Will of the Mill

"Yes; said your father must be getting off his head to go and buy up such a miserable ramshackle piece of rubbish. It was only fit to knock to pieces and sell for old copper."

There was not much to see. The great pool was very full--a great, V-shaped sheet of water, or elongated triangle, whose shortest side was formed by the massive stone dam built a...

"Yes, father; Josh and I went up to take Mr Manners some flies, and James was in the garden digging; but, as soon as he saw me, he slipped away round by the back, and went off i...

An awful hush of silence. It seemed as if it was too much for human brain to bear. The breath was held pent-up in every breast, so that it might have been the dwelling-place of...

It was up one of the shelves at the side of the great ravine that Will silently hurried his comrade, the Vicar's son, to where they could look down at the shelf below, a fairly...

Will returned to the Mill House that night rather later than he should have been, after a long chat with the artist, and the first thing he learned was that his father had gone...

A few words were whispered, though there was not the slightest need, for no one was in sight, and the rattle and whirr of machinery set in motion by a huge water-wheel, whose sp...

There was no stopping to put away artificial fly material. Hat and caps were snatched up, and the next minute all three were running as fast as the rugged stones and the dangero...

"What!" cried Josh. "Why, he's been to the cottage nearly every day, trying to get the old man to listen; but it only makes him more wild. Father says that he shall give it up n...

The alarm had so spread, carried as the disaster was by the galloping messenger from the mill, as well as by the flood itself, that help was pouring in from all quarters, and as...

There was a desperate fight now for about a quarter of an hour between man's two best slaves--fire and water; and John Willows looked anxiously on, asking himself the question,...

The Vicar had no chance to ask Josh what he had heard, for the boy had rushed on to the dam, regardless of any danger that might be near, to reach Mr Willows, to whom he clung b...

It was not manly on Josh's part, but he was weak, beaten, quite in despair; the artist was a heavy man; and he had his companion Will upon him as well.

"No, sir," said Drinkwater, as he flashed his lantern round. "If Mr Manners has hurt himself and can't walk, as Mr Josh says he has, we shan't be able to haul him up. The rope I...

"Well, go and ask Mr Manners to come up, then," said Mr Willows, one morning a few days later, as Will and Josh stood waiting; "that is," he went on, "if you really think that h...

"Soon, my lad? Yes, I think so," said the artist, cheerily. "I was talking to Drinkwater here about painting his portrait; but he won't hear a word of it. But I have got him in...

Josh and the Vicar were down at the mill in good time the next morning, to find Will and his father in the bright sunshine under a cloudless sky, on the bank overlooking the wid...

"I'll come with you," said the Vicar, eagerly, and he took his hat off its peg in the square-shaped wainscotted hall. "Our two lads," he said, as they walked quickly along the r...

The two boys were at the edge of the fissure at length, and leaned over to peer down through the bracken and heather which grew on the sides of the rough descent.

As has been pointed out, the artist was a quiet man, and the tranquil life of the little village was exactly to his taste. Mrs Drinkwater looked well after his few wants, and un...

A fortnight had glided by. The dam was kept more than full by hours of stormy weather high up in the hills many miles away; but the stream had resumed its gentle course, the tro...