on her part, mayhap she would be so kind as to shake her head.”

Marjory was silent, and gave no sign that she had heard.

“ How is that, parson ?” asked Will. “The girl must speak,” replied the parson, laying down his pipe. “ Here’s our neighbor who says he loves you, Madge. Do you love him, ay or no ?” l; I think I do,” said Marjory, faintly.

“Well then, that’s all that could be wished !” cried 'Will, heartily. And he took her hand across the table, and held it a moment in both of his with great satisfaction.

“You must marry," observed the parson, replacing his pipe in his mouth. (Concluded in our next.)