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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Will of the Mill, by George Manville Fenn
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Will of the Mill
+
+Author: George Manville Fenn
+
+Release Date: May 8, 2007 [EBook #21376]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WILL OF THE MILL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England
+
+
+
+
+Will of the Mill, by George Manville Fenn.
+
+________________________________________________________________________
+
+A Huguenot settlement in the Derbyshire dales, in the middle of England,
+in the mid-nineteenth century.
+
+The Vicar's son, and the mill-owner's son are great friends.  They
+become friends with a visiting artist, who is lodging in the house of
+one of the key-workers at the Mill, where they manufacture silk.  The
+artist falls down an old mine-shaft up in the hills, and the boys find
+him.  At home they are missed and a rescue party is sent out, and finds
+them all.
+
+One day the mill mysteriously goes on fire, and, equally mysteriously,
+the fire pump has been disabled.  Just in time it is repaired by the man
+the artist is staying with.  The man's name was originally Boileau, but
+like so many Huguenots, he has anglicised it to Drinkwater.
+
+Drinkwater goes mad, and has an obsessional hatred for the mill-owner.
+It is thought possible that he actually set the fire having previously
+disabled the fire-pump.
+
+But far worse is to befall.  One night, in the autumn rains, the dam
+that feeds the mill bursts its banks, and the village is flooded, with
+much being washed away.  Did Drinkwater do this too?  There is a
+dramatic finish to the book.
+
+________________________________________________________________________
+
+WILL OF THE MILL, BY GEORGE MANVILLE FENN.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER ONE.
+
+DOWN IN THE COUNTRY.
+
+"Here, I say, Josh, such a game!"
+
+"What is it?"
+
+The first speaker pointed down the gorge, tried to utter words, but
+began to choke with laughter, pointed again, and then stood stamping his
+feet, and wiping his eyes.
+
+"Well," cried the other, addressed as Josh, "what is it?  Don't stand
+pointing there like an old finger-post!  I can't see anything."
+
+"It's--it's--it's--he--he--he!--Oh my!--Oh dear!"
+
+"Gahn!  What an old silly you are!  What's the game?  Let's have a bit
+of the fun."
+
+"The sun--sun--sun--"
+
+"Don't stand stuttering there in that stupid way."
+
+"I couldn't help it--there, I'm better now.  I was coming along the top
+walk, and there he was right down below, sitting under his old white
+mushroom."
+
+"Well, I can't see anything to laugh at in that.  He always is sitting
+under his old white umbrella, painting, when he isn't throwing flies."
+
+"But he isn't painting.  He's fast asleep; and I could almost hear him
+snore."
+
+"Well, if you could hear him snore, you needn't make a hyena of
+yourself.  I don't see anything to laugh at in that."
+
+"No; you never see any fun in anything.  Don't you see the sun's gone
+right round, and he's quite in the shade?"
+
+"Well, suppose he is; where's the fun?"
+
+Will Willows wiped his eyes, and then, with a mirthful look, continued--
+
+"Oh, the idea struck me as being comic--keeping a great umbrella up when
+it wasn't wanted."
+
+"Oh, I don't know," said Josh, solemnly; "a shower might come down."
+
+"But, I say, Josh, that won't do.  I've got such a rum idea."
+
+"Let's have it."
+
+"Come along, then."
+
+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 splashings echoed from the vast, wall-like
+sides of the lovely fern-hung glen in which it was placed, would have
+drowned anything lower than a shout.
+
+Willows' silk-mill had ages ago ceased to be a blot in one of the
+fairest valleys in beautiful Derbyshire, for it was time-stained with a
+rich store of colours from Nature's palette; great cushions of green
+velvet moss clung to the ancient stone-work, rich orange rosettes of
+lichen dotted the ruddy tiles, huge ferns shot their glistening green
+spears from every crack and chasm of the mighty walls of the deep glen;
+and here and there, high overhead, silver birches hung their pensile
+tassels, and scrub oaks thrust out their gnarled boughs from either
+side, as if in friendly vegetable feeling to grasp hands over the
+rushing, babbling stream; for Beldale--Belle Dale, before the dwellers
+there cut it short--formed one long series of pictures such as painters
+loved, so that they came regularly from the metropolis to settle down at
+one of the picturesque cottages handy to their work, and at times dotted
+the dale with their white umbrellas and so-called "traps."
+
+Nature was always the grandest of landscape gardeners, and here she may
+be said to have excelled.  Her work had been very simply done: some time
+or other when the world was young the Great Gray Tor must have split in
+two, forming one vast jagged gash hundreds of feet deep, whose walls so
+nearly matched, that, if by some earthquake pressure force had been
+applied, they would have fitted together, crushing in the verdant
+growth, and the vast Tor would have been itself again.
+
+But, needless to say, this had never happened, and the lovely place, so
+well named, became Belle Dale.
+
+High up in the Pennine Range the waters gathered in the great reservoirs
+of bog and moss to form a stream, an infant river, which ran clear as
+crystal, of a golden hue, right down the bottom of the gorge; here
+trickling and singing musically, there spreading into a rocky pool,
+plunging down into fall after fall, to gather again into black, dark
+hollows as if to gain force for its next spring; and nowhere in England
+did moss, fern, and water-plant grow to greater perfection than here,
+watered as they were by the soft, fall-made mists.
+
+All through the summer the place was full of soft, dark nooks, and
+golden hollows shaded by birch, through whose pensile twigs the sunshine
+seemed to fall in showers of golden rain--cascades of light that plunged
+into the transparent waters, and flashed from the scales of the
+ruddy-spotted trout.
+
+No two boys ever had brighter homes, for their dwellings were here--Josh
+Carlile's at the Vicarage, planted on a shelf where the arrow-spired
+church looked down from near the head of the dale, where the first fall
+plunged wildly full thirty feet beside the little, mossy, stone-walled
+burial-ground.  It was the home of mosses of every tint, from the
+high-up, metallic green in the cracks among the stones, down to the soft
+pink and cream patches of sphagnum, sometimes of their own vivid green
+when charged with water ready to spurt out at the touch of a traveller's
+foot.
+
+Will's home--nest, he called it--was far below, at the mill, that
+pleasant home built first by one of his exiled ancestors, an old
+Huguenot who fled from France full of fervour, for his religion's sake,
+seeking refuge in old England, where, like many others, he found a safe
+asylum to live in peace, and think.
+
+Old Guillaume Villars had "Monsieur" written before his name; but he was
+one of France's fine old working gentlemen, a great silk-weaver, and his
+first thought was to find a place where he and his following, a little
+clan, could earn their bread as sturdy workers living by the work of
+their hands; no beggars nor parasites they, but earnest toilers, the men
+who introduced their industry every here and there.
+
+Some two hundred years ago, old Guillaume found Belle Dale ready with
+its motive power to his hand.  He wanted water for his silk-mill: there
+it was, and, in a small way, he and his began their toil.
+
+Their nearest neighbours, few indeed, soon found them quiet, earnest,
+religious men, and the welcome they had was warm.  In their gratitude
+they said, "France to us is dead; this in future is our home;" and,
+though clinging to their language, they cast aside their fine patrician
+names, making them English and homely like those of the dwellers near.
+There was something almost grotesque at times in the changes that they
+made, but they were not noticed here.  The D'aubignes became Daubeneys,
+or homely Dobbs; Chapuis, Shoppee; Jean Boileau, the great silk-weaver's
+right hand, laughingly translated his name to Drinkwater; and, as the
+time went on and generations passed, a descendant, "disagreeable
+old Boil O!" as the two boys called him, was the odd man,
+Jack-of-all-trades, and general mechanician at Beldale Mill, the servant
+of old Guillaume Villars' son, many generations down--John Willows now,
+father of Will of the Mill.
+
+A long piece of pedigree this, but we must say who's who, and what's
+what, and, by the same rule, where's where; so here we have Beldale Mill
+and the boys--just the place they loved and looked forward to reaching
+again from the great school at Worksop, when the holidays came round.
+
+There was no such place for beauty, they felt sure; no such fishing
+anywhere, they believed; in fact, everything the country boy could wish
+for was to their hand.  Collect?--I should think they did: eggs, from
+those of the birds of prey to the tiny dot of the golden-crested wren;
+butterflies and moths, from the Purple Emperors that were netted as they
+hovered over the tops of the scrub oaks, and hawk-moths that darted
+through the garden, the only level place about the bottom of the glen.
+Fishing too--the artist who came down was only too glad to make them
+friends, seeing how they knew the homes of the wily trout in the rocky
+nooks below the great fall down by the sluice, where the waters rushed
+from beneath the splashing wheel; and in the deep, deep depths of the
+great dam where the waters were gathered as they came down from the
+hills above, forming a vast reserve that never failed, but kept up the
+rattle and clatter of looms from year to year, and formed a place where
+the boys early learned to dive and swim, making their plunges from one
+of the ferny shelves above.  They were pretty high, some of these
+shelves, and required a cool head and steady nerve to mount to them in
+safety; but they had been improved in time.  By a little coaxing, James
+Drinkwater had been induced by the boys to climb with them on the one
+side or the other of the gorge, armed with hammer and cold chisel, to
+cut a step here, and knock out a stone there, so that most of the
+shelves formed by the strata of limestone had been made accessible, and
+glorious places to ascend to for those who loved to scramble.
+
+One of these shelves--the best of all, so Will said--was quite three
+hundred feet above the dam.  It was filled with bristling, gnarled oak,
+and the walls beneath were draped with Nature's curtains, formed of the
+long strands of small-leaved ivy; and there, if you liked, you could
+look down, to the left, upon a lovely garden, the mossy roofs of mill
+and house, all to the left; while to the right you looked up the zig-zag
+gorge with its closed-in, often perpendicular walls, to see the glancing
+waters of the stream, and far up, the great plunging fall, flashing with
+light when the sun was overhead, deep in shadow as it passed onward
+towards the west.
+
+Best of all, Will said, was lying on your breast looking right into the
+dam, pitching down collected pebbles, which fell with a splashless
+"chuck!" making "ducks' eggs," as they called it, and sending the white
+Aylesburys scuttling out of the way.
+
+So much for the home of Will of the Mill.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWO.
+
+FISHING FOR FUN.
+
+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 open, verdant space, which offered
+before it on the other side of the stream just such a rocky landscape
+full of colour, light and shade, as artists love.
+
+Will held up his hand to ensure silence, and then, taking hold of a
+projecting oak bough, peered down and signed to Josh to come and look.
+There was not much to see; there was an easel and a small canvas
+thereon, an open black japanned paint-box, a large wooden palette
+blotched with many colours lying on a bed of fern, and whose thumb-hole
+seemed to comically leer up at the boys like some great eye.  Then there
+was a pair of big, sturdy legs, upon which rested a great felt hat,
+everything else being covered in by a great opened-out white umbrella,
+perfectly useless then, for, as Will had said, all was now in the shade.
+
+Both boys had a good look down, drew back and gazed at each other with
+questioning eyes, before Josh, whose white teeth were all on view,
+stooped down and made a slight suggestion, a kind of pantomime, that he
+should drag up a great buckler fern by the roots, and drop it plump on
+the umbrella spike.
+
+Will's eyes flashed, and he puckered up his mouth and pouted his lips as
+if in the act of emitting a great round No.
+
+Josh's eyes began to question, Will's teeth to glisten, as he thrust one
+hand into his pocket and drew out a ring of tough water-cord.  This he
+pitched to his companion, with a sign that he should open it out, while
+from another pocket he took out a small tin box, opened the lid, and
+drew forth a little cork, into whose soft substance the barbs of a
+large, bright blue, double eel-hook had been thrust.
+
+Busy-fingered Josh watched every movement, and it was his turn now to
+shake his sides and indulge in a hearty, silent laugh, as he handed one
+end of the unwound cord.
+
+This was deftly fitted on, and then, with every movement carefully
+watched and enjoyed, Will silently crept into the gnarled oak, till he
+was seated astride one of the horizontal projecting boughs, which began
+to play elastically up and down, but made no sign of loosening the
+parent stem, firmly anchored in the crevices of the limestone rock.
+
+It was only a few feet out, and then the boy was exactly over the
+umbrella, some forty feet below.  Then he began to fish, glancing from
+time to time through the leaves, as he sat watching and rubbing his
+hands.
+
+The first gentle cast was a failure; so was the second; but the third
+time never fails.  Will twisted the cord on his fingers, with the result
+that the double hook turned right over, and the barbed points, in answer
+to a gentle twitch, took hold of the white fabric, after passing right
+through.
+
+Had there been earth below, in which the umbrella staff could have been
+stuck, the manoeuvre must have failed; but the shelf was nearly all
+rock, against some fragments of which the stick was propped.  There was
+no failure then.  There came up a faint rasping sound as of wood over
+stone, as the cord tightened, and then very slowly the umbrella began,
+parachute-like, to rise in the air, higher and higher, as it was hauled
+up hand over hand till the spike touched the lower twigs of the
+horizontal oak bough.
+
+The next moment it was being retained in its novel place by Will making
+fast the line, winding it in and out between two dead branches; and then
+the boy quietly urged himself back to where Josh was chuckling softly as
+he peered down.  For he was having a good view of that which had been
+hidden from Will, but which it was his turn now to share; and, judging
+from his features, he did enjoy it much.
+
+But it was only the face and upper portion of a big, muscular,
+tweed-clothed man, lying back with his hands under his head, eyes closed
+fast, and mouth wide open, fast asleep.
+
+He was a sturdy-looking fellow, with a big brown beard and moustache;
+but the boys did not stop to look, only began to retrace their steps so
+as to get down upon a level with the shelf upon which the sleeper lay.
+
+"Capital!" whispered Josh.  "What will he say?"
+
+"Don't know; don't care!" was the reply.
+
+"We'd better get away, hadn't we?"
+
+"No-o-oo!  We must stop.  I wouldn't be away on any account."
+
+"But then he'll know we did it, and get in a rage."
+
+"Pst!  Be quiet."
+
+Will hurriedly led the way till they reached a clump of bushes where
+they could squat down with a good view of the sleeper, who remained
+perfectly still.
+
+Josh looked up at the umbrella, which looked as if the oak tree had
+bloomed out into one huge white flower.  Pointing up with one hand, he
+covered his face with the other to stifle a laugh, and Will uttered a
+warning.
+
+"Hist!"
+
+Just at that moment, heard above the murmur of the machinery in the
+mill, and the wash and splash of the water, there arose the peculiar
+strident buzz of a large bluebottle, busily on the lookout for a
+suitable spot on which to lay eggs.
+
+Evidently it scented the artist, and began darting to and fro over his
+open mouth.
+
+In an instant there was an angry ejaculation, one hand was set at
+liberty, and several blows were struck at the obnoxious fly, which,
+finding the place dangerous, darted off, and the artist went loudly to
+sleep again.  The boys exchanged glances, and Josh stole out one hand,
+pulled a hart's-tongue fern up by the roots, and, with admirable aim,
+pitched it so that it fell right on the sleeper's chest.
+
+The artist sat up suddenly, staring about him, while the boys crouched
+perfectly motionless in their hiding-place.
+
+"What's that?" reached their ears, and they saw the sleeper feeling
+about till his hand came in contact with the dry fern root.
+
+"Why, it must have been that," he muttered aloud, and he turned it over
+and over.
+
+Josh uttered a faint sound as if he were about to burst out laughing.
+
+"It must have come from above, somewhere.  If it was those boys--" The
+artist looked up suspiciously as he spoke, and then, with a start, he
+turned himself over on his hands and knees, to begin gazing wonderingly
+up at the cotton blossom hanging from the tree.
+
+"Well," he said, "I never felt it; it must have been one of those gusts
+which come down from the mountain."
+
+Will pressed his hands tightly over Josh's mouth, for he could feel him
+heaving and swaying about as if he were about to explode.
+
+"Blows up this valley sometimes," continued the artist, "just like a
+hurricane."
+
+"Pouf!" went Josh, for Will's efforts were all in vain.
+
+"Ah-h-ah!  I knew it!" cried the artist, springing to his feet in a
+rage.  "You dogs!  I see you!"
+
+It was the truth the next moment, for Josh rushed off to get into
+safety, closely followed by Will, whilst their victim gave chase.
+
+Hunted creatures somehow in their hurry to escape pursuit, have a
+natural inclination for taking the wrong route, the one which leads them
+into danger when they are seeking to be safe.
+
+It was so here.  Josh led, and Will naturally followed; but his comrade
+might have gone round by the mill, run for the stepping-stones, where he
+could have crossed and made for the rough hiding-places known to him on
+the other side of the stream; or he might have dodged for the
+garden-gate, darted through, and made for the zig-zag path leading to
+the open moorland; but instead of this, he dashed down to the waterside,
+ran along by it, and then took the ascending path right up the glen,
+getting more and more out of breath, and with Will panting heavily close
+behind.
+
+"Oh, you chucklehead!" cried the latter, huskily.  "Why did you come
+along here?  You knew we couldn't go far."
+
+"It's all right.  He won't follow.  He'll be tired directly; he's so
+fat."
+
+"I don't care," cried Will, stealing a look over his shoulder; "fat or
+thin, he's coming along as hard as he can pelt."
+
+"Yes, but he's about done."
+
+"He isn't, I tell you; he's coming faster than you can go.  Go along:
+look sharp!"
+
+The boys ran on, Josh getting more and more breathless every moment,
+while he began to lose heart as he heard the artist shouting to him to
+stop.
+
+"Here, Will," he cried, "which way had I better go?  Up the long crack,
+or make for the fox's path?"
+
+"One's as bad as the other," cried Will.  "Fox's path.  Here, go on
+faster.  Let me lead; I know the way best.  I never saw such an old
+chucklehead.  Why did you come this way?"
+
+He brushed by his companion as he spoke, his legs making a whishing
+sound as he tore through clumps of fern and brake, running on and on
+over the rapidly-rising ground till the path was at an end, and they
+drew closer to a spot where the rocks closed in, forming a _cul de sac_,
+unless they were willing to take a leap of some twenty feet into a deep
+pool, or climb up the rocky wall just in front.
+
+"We can't jump," panted Will.
+
+"No," half whispered Josh.  "Oh, what a mess we are in!  You will have
+to beg his pardon, Will."
+
+"You'll have to hold your tongue, or else we shall be caught.  It's all
+right; come on.  I can get up here."
+
+The boy proved it by springing at the rocky face, catching a projecting
+block and the tufts of heath and heather, kicking down earth and stone
+as he rose, and scrambling up some fifteen feet before gaining a
+resting-place, to pause for a moment to look down and see how his
+companion was getting on.
+
+To his horror, Josh was almost at the bottom of the wall, and, scarlet
+with fury and exertion, the artist panting heavily about two score yards
+behind.
+
+"I've got you, you dogs!  It's no use, I've got you!"
+
+"Oh!" groaned Will, ready to give up, wondering the while whether the
+artist would thrash him with his elastic maul-stick.
+
+"No, he hasn't," cried Josh.  "Run, run!  Never mind me."
+
+"Shan't run," snarled Will, between his teeth.  "Here, catch hold of my
+hands."
+
+He lay down on his chest, hooking his feet in amongst the tough roots of
+the heather.
+
+"Come on, I tell you!  Catch hold."
+
+Obeying the stronger will, Josh made a desperate scramble, putting into
+it all the strength he had left, and, regardless of the angry shouts of
+the artist, he scrambled up sufficiently high for Will to grasp him by
+the wrists.  He could do no more, for his feet slipped from beneath him,
+and he hung helpless, and at full length, completely crippling his
+companion, who had the full weight dependent on his own failing
+strength.
+
+Encouraged by this, the breathless artist made his final rush, and
+succeeded in getting Josh by the ankles, holding on tightly in spite of
+the boy's spasmodic movement, for as he felt the strong hands grasp his
+legs, he uttered a yell, and began to perform motions like those of a
+swimming frog.
+
+"Be quiet!  Don't!" roared Will.  "You'll have me down."
+
+"Let go, you dog!" shouted the artist.  "I've got him now."
+
+"Let go yourself," cried Will, angrily.  "Can't you see you are pulling
+me down?"
+
+"Oh, yes, I can see.  Let go yourself."
+
+"Shan't!" growled Will, through his set teeth.  "Kick out, Josh, and
+send him over."
+
+"I can't!" cried Josh.
+
+"He'd better!  I'd break his neck."
+
+"Never mind what he says, Josh.  Kick!  Kick hard!"
+
+"Kick!  I've got you tight.  I could hold you for a wee--wee--"
+
+He was going to say "week," but Fate proved to him that this was a
+slight exaggeration on his part, and instead of finishing the word week
+he gave vent to a good loud "oh!"  Tor the heather roots had suddenly
+given way, and the three contending parties descended the sharp slope
+with a sudden rush, to be brought up short amongst the stones that
+accompanied them in a contending heap, forming a struggling mass for a
+few moments, before the strongest gained the day, the artist rising
+first, and seating himself in triumph upon the beaten lads, to begin
+dragging out his handkerchief to mop his face, as he panted
+breathlessly--
+
+"There, I've got you now!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THREE.
+
+THE ARTIST'S REVENGE.
+
+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.
+
+Consequently his tone was very pathetic, as he whimpered out--
+
+"Here, you'd better let me alone!"
+
+"Likely!" said the artist.  "I wanted a model, and now you have got to
+sit for me."
+
+Will didn't whimper in the least.  Pain and anger had put him in what
+would have been a towering rage if he had not been prostrate on the
+ground.
+
+"Here, you get up," he said, in a bull-dog tone.
+
+"By and by," cried the artist, coolly, as he began to recover his
+breath.  "I haven't made up my mind what I am going to do yet."
+
+"If you don't get up, I'll bite," cried Will.
+
+"You'd better!  It's my turn now; I've got a long score to settle
+against you two fellows, and I'm going to pay you out."
+
+As he spoke, the artist took out his pipe and tobacco pouch, and began
+to fill up.
+
+"Get up!" shouted Will.  "You hurt."
+
+"So do you," said the artist, "you nasty, bony, little wretch!  You feel
+as if you must be half-starved."
+
+As he uttered the words there was a loud scratching, and he struck a
+match, lit his pipe, and began to smoke, while the boys, now feeling
+themselves perfectly helpless, lay waiting to see what he would do next.
+
+"Ha!" said the artist.  "I think that'll about do.  You chaps are never
+happy unless you are playing me some trick.  I've put up with it for a
+long time; but you know, young fellows, they say a worm will turn at
+last.  Well, I'm a worm, and I'm going to turn, and have my turn."
+
+"What are you going to do?" cried Will.
+
+"Want to know?"
+
+"Of course I do."
+
+"You'd better leave us alone," whimpered Josh.
+
+"Think so?  Well, I will, after I've done.  I'm going to wash some of
+the mischief out of you.  I shall just tie your hands together--yes, I
+can easily do it now--and then drop you both into the pool."
+
+"What?" yelled Josh.  "Why, you'd drown us!"
+
+"Hold your noise, Josh.  He daren't."
+
+"Daren't!  Why not?  You are only boys, and all boys are a nuisance.
+You've spoilt five of my canvases, and wasted a lot of my paint, making
+scarecrows--at least, one of you did.  But there, I won't be hard; I'll
+only drop in the one who did it.  Who was it?  Was it you, Josh
+Carlile?"
+
+Josh was silent.
+
+"Ah!  I expect it was.  It was he, wasn't it, Will?"
+
+Will was silent too.
+
+"Now I'm sure it was.  Now then, Will; out with it.  Tell me.  It was
+Josh Carlile, wasn't it?"
+
+"Shan't tell," cried Will; "and if you don't let us get up directly,
+I'll poke holes through all your canvases, and pitch your paints into
+the dam."
+
+The artist filled his mouth as full of tobacco smoke as he could, bent
+down, and puffed it in a long stream full in the boy's face, making him
+struggle afresh violently, but all in vain.
+
+"Well, you are a nice boy--very," said the artist.  "Your father must be
+very proud of you.  It is quite time you were washed; you've a deal of
+mischief in you that would be much better out.  Now then, it was Josh
+Carlile, wasn't it?"
+
+"I won't tell you.  Pitch us in if you dare.  Don't you mind, Josh.
+He's only saying it to frighten us."
+
+"Yes; a very nice boy," said the artist, gravely; "but as I promised, I
+won't be hard, for anyhow you've got some pluck.  Look here, how did you
+manage to get my gamp up yonder?"
+
+"Went up above and fished for it," said Will, coolly.
+
+"Fished for it?  What with?"
+
+"Water-cord and an eel-hook," growled Will.  "I say, Mr Manners, this
+is bad manners, you know; you do hurt awfully."
+
+"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed the artist, boisterously.  "Fished it up with an
+eel-hook?  Well, I suppose I am heavy.  Look here, if I let you get up,
+will you fish it down?"
+
+"Won't promise," growled Will.
+
+"All right; I believe you will," and he rolled off, leaving the boys at
+liberty to spring up, Josh to begin rubbing himself all over, Will to
+dash to the first big stone, catch it up, and make an offer as if to
+throw it at the artist's head.
+
+The latter blew a cloud of smoke at the passionate-looking lad, and sat
+looking him full in the face.
+
+"All right," he said, coolly; "chuck!"
+
+Will raised the stone as high as he could, and hurled it with all his
+might high in the air so that it should fall with a heavy splash into
+the pool below.
+
+"Ha!" cried the artist.  "Feel better now?"
+
+"Yes," said Will, brushing himself down.  "But I say, Mr Manners, you
+are a jolly weight."
+
+"Yes, I suppose I am.  I say, I'm going to have a try after the trout
+to-night.  Where had I better go?"
+
+"Likely I'm going to tell you after serving me like this!"
+
+"Of course it is.  I was going to ask you to come."
+
+"Will you ask me, if I do?"
+
+"Likely I'm going to ask you after serving my gamp like that!"
+
+"Oh, I'll soon get that down," replied Will, cheerily.  "Here! you go,
+Josh.  I put it up.  I'm tired now; I had all his weight on me."
+
+"Well, but I had all his weight and yours too, and I'm sore all over."
+
+"You can't be," said Will.  "You must be sore all under, for you were at
+the bottom."
+
+"Oh, but I can't, Will.  I feel as if I was tired out."
+
+"All right," cried Will, "I'll go;" and, springing up, he scampered down
+to the level where the easel and canvas still stood, and climbed up as
+the others followed more slowly; and a few minutes later the umbrella
+came parachute-like down, to be folded up by its owner.  Will shouldered
+the easel, Josh tucked the canvas under his arm, and they all walked
+up-stream together as if nothing had happened, towards Drinkwater's
+attractive little cottage, which formed the temporary home of the lover
+of rustic art, and discoursing the while about the red-spotted beauties
+whose haunts Will was to point out that evening after tea.
+
+The cottage with its pretty garden was reached, and the boys handed
+their loads to the owner.
+
+"What time will you be here?" he said.
+
+"We ought to start at five," replied Will, "but we can't get here till
+nearly six, because Josh is going to have tea with me."
+
+"Look here, both of you come up and have tea with me.  Mrs Drinkwater
+shall put two extra cups."
+
+"Mean it?" cried Will.
+
+"Mean it?" said the bluff artist.  "Why, of course!"
+
+The next minute the boys were walking down together towards the mill.
+
+"Say, Josh," said Will, thoughtfully, "he isn't such a bad fellow, after
+all."
+
+"No," said josh, dubiously, "but he's an awful weight."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOUR.
+
+LOST ON THE TOR.
+
+"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 he would like to come.  I should be
+very pleased to see him.  But don't worry the man."
+
+"Oh, I'm sure he would, father," said Will; "wouldn't he, Josh?"
+
+"Yes," said Josh, quickly.  "I know he's been wanting to see the place."
+
+"He's thrown out hints," said Will.
+
+"Oh, has he?" said the mill-owner, with a smile.  "Thrown out hints, eh?
+Well, I shall be delighted to see him.  But I thought you two chaps
+were not on very good terms with him."
+
+"Oh yes, father; it's all right now.  Of course we thought that he was
+only a painter, but he is really a splendid chap.  Come on, Josh; we'll
+get him to come up now."
+
+"Only a painter," said Mr Willows, with a laugh, as he looked after
+them.
+
+The two lads started for the cottage where the artist, who was making
+picture after picture of the neighbourhood, took his meals--when, that
+is, he did not picnic in the open, which was fairly frequently--and
+where he slept--and one could sleep in that crisp mountain air.
+
+"No, my dears," said Mrs Drinkwater, who had come down to the little
+white gate to speak to them, "Mr Manners is out, I am very sorry."
+
+"Oh!" said Will.
+
+"Where's he gone?" asked Josh.
+
+"He went off very early this morning, sir," said the woman.  "He told me
+to cut him some sandwiches.  He said that I would be away all day, as he
+was going as far as the Tor."
+
+"And never asked us!" cried Josh.  "What a jolly shame!"
+
+"Humph!  It is a pity," said Will, and he turned away.  "I say, why
+shouldn't we go after him?"
+
+"Perhaps he doesn't want us."
+
+"Nonsense!" said Will.
+
+"Then let's go.  I'm willing, only I thought you would say that it was
+too far."
+
+"It's you that would say that."
+
+"Bosh!" said Josh.
+
+"Go on.  Be funny.  Bosh, Josh!  That's a joke, I suppose."
+
+"Oh, all right; I'm ready," said Josh.  "But it is no end of a long
+way."
+
+"Why, we've been there lots of times before now."
+
+"Yes, but we started early in the morning."
+
+"It doesn't matter," said Will.  "I have been wanting to go there again
+for a long time."
+
+The Great Gray Tor was surrounded by mists which were wreathed round it
+half-way up, while the dark summit peering out above the vapour looked
+like some vast head emerging from a miniature sea.
+
+"It's glorious," said Will, as the two boys got away into the wild
+rugged country, clothed here and there with marshes where numbers of
+flowers were growing luxuriantly, their blooms making bright splashes of
+colour.  "Fancy his wanting to paint all this, though!"
+
+"Oh, I believe he would paint anything."
+
+"Well, he will soon have finished everything here.  He's done the mill,
+and the sunsets, and old Drinkwater's cottage.  There will be nothing
+left soon for him to daub."
+
+"Oh, yes; there will," said Josh, knowingly, as they trudged on.  "I
+heard my father talking about it.  He said these artist chaps had a new
+way of looking at everything each day of their lives.  So that means
+that he will want to paint everything all over again.  Glad I am not an
+artist.  I don't like doing things over again."
+
+"Ho!" said Will.  "I don't care."
+
+"No more do I," said Josh, "for I'm not an artist and I am not going to
+be one.  But what are you staring at?"
+
+"I've lost the way," said Will, at last.
+
+"Ditto," said Josh.  "Have you really?  Shout.  Mr Manners might hear."
+
+"You shout."
+
+Josh did so.
+
+"Bah!  Nobody could hear that."
+
+Josh shouted once more.
+
+"Shout again," said Will.
+
+"No, you have a try.  I shall be hoarse."
+
+"All right then.--Mr Manners--ahoy!"
+
+"He won't hear the Mister," said Josh, scornfully.
+
+"No, of course not," said Will.  "Manners--ahoy!"
+
+"Ahoy!" came in a faint whisper.
+
+"It's an echo," said Josh.
+
+"Well, I know that, stupid."
+
+"He may have come round another way," hazarded Josh.
+
+"May anything," said Will.  "But I don't believe there is another way.--
+Mr Manners!--Ahoy!" he shouted.
+
+"Ahoy-oy?" came back faintly again.
+
+"There!"
+
+"It is only the echo.  Seems too foolish to lose your way in a place
+like this."
+
+"Good as anywhere else," said Josh, cheerily.  "But there's the Tor, and
+there's Mr Manners."
+
+"Where is he?" said Will, sharply.
+
+"Why, at the Tor."
+
+"Ugh!  There, come on.  None of your jokes."
+
+"Well, we can't be far wrong," said Josh.
+
+"We might be miles out," said Will; "and it will be dark soon.  We were
+precious stupids to come all this way on the bare chance of meeting him.
+He may have gone off home."
+
+"Then we should have been sure to meet him."
+
+"Why?" said Will.
+
+"Because he would have come this way.  It's the only safe one, on
+account of the bogs.  Somewhere near here a man and a horse were
+swallowed up once."
+
+"Don't believe it," said Will.
+
+"You ask father."
+
+It was steady uphill work now; then real climbing; here and there their
+way was checked by a miniature heather-crowned crater, down which they
+peered, to see stony ledges and then a sheer fall.
+
+"He is only an ignorant Londoner after all," said Will, thoughtfully, as
+they scrambled on.  "He might have let himself fall down one of those
+places."
+
+"Any one might do that," said Josh.  "Hark!  What's that?"
+
+"Didn't hear anything," said Will.
+
+"That's because you don't listen.  Now!" said Josh, sharply.
+
+Will uttered a cry.
+
+"Yes," he said, excitedly.
+
+"You heard it?"
+
+"Yes, yes!"
+
+There was a groan.
+
+"There!" cried Will.  "It's Mr Manners, and something's happened to
+him.--Manners!--Ahoy!"
+
+No answer came.
+
+"Wouldn't be having a game with us, would he?"
+
+"No," said Josh.  "I don't think he'd do that."
+
+"Then let's go on a bit farther."
+
+The late afternoon sun lit up the valley away to the left, which the Tor
+had hitherto concealed from their view.  They scrambled on in the heat
+over the rough stone escarpments and amidst the gorse.
+
+"Now, let's listen again," said Will.
+
+They halted, and Josh wiped his streaming face.
+
+"Shout again," he said huskily.
+
+"Shall I?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Manners!--Ahoy!" shouted Will.
+
+There was no response.
+
+"Perhaps it wasn't he," said Josh.
+
+"Perhaps he's so busy painting something or another that he hasn't been
+able to hear."
+
+"Oh, perhaps anything," said Will.  "Come on, I am certain now.  It's
+that big cleft where we found the stonechats.  He will have fallen down
+there, paint and all."
+
+"Help!" came faintly now.  "Help--help!"
+
+"Hear that?" panted Josh, looking scared, and then radiant.
+
+"Yes," said Will; "I hear.  He's in danger."  And the two lads tore on
+as fast as they could up the steep slippery incline.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIVE.
+
+THE SEARCH PARTY.
+
+"Master Will has not been back, sir," said the servant, when Mr Willows
+inquired towards evening as to the whereabouts of his son.
+
+"But," he said to himself, "he was going to fetch that artist.  Oh, he
+will be all right."
+
+Yet as evening wore on the mill-owner began to feel anxious, and his
+anxiety caused him to take his hat and stick and walk up to the
+Vicarage.
+
+"Will?" said the Vicar, "No.  Isn't he at the mill?"
+
+"No--nor Josh."
+
+"Ah!" said the Vicar.  "I have not seen either of them all day."
+
+"Humph!  They ought to be able to take care of themselves by this time.
+But I shall go on to Drinkwater's cottage and inquire."
+
+"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 road to the cottage, "are so much
+together that I always feel that when Josh is out he is sure to be at
+the mill.  That is why I never feel particularly surprised when he does
+not come back to meals."
+
+"Just so; but they are so ready to be up to mischief that I am beginning
+to be afraid.  Ah! at last," continued Mr Willows, with a sigh, as they
+reached the cottage, where lights shone already through the
+white-curtained windows.
+
+He passed through the nicely kept garden and knocked at the door, which
+was opened by Mrs Drinkwater, who curtseyed when she saw who her
+visitors were.
+
+"Have you seen my son, Mrs Drinkwater?" asked Mr Willows.  "Did he
+come here to-day to see Mr Manners?"
+
+"Yes, sir; this morning," said the woman, making way for the two
+visitors to enter the neatly furnished sitting-room, where supper was on
+the way.
+
+"Oh! this morning?  But I am disturbing you at supper.  Evening, James,"
+he said, as he and his companion entered the room, to see Drinkwater,
+who was just finishing his meal.
+
+"Good-evening, sir.  Disturbing me?  No matter, master," said the man,
+rising and standing facing the newcomers, with one hand on the table.
+"So Master Will was here this morning, wife?"
+
+"Yes, yes," cried the woman; "as I say.  He and Mr Josh came down
+together.  They were looking for Mr Manners then, and seemed
+disappointed-like that he was out."
+
+"Of course," said the mill-owner; "of course.  They would be.  They
+wanted the artist to come to the mill.  Well, well!  And afterwards what
+happened?"
+
+"Well, sir, Mr Manners had gone, and that's all I know, sir.  The two
+young gentlemen went away together."
+
+"They went to look for him, naturally.  But where had he gone?"
+
+"He was going to the Tor, sir.  He went away early, with his canvas and
+things, to paint a picture."
+
+"You hear, Carlile?  Something must have happened, or they would have
+been back by now.  We must go.  Look here, Drinkwater, you will come
+with us?"
+
+"Yes, master," said the man, with surly readiness.
+
+"It may be some accident," continued Mr Willows.
+
+"Oh, I pray not, sir," said the woman.  "Those two dear lads, and Mr
+Manners, who is always so cheerful!"
+
+"Come then," cried Mr Willows.  "What are you looking for?"
+
+"Rope, sir," said the man, gruffly.  "It may be useful--and a lantern.
+We shall want it at least;" and as he spoke the words he pulled out of
+the chest over which he had been stooping a coil of hempen rope.  He
+then took a little lantern from a ledge and lit it.  "Now I am ready,
+master."
+
+"You are an excellent fellow, Drinkwater," said the mill-owner, clapping
+his hand on the other's shoulder, as they stepped out.
+
+"Nay, nay, master," said the man.  "I have the bad fits on me sometimes,
+and bad they are."
+
+"Bad fits?" said Mr Willows, in a puzzled way.  "What do you mean?"
+
+The man nodded.
+
+"Yes," he said, "yes.  That's what they are.  I can't help them,
+master."
+
+"Oh," said the mill-owner; "you must try."
+
+The bright light from the cottage door, at which the woman stood
+watching them, streamed out and lit up their path for a few steps.  Then
+they were in the pitch darkness, and in danger of completely losing
+their way, for it was rough broken country that lay between the little
+settlement and the Tor.  In that district villages were few and far
+between, and beyond Beldale there was uncultivated land for many miles.
+
+"They would be sure to come back this way, wouldn't they?" asked Mr
+Willows.  "Don't you think so, James?"
+
+"Pretty nigh certain, master," was the response, and the man held the
+lantern aloft and glanced round.  "It's a rough enough way and no
+mistake, if you can call it a way; but it's the only one I knows of.
+But don't you fret, sir.  Master Will can take care of himself, and as
+for Mr Manners, he's big enough, while Master Josh is a handy one too,
+They are sure to be all right, sir, take my word for it."
+
+"Yes," said Mr Willows; "but there are many dangerous places there out
+in the wilds, and boys are over-venturesome."
+
+"Humph!  The swamp?  Ay," said the man, thoughtfully.  "Yes, to be sure.
+But we shall find them, never fear."
+
+The Great Tor looked quite near at times, in the daylight, but that was
+merely base deception on the part of the atmosphere, for it was quite a
+long way, while now, at night, it was not to be seen at all.  It was on
+the tip of John Willows' tongue several times to ask Drinkwater if he
+were sure, but he reflected what would be the use?  For the man was
+plodding steadily on, and the tiny rays of his lantern fell on the rough
+grass and stones.  Evidently he knew quite well what he was about, for
+there was a certainty in his movements--never any hesitation.
+
+"Suppose," said the Vicar, "that they have gone back home another way."
+
+"Aren't no use supposing, sir.  I don't think as they have," said the
+man, quietly.  "This 'ere's the only safe way through the bog."
+
+"Very well," said Mr Willows, shortly.  "We must just press on.  I wish
+Mr Manners wouldn't lead our lads so far afield."
+
+"Yet, if they followed him--" said the Vicar.
+
+"Ah, yes, to be sure.  He strikes one as being a good reliable man.
+Ah!"  And he gave a snatch at the Vicar's arm.  "I was nearly down that
+time.  Terribly rough."
+
+"Terribly," was the reply.  "Drinkwater!"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Let us keep one each side of you.  It is so dark, and the lantern will
+help us better that way."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SIX.
+
+THE ARTIST'S PLIGHT.
+
+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.
+
+"Help!" came up faintly.
+
+"Mr Manners! where are you?  It's all right.  We're here."
+
+"Thank Heaven!  That you, boys?  Ah!  I am on a shelf down here--been
+here for hours--a long way down; and I have sprained something.  Can you
+get help?"
+
+"Well, we are here," said Will, "and I am coming down."
+
+"So am I," said Josh.
+
+"No, no.  It is too dangerous," came up.
+
+"Is it?" said Will.  "You lie quiet, Mr Manners.  We are coming.
+There," he continued to Josh, "take hold of the bracken, and keep your
+big boots out of my face, can't you?"  For he was already on his way
+down.
+
+"Same size as yours," said Josh.  "I say, it's precious deep!  Coming,
+Mr Manners--coming!"
+
+"Be careful," came faintly.
+
+"Oh, yes; we will be careful," said Will.  "Ah!  I say, Josh, look out
+there.  I slipped.  It's sheer down.  Oh, now I see.  Hallo, Mr
+Manners!  Come on, Josh.  'Tisn't as dark as I thought.  Here we are;"
+and the boy slipped the rest of the way down, to a fairly wide ledge, on
+which the artist lay in rather an awkward position.
+
+"Mr Manners, are you much hurt?" asked Will, as he dropped down softly
+by the artist's side.
+
+"Yes, my boy?  I am rather badly.  But take care.  Take care, Josh!"
+
+"Oh, we are all right, sir.  What's the matter?"
+
+"I fell while trying to get to that peak there for a better view."
+
+"But where does it hurt?" said Will.
+
+"I've twisted my arm," said the artist, "and injured my ankle to boot.
+That's a joke.  Look here, Will; you could help me to get my arm free.
+It's--it's painful; that's what it is."
+
+"Wait a minute," said Will; and he altered his position on the ledge,
+shifting himself along so as to be nearer to where the artist lay.
+"Now," he said.  "Ah!"
+
+"Yes, I am heavy, am I not?" said the artist, with a sort of chuckle.
+"Oh!" he continued, with a groan.  "I don't think it's possible for you
+to do it."
+
+"I think it is," said Will.  "You, Josh--Steady!--Yes, that's right; get
+down on his other side.  Now, Mr Manners, I will help to pull you over,
+and Josh shall push.  Now--are you ready?"
+
+"Ready!  Ay, ready!" said the artist, with a ghastly attempt at a smile.
+
+"Now then, Josh!"
+
+By an united effort the position of the artist was altered, and the
+victim to a nasty fall gave a sigh as he folded his injured left arm
+across his chest.
+
+"I--I--Brave boys!  Good lads!  I--"
+
+"Oh, that's all right, sir," said Will.  "I say, Josh!"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"He's fainted!"
+
+"Phew!" whistled Josh.  "Then he must be very bad."
+
+"I'm afraid he is."
+
+"Couldn't we ease him up a bit?"
+
+"No.  What I want to know is what we have got to do."
+
+"We have just got to hold on," said Josh, doggedly.  "That's what we've
+got to do."
+
+"No.  You run back, I tell you," gasped Will.  "Fetch help."
+
+"Run back!" said Josh, scornfully.  "Six miles!  I don't believe I could
+find the way; and anyhow I am not going to leave you two here."
+
+"But I can hold him fast; and how are we to get help if you don't?  I
+shall be here to see him."
+
+"So shall I," said Josh.
+
+"No, I tell you.  Climb up and get back home.  How are they to know?"
+
+"I don't know," said Josh.  "Did they know where we were coming?"
+
+"No.  How could they?"
+
+"Then it's just wait till morning.  Heigh-ho!"
+
+"But Mrs Drinkwater--"
+
+"Of course!" cried Josh.  "What a stupid I was!  Mrs Drinkwater knew."
+
+"She mightn't remember," said Will.
+
+"Of course she would.  Didn't she tell us where he had gone?"
+
+"Yes," answered Will; "but--there, Josh, you had better be off."
+
+"No.  Why don't you go?"
+
+"What, and leave you here?"
+
+"There!" said Josh.  "It's just the same.  But what's that?"
+
+"I didn't hear anything."
+
+"I did--a call.  There, can't you hear it now?"
+
+"It's a bird," said Will, as they both listened.  "That's all.  But
+there, if you won't go, I tell you what you might do--clamber up and
+hoist a signal."
+
+"What signal?"
+
+"Your handkerchief," said Will.
+
+"Would it do any good?" asked Josh.  "It's a precious long way up.  How
+is he?"
+
+Will leaned over the unconscious man.
+
+"Asleep, I think," he said quietly.  "How dark it's getting.  Look up
+there!  Why, the sky's nearly black."
+
+"I think I will climb up and shout," said Josh.  "They are sure to come
+and look for us, and that will help them."
+
+"Right," said Will.  "But mind how you go!"
+
+"Oh, yes; I'll be careful," said Josh, and he began slowly to climb.
+"It's much easier here," he said breathlessly.
+
+Will listened to his scrambling.
+
+"How are you getting on?" he asked.
+
+"Capitally.  I'm near the top."
+
+A few more minutes elapsed, and then a voice came down--
+
+"I'm up."
+
+"Right."
+
+"Will!"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I've fastened my handkerchief to the stump of a bush."
+
+"That's right."
+
+"I say!"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"How shall we get Mr Manners up when they do come?"
+
+"Push and pull," said Will.
+
+"But he's awfully heavy."
+
+"Oh, I know; but we shall manage.  I say, I wonder where his paint-box
+and things are.  Perhaps they all went down with him."
+
+"Not they," said Josh, as his foot kicked against something.  "They are
+all up here.  I've got them.  Isn't he awake yet?"
+
+"No--yes--I say, Mr Manners, are you better?"
+
+"I--Where am I?--Oh, yes, I remember.  Better?  I think so.  What are
+you doing here?"
+
+"Came to find you, and--"
+
+From above there came a shout.
+
+"Hallo!" said Will.  "That's Josh found then."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SEVEN.
+
+THE RESCUE.
+
+"That you, boys?" came from somewhere far above, out of the darkness,
+and it was Josh who answered, while Will said in a low tone:
+
+"I say, Mr Manners, I am glad.  Now don't you think you could get up?
+It's father and Mr Carlile."
+
+The artist made a brave attempt.
+
+"I could stand on one leg," he said, "but that's about all I'm good for.
+My ankle gives way at once."
+
+"Then we must just wait," said Will.  "That's the only thing to do.  It
+was my father who called.  Say, Josh!"
+
+"Hallo!"
+
+"That you, my boy?" came from above.
+
+"Yes, father."
+
+"I must sit down again," said the artist, in a low tone, for he had been
+standing supporting himself against the wall of the ledge.
+
+"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 brought wouldn't do it; and
+besides, we should have no purchase here."
+
+"Then what are we to do?" said Mr Willows, impatiently.  "Tell me what
+you advise."
+
+"There's another way down," said the man, sturdily.  "We couldn't pull
+him up there.  I know the place he's on.  We can get to it if we go
+along here; there's a zig-zag path."
+
+"Capital!" said the mill-owner.  "Come along."
+
+The path the man referred to was a roundabout one, but it led them to
+the place where the artist lay.
+
+"It's a good job we came, sir," said Mr Willows.  "Not a nice place to
+spend the night in.  You fell down here?"
+
+"Yes," said the artist; "unfortunately."
+
+"Humph!" said the mill-owner.  "Now we have got to get you up."
+
+"What a pity he's such a heavy-weight," said Will to Josh, in a whisper.
+
+"Drinkwater has found a special way down here.  You will have to lean on
+two of us and manage it somehow.  Mr Carlile, take the lantern, will
+you, please?  Now, Drinkwater, get hold of Mr Manners' other arm."
+
+"Right, master."
+
+"Do you think you can do it?" said Mr Willows.
+
+"Don't know," said the artist; "but I will try."
+
+"That's the style," said the mill-owner.  "There, lean heavily on me.
+You, Drinkwater, get firm hold of his other arm.  Slowly does it!"  And
+the little procession started.
+
+"It took me a long while to get here," said the artist, "but as for
+getting back--"
+
+"Don't you worry about that," said the Vicar.  "We shall manage all
+right, never fear."
+
+It was after about an hour that the Vicar went up to Mr Willows.
+
+"Now let me have a turn, Drinkwater," he said.
+
+"We are getting along so well that I think we had better not change,"
+said the mill-owner.
+
+Mr Carlile nodded.
+
+"Remember," he said, "that I am ready to act as relief directly I am
+needed."
+
+"I'll remember that," said Mr Willows.  "Here, Will, what are you
+doing?"
+
+"Carrying Mr Manners' tackle," said the lad.
+
+"Oh! then you, Josh.  Take the lantern for a bit."
+
+"Not at all," said the Vicar, stoutly.  "That little bit of duty I do
+cling to, and I am not going to surrender the light to any one.  How are
+you feeling, Mr Manners?"
+
+"Fairly, thank you," was the response; "but I am thankful that the
+journey is not twice as far."
+
+"Well, yes," said Mr Willows, dryly.  "We can do with it as short as it
+is.  Have a rest now, sir?"
+
+"No, no," said the artist; "not for a bit."
+
+It was a slow march home indeed, and later frequent rests had to be
+indulged in.
+
+"I say," said Will to Josh, "it's a pretty holiday, isn't it!  Here, you
+take these things.  Catch hold."
+
+"All right."
+
+The march was resumed.
+
+"Drinkwater is a trump," said Will at last.
+
+"Rather a surly one," said Josh.  "Why can't he be amiable?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Whatever he says has got a sort of a sting in it."
+
+"Hush!  He'll hear."
+
+"I wish he had."
+
+"Look here, my man," said Mr Carlile at last, "have a rest now for a
+bit.  I will go on the other side of Mr Manners."
+
+"No, no, sir; I can manage, thank ye," said Drinkwater.  "I am a strong
+one, you know, and it comes easy to such as me."
+
+"So I see.  But even the strong need rest, you know."
+
+The man shook his head.
+
+"I don't need no rest," he said.  "I have worked hard all my life, and
+it won't hurt me to do a bit more."
+
+"Hark at that," said Josh.  "Old grumpus!"
+
+"Better leave him alone," said Willows.  "He will have his own way.
+Don't interfere."
+
+"Oh, very well," said the Vicar.  "Want a rest, Mr Manners?"
+
+"No, no.  We had better get on.  What time is it?"
+
+"Midnight--just after," said the mill-owner.
+
+"Your wife will be anxious about you, Drinkwater," said the artist.
+
+"Not she," was the response.  "My wife knows me."
+
+"Old stupid!" said Will.  "As if we didn't know that!  How could she
+help knowing him when she's his wife?"
+
+"I wonder your father puts up with him as he does," said Josh.
+
+"Yes; I often wonder that," said Will.  "But then old Boil O does know
+such a lot.  Look at to-night, for instance.  Where should we have been
+without him?"
+
+"That's why he thinks he can be disagreeable, I suppose," said Josh.
+
+The cottage was reached at last, and evidently Mrs Drinkwater had been
+waiting anxiously all the time.  She came hurriedly down the garden path
+to meet the travellers.
+
+"Oh, Mr Manners," she said, "you have hurt, yourself!"
+
+"A trifle," he answered.  "But you will know how to treat an injured
+ankle, Mrs Drinkwater."
+
+"I think I do, sir," said the woman, brightly, as she preceded the
+little party into the cottage, and hastily put a cushion in the dark
+brown Windsor chair which stood sentry-like by the fire.
+
+Into this the artist was helped.
+
+"Thank you, gentlemen," he said, with a smile, as he gazed at his
+rescuers.  "Thank you, boys, and you, Drinkwater--very sincerely, one
+and all.  I am grateful.  Astonishing how helpless an accident like this
+makes a man.  Now with a cold compress and a rest I ought soon to be all
+right again."
+
+"I trust so," Mr Willows, with a smile, looking down at him; "only
+don't be in too much of a hurry to think you are well.  It is a case for
+one remedy, and that is r-e-s-t.  How are you going to get to bed?
+Shall I remain and assist?"
+
+"It's only up two stairs, sir," said Mrs Drinkwater, "and my man will
+help."
+
+"Of course he will," said the artist.  "I shall be quite all right.
+Good-night, friends, and a thousand thanks.  One day may I be able to do
+as much for you."
+
+"I'll take good care you don't," said Willows, with a laugh; and then as
+they started for home he clapped Will on the shoulder.  "Your artist's a
+splendid fellow," he said.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER EIGHT.
+
+DRINKWATER'S MANNERS.
+
+"Soon be able to walk all right; eh.  Mr Manners?" asked Will, who with
+Josh had come up to the cottage.
+
+"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 my mind's eye all the same,
+and I shall paint him whether he likes it or not," continued Mr
+Manners, as he looked laughingly at the boys, and then went on dipping
+his brush in the colours on the palette, rubbing it round and twiddling
+it in the pigment, while his landlord, pipe in mouth, gazed at him
+rather surlily.  "Wouldn't he make a fine picture?  Eh?"  And the artist
+leaned back in his chair and smiled good-humouredly first at Drinkwater
+and then at the boys, ending by shaking his head at his injured ankle,
+which was resting on another chair placed nearly in front of him.
+
+"I don't want my portrait painted, I tell ye," said the man, gruffly.
+
+"Hark at him!" said Manners.  "I should have thought he would be
+pleased."
+
+"What's the matter, Boil O?" asked Will.  "Did you get out of bed the
+wrong way this morning?"
+
+"No, sir," said the man, shortly.
+
+"Oh," said Will.
+
+"Leave the sulky bear alone," put in Josh.
+
+"Be quiet," said Will to his companion.  "I say, Boil O, old chap, when
+are you going to make me that fishing-rod you promised?"
+
+"Oh, I have no time to make fishing-rods for boys," said the man.  "I
+have to work."
+
+"Look at him.  How busy he is!" cried Will, with mock seriousness, while
+the artist made a vermilion smudge on his canvas as the ground plan of a
+sunset.
+
+"No, sir, no time.  Your father keeps me too busy."
+
+"Shame," said Will.  "Why, my father was saying only the other day that
+you had done so much good work for him all your life, that he would be
+very pleased to see you take things a bit easier now; so there."
+
+"'Tain't true," said the man.
+
+"What!" cried Will, his face growing very red.  "Don't you believe what
+I say?"
+
+"Not that exactly; but you don't know all I've done--no more than Mr
+Willows does, nor Mr Manners."
+
+"Oh, doesn't he?" said Will.
+
+"I know you to be a very faithful and good friend, Drinkwater," said the
+artist, making a dab, and then leaning back in his chair with his head
+on one side to judge the effect.
+
+"Look at him," said Will, in a whisper, to Josh.  "He always wags his
+head like that when he's at work painting.  What does he do it for?"
+
+"Oh, I heard what you said," continued the artist.  "I do it because I
+can judge distance better that way.  But as I was saying, Drinkwater
+here is a very good friend indeed, and if it had not been for his
+kindness, my little accident would have been twice as annoying as it is.
+Thanks to his help, I am able to go out painting and fishing all the
+same, and I am very grateful to him."
+
+"I don't want that, master," said the man.  "I don't want thanks;" and
+he slouched off, leaving the boys and the artist to continue the
+conversation.
+
+"Surly old toad!" said Will.  "What's wrong with him?"
+
+"Something must have put him out," said the artist.
+
+"But he's always getting into his nasty tempers."
+
+"Ah, well, he'll soon come round.  He has been most thoughtful for me."
+
+"But I say, Mr Manners," said Josh, "you will be able to come fishing
+to-night, won't you?"
+
+"Don't know," said the artist.
+
+"Oh, yes," cried Will.  "We will look after you; won't we, Josh?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+"All right, I'll come; but in a few days, you know, I shall be quite all
+right again."
+
+"Hooray!" cried Will.  "But I was forgetting: father sent me up here
+with his compliments, and he hopes you are going on A1."
+
+"So did mine," said Josh.
+
+"I am very grateful to Mr Willows and Mr Carlile," said the artist.
+"Very kind of them to have thought of me."
+
+Mr Manners' prophecy was quite right.  In a few days practically all
+trace of his unfortunate mishap on the Tor had vanished, and there
+followed not merely one fishing trip, but several, for the artist's
+chief recreation was throwing a fly, and one evening as he whipped the
+stream he turned quickly to the boys, who were a few yards away.
+
+"See that?" he said.
+
+"No," said Will.  "Was it a bite?"
+
+"No, no,--amidst those trees,--Drinkwater."
+
+"Oh," said Josh.  "What about him?"
+
+"I thought he wanted to speak to me," said the artist.  "It looked as
+though he crept away because he saw you."
+
+"Glad he's gone," said Will.  "I don't want him.  He's too plaguey
+disagreeable, isn't he, Josh?"
+
+"Yes," said the lad addressed.
+
+"No, no," said the artist.  "I am afraid something's wrong.  He was too
+good over my accident for me to run him down."
+
+"Don't run him down then," said Will; "but he is getting to be an old
+curmudgeon all the same."
+
+"He has been with your father a long time."
+
+"What, old Boil O?" said Will, who had begun to draw in.  "Oh, yes,
+years and years.  He used to be a very good sort of a chap, but of late
+something's made him as cross as a bear."
+
+"Perhaps he doesn't like you calling him Boil O," said the artist,
+taking out his book and carefully selecting a fresh fly, fastening the
+other in his hat.
+
+"Oh, he doesn't mind that," said Will.  "Besides, it's his name, or was
+his name before it was changed to Drinkwater."
+
+"I wish I could find out what has upset him," said the artist.
+
+"It's nonsense, Mr Manners," said Will.  "Old Boil O was always like
+that at times, and he's as close as--as anything.  He gets some pepper
+in him somehow.  But he will come round.  He always does.  It's just his
+way.  He's a strange chap.  Fancy his creeping about after you like
+that."
+
+"I take it as a compliment," said the artist, smiling.  "Drinkwater and
+I are very good friends."
+
+"Well, my father likes him," said Will, "and thinks he's a very good
+workman, but his rough manners--"
+
+"You are not speaking of me, I hope?" said the artist.
+
+"Speaking of you!  No.  But my father says that he often feels irritated
+by him."
+
+"Ah!" said the artist, reflectively.  "He never shows them to me when we
+have a pipe together at night.  He is a very interesting character,
+Will.  Of course, as somebody said, `manners makyth man--'"
+
+"Oh," said Will, "I thought Manners made pictures."
+
+"No wonder you lost that fish," said the artist, dryly, "if you waste
+your time making bad jokes."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER NINE.
+
+A QUEER CHARACTER.
+
+"Old Boil O's in a regular rage," said Josh, laughing.
+
+"Well, but he hasn't been talking to you about it, has he?" replied
+Will.
+
+"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."
+
+"Old Drinkwater had better keep his tongue quiet," said Will, shortly,
+"or he'll make my father so much off his head that he will give him what
+he calls the sack."
+
+"Nonsense!  Your father would not turn away such an old servant as
+that."
+
+"He wouldn't like to, of course," said Will, loftily; "but Boil O has
+grown so precious bumptious, and he doesn't care to do this, and he
+doesn't care to do that.  I believe he thinks he's master of the whole
+place."
+
+"Well, he always was so ever since I can remember; but--tchah!--your
+father would not turn him away.  My father says he is the most useful
+man he ever knew.  Why, he's just like what we say when we count the
+rye-grass: soldier, sailor, tinker, tailor--you know."
+
+"Oh, yes, I know," said Will, "and he isn't soldier nor thief; but he
+can do pretty well everything, from making a box, plastering and
+painting, to mending a lock or shoeing a horse.  But such impudence!  My
+father mad, indeed!  I think it was a very wise thing for him to do, to
+buy that engine so cheaply.  The old mill's nearly all wood.  Suppose it
+were to catch fire?"
+
+"Bother!" said Josh.  "Why hasn't it caught fire all these two hundred
+years since it was built?"
+
+"Because everybody's been so careful," said Will.  "But it might catch
+fire any day."
+
+"Pigs might fly," said Josh.  "Well, suppose it did.  Haven't you got
+plenty of water to put it out?"
+
+"Yes, but how are you going to throw it up to the top?  Why, with that
+engine hose and branch, now old Boil O's put the pump suckers right, you
+could throw the water all over the place a hundred feet, I daresay, in a
+regular shower.  Ha, ha, ha!  I say, Josh, what a game!"
+
+"What's a game?"
+
+"Shouldn't I like to have the old thing out, backed up to the dam, with
+some of the men ready to pump--a shower, you know."
+
+"Well, I suppose you mean something, but I don't understand."
+
+"A shower--umbrella."
+
+"Well, everybody puts up an umbrella in a shower."
+
+"Yah!  What an old thick-head you are!--old Manners sitting under his
+umbrella, and we made it rain."
+
+Josh's face expanded very gradually into the broadest of grins,
+wrinkling up so much that it was at the expense of his eyes, which
+gradually closed until they were quite tightly shut.
+
+"Oh, no," he said at last.  "It would be a game, but,"--he began to rub
+himself gently with both hands--"the very thought of it makes me feel as
+if my ribs were sore.  He was such a weight."
+
+"Yes, we mustn't play any more tricks; he's such a good chap.  But about
+old Boil O--I don't like his turning so queer.  He went on at me like a
+madman--I felt half frightened--said all sorts of things."
+
+"What sort of things?"
+
+"Oh, that father imposed upon him because he was a poor man, and set him
+to do all kinds of dirty jobs about the place because he was willing.
+Said he'd repent it some day.  When you know father picks out those jobs
+for him because he's such a clever old chap and does the things better
+than the clumsy workmen from the town.  But as for imposing upon him,"
+said the boy, proudly, "father would not impose upon anybody."
+
+"No, that he wouldn't.  My father says he's the most noble-hearted,
+generous man he ever knew; he's always ready to put his hand in his
+pocket for the poor."
+
+"So he is," cried Will.  "Impose!  Why, do you know what he pays old
+Boil O every week?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then I shan't tell you, because that's all private; but just twice as
+much as he pays any of the other men."
+
+"And he has that cottage rent-free, hasn't he?"
+
+"Yes, and Mrs Drinkwater makes a lot every year by letting her rooms to
+the artists who come down.  She charges just what she likes, and the
+people are glad to pay it, because it's such a nice place, and Mrs
+Waters makes them so comfortable.  Why, look at old Bad Manners--this is
+the third year he's been down to stay a couple of months.  Now what has
+old Boil O got to grumble about."
+
+"Nothing," said Josh; "only against himself.  My father says that he was
+born in a bad temper.  Why, he won't even say `Good-morning' sometimes,
+only gives you a surly scowl or a snap as if he were going to bite."
+
+"`Let dogs delight to bark and bite, for 'tis their nature to'--that's
+poetry.  Hollo!  What's the matter now?"
+
+The two lads looked sharply round in the direction of the mill-yard,
+from whence a loud, strident voice was heard, saying something in angry
+tones, which rose at last to a passionate outburst, drowning the deep
+voice of someone responding, and echoing strangely from the high,
+cliff-like walls above the picturesque old mill.
+
+"It's old Drink in one of his fits," said Josh.  "Come on; let's see
+what's the matter."
+
+Will had already started off at a dog trot, and the boys ran side by
+side towards the mill-yard, where quite a little group of the
+silk-weavers and their wives and daughters were hurrying out to
+ascertain the cause of the trouble.
+
+"Why, there's father there," said Josh.
+
+"What is the matter now?" cried Will.
+
+The next minute they knew, for, as they readied the spot where
+grave-looking John Willows stood looking like a patriarch amongst his
+people, beside his friend the gray-headed Vicar, a short, almost
+dwarfed, thick-set, large-headed man, with a shiny bald head fringed by
+grisly, harsh-looking hair,--and whose dark, wrinkled face was made
+almost repellent by the shaggy brows that overhung his fierce, piercing,
+black eyes--took a step forward menacingly, and holding out his left
+hand, palm upwards, began beating it with his right fist, fiercely
+shouting in threatening tones--
+
+"It's been so from the first, John Willows, ever since I came to this
+mill as a boy.  You've been a tyrant and a curse to all the poor,
+struggling people who spent their days under you, not as your servants,
+but as your slaves."
+
+"Oh!  Oh!  Oh!  No!  No!  No!" rose from the hearers, in a murmured
+chorus of protest.
+
+"Silence there!" yelled the man, furiously.
+
+"You cowardly fools!  You worms who daren't speak for yourselves!
+Silence, I say, and let one who dares speak for you."
+
+The Vicar stepped forward and laid his hand on the speaker's shoulder.
+
+"Drinkwater, my good fellow!  My good friend!  Pray be calm.  You don't
+know what you are saying!--you don't know what you are saying!"
+
+"Oh, yes, I do, Parson.  Don't you interfere," added the man, fiercely.
+
+"But, my dear sir--"
+
+"Oh, yes, I know!  I know you, too, better than you know yourself.  You
+belong to his set.  You side with the money.  Make friends with the
+mammon of unrighteousness, as you'd say, with that with which he grinds
+down all these poor, shivering wretches--money, money, money!  Piling up
+his money-bags, and making us slaves!"
+
+"Drinkwater, I cannot stand and listen to this without raising my voice
+in protest."
+
+"Because it gives you a chance to preach," said the man, with a bitter
+sneer.
+
+Will's father stepped forward, but the Vicar raised his hand.
+
+"One moment, Mr Willows," he said, quietly.  "No, James Drinkwater," he
+went on, gravely, "I raise my voice in protest, because everyone who
+hears you knows that what you say is utterly false.  They are the angry
+words of an over-excited man.  You are not yourself.  You have let your
+temper get the better of you through brooding over some imaginary
+grievance, and to-morrow when you are calm I know from old experience
+that you will bitterly regret the insults you have heaped upon the head
+of as good and true-hearted a man as ever stepped this earth."
+
+Drinkwater was about to reply, but he was checked by a fresh speaker,
+for Will suddenly threw up his cap high in the air with as loud a hurrah
+as he could utter, acting as fugleman to the group around, who joined in
+heartily, helped by Josh, in a cheer, strangely mingled, the gruff with
+the shrill of the women's voices.
+
+"Well done!" whispered Will, half-bashfully shrinking back, and gripping
+his comrade's arm.  "Oh, Josh, I never knew your father could preach
+like that!"
+
+"Cowards!  Pitiful, contemptible worms!  That's right; put your necks
+lower under his heel.  I'll have no more of it.  From this day, after
+the words he's said to me this morning, never another stroke of work I
+will do here."
+
+"Stop, James Drinkwater," cried Will's father, firmly; "as the Vicar
+says, you are not yourself.  Don't say more of the words of which you
+will bitterly repent, when you grow calm--when this fit has passed--and
+can see that the fault I found this morning was perfectly justified by
+your neglect, in a fit of temper, of a special duty--a neglect that
+might have resulted in a serious accident to the machinery, perhaps loss
+of life or limb to some of the people here."
+
+"It's a falsehood," shouted the man.  "If I left out those screws it was
+because I was dazed--suffering from overwork--work forced upon me that I
+was not fit to do, but heaped upon me to save your pocket and the
+blacksmith's bill."
+
+"No," said John Willows, gravely; "I asked you to repair that engine
+because I knew it was a mechanical task in which you delighted to
+display your skill--because you would do it better than the rough smith
+of the town."
+
+"Nay, it was to save your own pocket."
+
+"That is untrue," said Mr Willows, "and, if any of your fellow-workers
+like to go into the office, the clerk will show them that a liberal
+payment, to show my satisfaction over the way the work was done, has
+been added as a bonus to your weekly wage."
+
+Another cheer arose at this, which seemed to add fresh fuel to the angry
+fire blazing in the half-demented man's breast.
+
+"Bah!" yelled Drinkwater, more furious than ever.  "Oil!  To smooth me
+down.  But it's too late now.  It has meant years of oppression, and the
+end has come.  But don't think I mean to suffer like these cowardly
+worms.  I too have been your worm for years, and the worm has turned at
+last--a worm that means to sting the foot that has trampled upon it so
+long.  Here, what do you want, boy?"  For Will had stepped forward, and
+thrust his hand through the man's arm.
+
+"You, James, old chap.  You come away.  Mr Carlile was right; you don't
+know what you are saying, or you wouldn't talk to father like that."
+
+"Let go!" cried the man, fiercely trying to shake the boy off; but Will
+clung tightly.
+
+"No--come and take his other arm, Josh--here, come on up to the cottage,
+Jem.  What's the good of going on--"
+
+Will did not finish his sentence, for a heavy thrust, almost a blow,
+sent him staggering back towards Josh, who had hurried up, and was just
+in time to save his companion from a heavy fall.
+
+This was too much for Will's father, whose calm firmness gave way.
+
+"Yes," he said, angrily, "it does now come to that!  You talk of putting
+an end to the oppression under which you seem to writhe.  It shall be
+so.  I, as your employer, tell you most regretfully, James Drinkwater,
+that from this day your connection with the mill must cease--I will not
+say entirely, for it would cause me bitter regret to lose so old and
+valued a servant; but matters cannot longer go on like this.  In justice
+to others, as well as myself, this must come to an end.  You have always
+been a difficult man with whom to deal, but, during the past six months,
+a great change has come over you, and I am willing to think that much of
+it is due to some failing in your health.  There: I will say no more.
+This shall not be final, James.  I speak for your wife's sake as well as
+your own.  Go back to the cottage, and, if you will take advice, you
+will go right away for a month, or two, or three.  You are not a poor
+man, as you have proved to me by your acts, by coming to your bitter
+tyrant to invest your little savings again and again.  Now, sir, speak
+out as you did just now, so that all your fellow-workers may hear.  Are
+not these words true?"
+
+James Drinkwater stood alone out there in the bright sunshine, which
+glistened on his polished bare crown as he glared at his employer,
+whilst his hands kept on opening and shutting in company with his lips.
+
+"Yes," he uttered, at last, in a low, fierce growl, "that's true enough.
+Why shouldn't I?  Do you think I want to end my days in the Union when
+you kick me off like a worn-out dog?  Yes, yes, I'll go; but look out.
+Long years of work have not crushed all the spirit out of your slave.
+Look out!  Look out!  The worm has turned, and the days are coming when
+you will feel its sting."
+
+He snatched himself fiercely round, and made for the stony slope--
+half-rugged steps--which led upwards towards the dam, and the Vicar
+hurried after him; but hearing his steps, the man turned and waved him
+back, before striding along till he stopped suddenly in the middle of
+the great stone dam, raised his clenched hands towards the sunlit
+heavens, and then shook them at the group below.
+
+The next minute he made a rush towards the path leading upward towards
+his cottage, passing Mr Manners, who was hurrying down, and disappeared
+amongst the trees.
+
+"Why, hollo!" shouted the artist.  "What's the matter with my landlord?
+I was going to strip for a swim.  Has he turned mad?  I thought he was
+going to jump in."
+
+"I'm afraid that he ought to see a doctor," said the Vicar, gravely.
+"He is evidently suffering from a terrible fit of excitement," and as
+they joined Mr Willows and the murmuring group of work-people below, he
+continued; "You see a great deal of him, Mr Manners.  Have you noticed
+anything strange in his ways?"
+
+"Strange?" said the artist, bluffly.  "Well, yes, he's always strange--a
+silent, morose sort of fellow.  But I don't dislike him; he's a very
+straightforward, good man, who rather looks down on me.  We hardly ever
+speak, but I have noticed that his wife has seemed a little more
+troubled than usual lately.  I left her crying only just now, and asked
+what was the matter; but all I could get was that her husband was not
+well.  What's been going on here?  I heard him shouting as soon as I
+came outside."
+
+"Ah!  That sounds bad," continued the artist, as soon as the Vicar had
+related the incident that had passed.  "Poor fellow!  He doesn't drink,
+I know: sober as a judge.  Temper--that's what it is."
+
+"I don't like to hear those threats," said the Vicar.
+
+"Pooh!  Wind!  Fluff!  People say all sorts of things when they are in a
+passion, and threaten high jinks.  I do sometimes, don't I, boys?  Take
+no notice, Mr Willows.  We are not going to have the peace of our happy
+valley spoiled because somebody gets in a fantigue.  Well, boys, how
+does the fire-engine go?"
+
+"Haven't tried it yet," said Will.
+
+"H'm!  Can't we have a bit of a blaze?  I should like to come and help
+to put it out."
+
+"I think we ought to have got it out to play on poor old Boil O, for
+he's been quite red-hot."
+
+"Look here, young fellow, you're rather fond of those little games, as I
+well know."
+
+The boys both looked very guilty, and turned scarlet.
+
+"You take a little bit of advice.  Don't you try such a trick as that on
+him.  It wouldn't do."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TEN.
+
+AMONG THE TROUT.
+
+The next week passed, and the next, and more than one of the employes
+said a word or two to Will about how strange it seemed without James
+Drinkwater.
+
+They were not alone, for Mr Willows made the same remark to his son.
+
+"The place doesn't seem the same, Will, without James in his old place.
+By the way, have you seen anything of him since?"
+
+"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 into the woods.  Josh said that he
+shied at me."
+
+"But you, my boy?  You didn't show any resentment for his behaviour to
+you?"
+
+"I?  Oh, no: not I, father; I didn't mind.  I knew he was in a temper.
+I should have gone and shaken hands with him if he had stopped."
+
+"Quite right, my boy.  He'll be better soon, and come back, like the
+true, honest fellow he is, and ask to be taken on."
+
+"But what about his threats, father?"
+
+"Pooh!" ejaculated Mr Willows.  "Mr Manners was right."
+
+One afternoon Josh came down as usual from the Vicarage, rod in hand.
+
+"What about fishing, Will?" he said.  "There's a lot of fly out on the
+upper waters.  Get your rod, and let's rout out old RA, and see if we
+can't show him some better sport than we had the other evening."
+
+"Ah, yes," said Will.  "I believe he thought we took him where there
+wasn't a fish, just to play him a trick."
+
+"Yes, that comes of getting a bad character," said Josh.  "He'll be
+treating us like the shepherds did the boy in the fable who cried
+`wolf!'"
+
+"Oh, bother!  There were plenty of fish up there, only they had been
+having a good feed, and wouldn't rise."
+
+The boy hurried off to where his long, limber, trout rod was resting on
+three hooks, all ready with winch, taper line, and cast, under the eaves
+of the mill-shed nearest to the water.
+
+"What flies are you going to try?" said Josh.
+
+"Oh, black gnats."
+
+"No, I wouldn't," said Josh.  "Red spinner is the one for to-night."
+
+"Ah, to be sure!  Have you got any?"
+
+"Have you?"
+
+"Not one; but you have, or else you would not have proposed them."
+
+"Come on; but I say, doesn't it look black!" said Josh.
+
+"Yes, we shall have some rain to-night, I think," said Will; "and if it
+does come down and Bad Manners gets wet, he'll think it another trick!"
+
+The boys shouldered their rods, and went up upon the dam, whose waters
+looked deep and dark, and smooth as glass, save where here and there a
+big trout quietly sucked down some unfortunate fly, forming
+ever-expanding rings on the mirror-like surface.
+
+"My!  There's a whopper!" cried Josh, as the fish broke the surface with
+a loud smack.
+
+"What are you going to do?" cried Will.
+
+"Do?  Why, have a few throws; they are rising splendidly."
+
+"More reason why we should fetch old Manners."
+
+"All right," said Josh, securing his fly again to one of the lower rings
+of his rod, shouldering it, and following his companion along the
+ascending path leading to the cottage.
+
+They had passed along the second of the zig-zags when, at the third
+turn, they came suddenly upon Drinkwater standing in the shade of a
+drooping birch, gazing intently down upon the mill.
+
+The boys were close upon him before he heard their steps, and then,
+starting violently, he wrenched himself round, leaped actively upon a
+heap of stones at his side, seized one of the hanging boughs, dragged
+himself up, and dived at once into the dense undergrowth, disappearing
+with a loud rustling amongst the bracken.
+
+"All right, old chap!" said Will, cavalierly, "just as you like!  But
+you are fifty, and I wouldn't behave like a sulky boy."
+
+"Oh, take no notice," said Josh.  "Father says that he is sure to come
+round."
+
+"Not going to," said Will.  "Come along."
+
+Ten minutes later they reached the cottage gate, to find Drinkwater's
+sad-looking, patient-faced wife looking anxiously over the hedge.
+
+"How are you, Mrs Waters?" cried Will, cheerily.  "We haven't come for
+tea this time.  We are going to catch some trout--a good creelful--for
+you to cook."
+
+"I hope you will, my dears," said the woman, gently.  "Mr Manners was
+sadly disappointed the other night.  He said he thought that you had
+played him another trick."
+
+"There, what did I say?" cried Will.  "Is he in his room?"
+
+"No, my dears; he's painting down by the birches, below the cave."
+
+"All right," cried Will.  "Look here; I'll take his rod and basket."
+
+The creel was hanging from a nail beneath the cottage porch, and the rod
+stood up like a tall reed with its spear stuck in one of the garden
+beds; and, quite at home, Will took them from their resting-places,
+swung the creel strap across his back, laid the rod alongside his own
+over his shoulder, and then walked sharply on along familiar paths, with
+a booming noise growing louder and louder as they progressed, till at
+one of the turns of the stream they came full in sight of the great fall
+where the water was thundering down into the rocky hollow it had carved,
+and a faint mist of spray rose to moisten the overhanging ferns.
+
+"Big mushroom, Josh!" cried Will, pointing to the great, open umbrella.
+"What shall we do?  Say we are coming with a stone?"
+
+"No, no," said Josh; "no larks now."
+
+"Well, I could hit it like a shot," said Will, picking up a rounded
+pebble.
+
+"Why, so could I, if you come to that," said Josh.
+
+"Not you!  Come, let's try."
+
+"No, no; I don't want to tease him.  Let's get him on to fish."
+
+"You couldn't hit it," said Will.
+
+"All right; think so if you like," said Josh, and Will sent his stone
+flying with a tremendous jerk right away into the trees beyond the
+stream.
+
+"Coo-ee!" he shouted.  "Mr RA!  Ahoy!"
+
+"Don't!" cried Josh.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"He won't like it.  Father says that he told him once that he was sadly
+disappointed that he had not had more success with the pictures he sent
+to town."
+
+"Poor old chap!" said Will.  "Well, I suppose they were not very good."
+
+"That's what father thinks," said Josh.
+
+"How does he know?" said Will.
+
+"Oh, he says that if they were good they wouldn't all come back."
+
+"Well, RA goes on painting them all the same," said Will.  "Coo-ee!  Mr
+Manners, ahoy!"
+
+This time the artist looked up, rose from his seat, stretched himself,
+and waved his palette in the air.
+
+"Hollo, young 'uns," he said, as they came up; "off fishing again?"
+
+"Yes," said Will, "and I've brought your rod."
+
+"Very much obliged to you," said the artist, sarcastically.  "But not
+this time, thank you; I would rather paint."
+
+"Oh--oh!" cried Will.  "Do come!  I've brought your basket too."
+
+"To put nothing in, eh?  No, not this time, thanks."
+
+"But it's a good evening, Mr Manners, and the fish are rising
+splendidly."
+
+"Honour?" cried the artist, with a searching look.
+
+"Bright!" cried Josh, earnestly.
+
+"All right, then.  Here, I want to put in that little bit of sunlight,
+and then I'll come.  How do you think it looks?" he said, resuming his
+seat and beginning to paint once more.
+
+The boys were silent for a few moments, as they examined the picture
+critically.
+
+"Lovely," said Will, at last.
+
+"Yes," said Josh; "I like it better than that last you did."
+
+"Mean it, boys?"
+
+"Why, of course!" said the lads together.
+
+"Hum!  Hum!  Yes, it isn't so bad as usual," said the artist, sadly.  "I
+may say it is pretty.  But that's all.  I have tried very hard, but
+there is nothing great in my stuff.  I suppose I haven't got the right
+touch in me.  But never mind; painting has given me many a happy day
+amongst the most beautiful scenes in creation, and I suppose that I
+oughtn't to grumble if it gives me honest pleasure instead of coin.
+Why, it has made me friends, too, with a pair of as reckless young
+ruffians as ever gloried in playing a trick.  My word, Josh, I must be a
+good man!  If I hadn't a better temper than your friend Drinkwater,
+Master Will, I should have loosened both your skins with a good licking
+more than once."
+
+"Well, don't do it now," said Will, grinning.  "Mine feels quite loose
+enough, and I want you to come and fish."
+
+"Brought my rod, then, have you?  But what am I to do with my traps?"
+
+"Fold up the umbrum," said Will, "and I'll climb up here and stuff them
+into the cave.  Then they'll be out of the wet when the rain comes."
+
+"Ah, to be sure," said the artist.  "Capital!  But it isn't going to
+rain."
+
+"It is," said Will, decisively.  "Look yonder: the old Tor's got his
+nightcap on."
+
+"So he has," cried the artist, eagerly, as he looked up at the
+mountainous top, miles away, nearly hidden by a faint white mist.
+"Here, hold hard a minute; I must dash that in my picture."
+
+"No, no," cried the boys, in a breath.  "You can do that any time.  Come
+on."
+
+"Well, it seems a pity," said the artist, "but somehow you two always
+make me feel quite a boy again and ready to take holiday and play.
+There, put away my traps."
+
+A few minutes later, umbrella, easel, and colour-box were safely stowed
+away in a narrow opening in the face of the limestone rock, and the
+three were trudging on upwards to a mighty bend.  There a great rift
+opened out into a wide amphitheatre, where, shallow and bright with
+flashing stickle, the stream danced among the stones, to calm down
+directly after in deep pool after pool, which looked like so many
+silvery mirrors netted by the rings formed by the rising fish.
+
+"Now, Mr Manners," cried Josh, "what do you say to that?  Are there any
+trout in Willows' waters?"
+
+"Yes, splendid!  We ought to get some fish to-night.  Here, where are
+your creels?"
+
+"Haven't brought them," said Will.  "We are going to help fill yours."
+
+And they did, for the fish rose to nearly every cast, quarters and
+half-pounders, the artist to his great delight landing two both well
+over a pound, for it was one of those evenings when, as if warned by
+their natural instinct of a fast to come, the trout rose at every fly,
+taking in their heedless haste the artificial as well as the true, and
+only finding their mistake when gasping out their brief life upon the
+bracken laid at the bottom of the artist's creel.
+
+The trio fished on till the creel was nearly full, so intent upon their
+sport that they paid no heed to the gathering clouds, Nature's
+harbingers of the storm about to break among the hills, till a bright
+flash of light darted down the vale, followed almost instantaneously by
+a mighty crash, which went roaring and rumbling on in echoes, to die
+distantly away.
+
+"Hold on!" shouted Will.  "Look sharp; we shall have to run.  It'll be
+wet jackets as it is.  I say, Mr M, lucky I put away your traps!
+Wasn't I right?"
+
+"Right you were, young 'un," cried the artist, making a whizzing noise
+as he wound up his multiplying winch.  "But I'm not going to bark my
+shins running amongst these stones.  Now then, boys.  'Tention!
+Shoulder rods!  Right face!  March!"  And he led off at a rapid rate
+down by the side of the stream.  "Here, lads, that's heavy," he cried at
+the end of a few minutes, just as the rain began to make chess pawns
+upon the surface of the pools.  "I'll carry it now."
+
+"No, no," cried Will.  "But let's shelter here for a few minutes.  It's
+only going to be a shower now."
+
+He ran into where a great mass of slatey-looking rock stood out from the
+perpendicular side of the gorge, heedless of the fact that it
+necessitated splashing in through the shallow water, which nearly
+covered his boots.
+
+"Nice dry spot this," said the artist, laughing, as they stood in the
+ample shelter.
+
+"Oh, it is only wetting one's feet," said Will.  "We are quite dry
+upstairs."
+
+"Oh, I don't mind," said the artist.  "My word!  It is coming down.  How
+it hisses!  But you are right: it won't last long."
+
+In less than half an hour the sky was nearly clear again, but water
+enough had fallen to make the stream which rushed by their feet rise
+full five inches, bringing forth the remark from Josh that they were
+getting it warmly higher up in the hills.
+
+Possibly he alluded to the lightning, for flash after flash divided the
+heavens in zig-zag lines, though none seemed to come near them, and they
+were soon after tramping on, wet-footed only, back towards Vicarage,
+cottage, and mill.
+
+"I say, hark at the fall!" cried Will, as they neared the spot where
+they had picked up their friend.
+
+"Yes, it is coming down," said Josh.  "Well, your father wanted it."
+
+"Yes," said Will; "the dam was getting low.  I say, Mr Manners, I told
+old Mother Waters to get her frying-pan ready, for there'd be some
+fish."
+
+"Yes, and you were right this time," said the artist; "but I'm not going
+to take in all these.  Here, Will, pick out four brace of the best."
+
+"Shan't!" said Will, shortly.  "We get quite as many as we want.  Take
+them all in yourself.  One moment--send Mr Carlile up some instead.
+Here, come on; it's going to rain again.  My!  Isn't the fall thundering
+down!"
+
+Will was right.  Another heavy shower was coming over from the hills;
+but it did not overtake the party before they had all reached home, and
+then Nature made up for a long dry time by opening all her reservoirs,
+to fill pool, gully, and lynn, the waters roaring for hours down the
+echoing vale, till the next morning the placid stream was one foaming
+torrent that seemed to threaten to bear away every projecting rock that
+stood in its way, while every sluice was opened at the mill to relieve
+the pressure of the overburdened dam.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER ELEVEN.
+
+A NIGHT GOSSIP.
+
+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 until the disturbance at the mill,
+when Drinkwater had been turned off, there had been nothing to trouble
+him.  Since that occurrence, however, he had frequently come across his
+landlady with traces of tears in her eyes, and that evening when after
+parting with the two lads he reached the pretty cottage, she came out to
+meet him at the gate.
+
+"Oh, Mr Manners, sir," she said, "I'm afraid I'm afraid--"
+
+"Afraid what of, Mrs Drinkwater?"
+
+"I'm afraid that something's happened to my man.  He has not been home
+to-day."
+
+The artist led the poor woman into the kitchen.
+
+"Sit down, Mrs Drinkwater," he said, kindly.  "Now just listen to me.
+I, too, am deeply concerned about Drinkwater.  Can't you reason with
+him--make him see how wrong all this behaviour is, and convince him that
+he has only one sensible thing to do, namely, go and ask pardon of Mr
+Willows?"
+
+"Oh, I do wish I could, sir; but Jem won't listen to me.  He might
+listen to you, sir."
+
+"Ah, but you see this is not my business, Mrs Drinkwater."
+
+"No, sir, but he respects you, and he might perhaps pay attention to
+what you said."
+
+"Maybe," said the artist, thoughtfully.  "Well, I will see what I can
+do."
+
+"Thank you, sir--thank you!"
+
+"When did you see him last?"
+
+"It's two days ago now, sir."
+
+"Well, Mrs Drinkwater, we must hope for the best.  I have always found
+your husband willing and obliging up to quite recently.  It seems to me
+that if matters are put to him in a quiet common-sense way he will
+listen.  Hang it all, he will have to listen!  We can't have you crying
+your eyes out because he chooses to behave like a brute to you."
+
+"Oh, my Jem really means well, sir," said the woman; "I know he does.
+He has always been a good husband to me."
+
+Late that evening the artist thought over affairs.  It was a pleasant
+soft summer night, and when he was alone he quietly opened the cottage
+door, and lighting his pipe, sat down on the little rustic seat which
+was just outside.  There was hardly a sound--nothing but the night wind
+sweeping through the valley, the far-off plash of water, the purring
+noise of a big moth as it flew past and then hovered a second, attracted
+by the gleam of the artist's pipe.
+
+There was a step, loud and heavy, and Manners started to his feet as a
+burly figure suddenly appeared just in front of him.
+
+"Hallo, Drinkwater!" he cried.  "You, my man?"
+
+"Me it is, Mr Manners."
+
+"Oh, that's all right.  I was wanting to see you."
+
+"Wanting to see me?  What for?" said the man, gruffly.
+
+"Oh, for several reasons.  I don't like my landlord to go off for days
+together, nobody knows where."
+
+"Not wanted now," said the man, sourly--"Nobody wants me now."
+
+"That's not a fact, Drinkwater," said the artist, firmly.  "Not a bit
+true.  To begin with, I want you."
+
+"Pictures to see too?"
+
+"No, not pictures.  I just want to talk to you; that's all.  Have you
+got your pipe?  Oh, I see you have.  Here's my pouch.  Come, fill and
+light up, and sit down here.  It's a lovely night, isn't it?"
+
+"Humph!" grunted the man, as he obeyed and began to smoke.
+
+"Now," said the artist, cheerily, after a few minutes' silence, "what's
+wrong with you?  At least, I need not ask that.  You have quarrelled
+with your old friend and employer, for no reason, and it's no end of a
+pity, I can assure you.  You will not mind my speaking out plainly like
+this, as man to man, for I have known you a long time now; and besides,
+I'm under a debt to you for helping me that night."
+
+"Humph!" said the man again.
+
+"Now," said the artist, "has all this sulking done you any good?"
+
+"Good!" growled the man.  "Good!  No.  There has been no good in my
+life.  I have slaved it all away for a thankless taskmaster."
+
+"Bah!" said the artist, with a laugh.  "Mr Willows a taskmaster!  Why,
+it's too absurd!  He's one of the very best men that ever lived; and in
+your heart of hearts you know it, Drinkwater.  You know it quite well."
+
+"I want revenge," said the man.
+
+"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed the artist.  "Revenge!  Why, Drinkwater, it's
+really funny.  Revenge!  What are you going to do?  Blow up the mill?"
+
+"Eh?" said the man, shifting uneasily in his seat and turning to stare
+at his companion.  "Blow up the mill?  What, me?"
+
+"There, there," said Manners, "I didn't mean it.  It was only a joke.
+Think it over, Drinkwater.  Think it over," he continued, as the man
+rose; and the artist held out his hand, but whether it was the darkness
+which prevented his seeing the gesture, or for some other reason, the
+hand was not taken, and a moment later the man had entered the cottage,
+while the artist got up to follow him, for it was very late and he was
+tired.
+
+"What has he got in his head?" he mused.  "I don't like his manner at
+all."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWELVE.
+
+ON THE WATCH.
+
+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 wide pool, and, just as they reached
+them, with a hearty "Good-morning!"  Manners came up.
+
+Overhead, all was bright and clear, and, from Nature's newly washed
+face, a fresh, sweet scent rose into the air; but the lower part of the
+valley seemed quite transformed.  Sluices and waterfalls were gushing
+down everywhere, making for the main stream, which added to the general
+roar of water as it rushed along, racing for the overcharged river far
+away.
+
+Every moment some fresh sign of the mischief which had been done by the
+flood glided by.  The stream was no longer crystal-like and clear, but
+turgid with the soil swept from high up the banks; leaves, twigs, broken
+branches, and even trees, mostly root upwards, went bobbing by, every
+now and then to become anchored for a few moments amongst the stones,
+and forming some little dam which kept the water back till there was
+weight enough to overcome the obstacle and send it onwards with a rush.
+
+"Well," cried Manners, in his bluff way, "how is it, Mr Willows?  I
+woke up this morning, looked out of the window, and then dressed in a
+flurry, to hurry down, half expecting that the mill had been swept
+away."
+
+"I, too," said the Vicar, "felt a bit nervous; the storm was awful, and
+I wondered whether such a weight of waters might not have made an
+opening somewhere in your dam."
+
+"Well, to be candid," said Mr Willows, "I woke long before daybreak and
+came out with Will here to see how we stood.  But we are all right.  My
+ancestors were simple men, but what they did they did with all their
+hearts.  It must have been very slow work year by year, the quarrying
+and bringing down all these stones; but they planted them well, the lime
+they burned was of the best, and it is harder now than the stone itself.
+The dam has stood two hundred years, and it is so solid that it looks
+as if it would stand two hundred more."
+
+"Then we are all right," cried Manners, heartily.
+
+"Yes, we are all right," said Mr Willows, smiling and holding out his
+hand; "and this is nice and neighbourly of you, a stranger, Mr Manners,
+to speak like this."
+
+"Neighbourly?" said Manners, colouring through his well-tanned skin.
+"Oh, I don't know about that.  Only, you see, coming down year after
+year, and seeing so much of the boys, one seems to know you all so
+well."
+
+"Exactly," said the Vicar, smiling; "Willows is quite right; it is
+neighbourly, or we will say brotherly, if you like."
+
+"No, no, no!" cried the artist.  "Here, I'll tell you what to say--
+nothing.  But I am heartily glad there is no serious mischief done."
+
+"None at all," said Willows.  "Rather good.  The big pool was getting
+very low.  Now we shall be all right for months.  The water's falling
+fast, and in half an hour I shall have the waste water-sluices closed,
+and by mid-day the stream will be running much as usual."
+
+"That's right," cried Manners.  "I say, boys; lucky we had our fishing
+last night.  Why, every trout will have been washed down-stream and out
+to sea."
+
+"Not one," cried Will.  "Will they, father?"
+
+"No, my boy; I don't suppose they will; they'll have got into the eddies
+and backwaters, driven down a good deal here and there; but their
+natural habit is to make their way higher and higher up to the shallows
+in search of food.  There, Mr Manners, I don't think that you'll miss
+any of your sport.  My experience is that places which swarm with trout
+one day are empty the next, and vacant spots where you have thrown a fly
+in vain will another time give you a fish at nearly every cast."
+
+"Well," said Manners, "as I have had my fright for nothing, my nature's
+beginning to assert itself, and the main question now with me is
+breakfast.  Now, boys, will you come and join me?  I can't smell them,
+but I can almost venture to say for certain that Mrs Drinkwater is
+frying trout.  What do you say?"
+
+"No, thank you, Mr Manners," replied Will; "my father will want me,
+perhaps, to give orders to the men; but Josh has got to pass the
+cottage."
+
+"Of course," cried Manners; "and you might honour me too, Mr Carlile."
+
+"Thanks, no," said the Vicar.  "Josh can stay, and he will be glad.
+I'll go on, for they would be waiting breakfast at home."
+
+The artist gave a tug at a thick chain, and dragged out a heavy,
+old-fashioned, gold watch.
+
+"Five o'clock," he cried.  "We should be done by six.  Why, you'd be
+quite ready for a second breakfast, sir, by eight or nine."
+
+"Do come, father."
+
+"Very well," said the Vicar, smiling; and the artist carried them off,
+leaving Willows with his son to walk slowly on to the broad dam where
+the foam-covered water brimmed the stones, as if only wanting the
+impulse of a puff of wind to sweep over the top.
+
+They stopped about the middle, to stand looking up the vale.
+
+"I say, father, do you feel that?" cried Will.
+
+"What?--the quivering sensation, my boy?"
+
+"Yes; it is just as if the water was shaking the stones all loose."
+
+"Yes, but it is only the vibration caused by the water rushing through
+the open sluices on either side; they are open as wide as they will go,
+and have just been large enough to do their work well and keep the flood
+down.  I fully expected to find it foaming over the top.  What are you
+looking at?"
+
+"Don't take any notice, father.  I'm going to look away.  Just turn your
+eyes quietly up to the old stone bench on the top there by the lookout."
+
+There was a pause of a moment or two, during which the mill-owner
+stooped to pick up a piece of sodden, dead wood, to throw it outward
+into the current tearing through one of the open sluices.  Then turning
+right away, he said, quietly--
+
+"Yes, there's someone's face looking over from the back.  Who can it
+be?"
+
+"Can't you see, father?"
+
+"No; unless it's James."
+
+"It is, father; I saw his face just now quite clear.  What does he want
+there?  Does he want to speak to you about coming back?"
+
+"Hardly so soon as this, my boy," said Will's father, rather sadly.
+"Brought here by curiosity, I suppose, like our other friends--a good
+sign, Will.  He takes an interest in the old mill, after all."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTEEN.
+
+THE ALARM.
+
+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 trout were back in their old haunts,
+Manners had finished one of his landscapes and begun another, and one
+soft, sweet, very early autumn evening three busy pairs of hands where
+at work at the round table plainly visible in the light cast by Mrs
+Drinkwater's shaded lamp.
+
+"No," said Will, who was holding something in a pair of pliers in his
+left hand, and winding a thread of silk brought up from the mill round
+it with his right, "he hasn't been near us yet.  Josh and I keep running
+against him in the woods, or up one of the river paths; but, as soon as
+he sees us, he turns his back and goes in among the trees."
+
+"Shies at us," interpolated Josh.
+
+"Yes," said Will, softly, as he wound away, his face screwed up and
+looking intent to a degree.  "Shies!  I say, Mr Manners, you, living
+here, see him every day, of course?"
+
+"No, I don't," said the artist.  "He has his breakfast before I'm down,
+and goes off and doesn't come back till after dark.  The missus, poor
+soul, told me yesterday--crying away like your old mill-wheel--that he
+takes a bit of bread and cheese with him and goes off to sit and mope
+somewhere in the woods.  He never hardly speaks to her.  She said, poor
+thing, that she'd give anything to see him back at his regular work."
+
+"Ha!" cried Will, holding up the something proudly upon which he had
+been at work.  "Now, I call that something like a coachman."
+
+"Not a bit," said Josh.  "How can a little hook, a thread of gut, a few
+small feathers, and some dubbing, be like a coachman?"
+
+"Get out, Clevershakes!  What an old chop-logic you are!  I didn't
+christen that kind of artificial fly a coachman; but it's a well-made
+one, isn't it, Mr Manners?"
+
+"Well, yes, very nicely made; but it's not a London maker's idea of a
+jarvey."
+
+"No," said Will, "but it's the sort that will catch the fish.  You'd
+never guess whose make that is."
+
+"Why, it's yours, my lad."
+
+"Yes; but you don't know who taught me."
+
+"Not I; but I should like you to make me half a dozen more."
+
+"All right; I will; a dozen, if you like.  They suit our waters fine.
+That's old Boil O's pattern.  He taught me; he used to say that the
+proper way to make a fly was to watch the real one first, and make it as
+near as you could like that--not take a copy from somebody's book."
+
+"Quite right," said the artist; "old Boil O's a philosopher."
+
+"I wish he was a sensible man instead," said Will.  "I've been thinking,
+Mr Manners, that as you live here and know him so well--"
+
+"That I don't," cried the artist.  "I never knew less of any man in my
+life."
+
+"Well, never mind that; you live here, and I think it would be very nice
+if you'd get hold of him and talk sensibly, like you can."
+
+"Thank you for the compliment, my young judge."
+
+"I say, don't poke fun, Mr Manners; I want to talk seriously."
+
+"That's right; I like to hear you sometimes, my young joker.  I wouldn't
+give a sou for a fellow who was all fun."
+
+"Well, look here, Mr Manners; I want you to let him see what a jolly
+old stupid he is making of himself.  Of course father can't come and ask
+him to return to work, but I know that dad would shake hands with him at
+once, and be as pleased as Punch."
+
+"Well," said the artist, dryly, "I can't quite see in my own mind your
+grave and reverend parent looking as pleased as Punch; it doesn't seem
+quite in his way."
+
+"Of course not; but you know what I mean."
+
+"Well, I guess at it, boy; and you mean what is quite right.  I should
+be very glad to do anything for either of you, and to put an end to a
+melancholy state of affairs; but look here, my dear boy, I don't think
+that I should be doing right as an outsider, such a bird of passage as I
+am, to say more to Drinkwater than I have already done.  He knows what I
+think; but I want to be friends with everybody here, and I feel sure
+that by interfering further I should be turning ray landlord into an
+enemy.  I am obliged to say `no.'  And now, if you please, we'll go on
+with our fly-making, and get our tackle ready for another turn at the
+trout."
+
+"Well, I am very sorry," said Will, sadly, "and--"
+
+"Whatever's that?" cried Josh, springing to his feet and staring wildly
+through the open window.
+
+"Eh?  Whatever's what?" said the artist, slowly, looking in the same
+direction.  "Why, as Pat would say, it isn't to-morrow morning, and the
+sun never rises in the west, or he'd be getting up now.  Why, by all
+that's wonderful, it's--"
+
+"Fire!  Fire!" shouted Will, wildly.
+
+"Yes," cried Josh, in a husky voice, "and it's at the mill."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOURTEEN.
+
+GOOD SERVANT--BAD MASTER.
+
+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 dangerous nature of the path would allow,
+downward towards the mill, their faces suffused by the warm glow which
+rose from out of the valley beyond the trees.
+
+For a few moments the pat, pat of the runners' feet, and the rattle and
+rush of the stones they dislodged were the only sounds to be heard.
+Then came a loud shout from below, a confused murmur of voices, the wild
+shriek of a woman, followed by the hoarse voice of a man, shouting
+"Fire!  Fire!" the last time to be drowned by the loud clang of the
+mill's big bell, whose tongue seemed to be giving its utterances in a
+wild, hysterical way, as rope and wheel were set in motion by a pair of
+lusty arms.
+
+There were a couple more zigzags to descend, which never had seemed so
+long to Will before, and meanwhile the buzz of voices, mingled with
+shouted orders, grew louder and more confused.
+
+"Shall we never get there?" panted Will.
+
+"Take it coolly, my boy," cried the artist.
+
+"Steady!  Cool!  Steady!" snapped out Will.  "Who can be cool at a time
+like this?"
+
+"You," said Manners, "and you must.  We don't want to get there pumped
+out and useless in an emergency.  We want to help."
+
+"Ha!" panted Josh, as if satisfied with their friend's utterance, and
+feeling that it exactly expressed his feelings.
+
+"Oh, the poor old mill!" cried Will, as the next minute they came full
+in sight of the long wooden range of buildings, up one end of which, as
+if striving to reach the bell turret, great tongues of fire were gliding
+steadily in a ruddy series, licking at board and beam as they pursued
+their way.
+
+Just then a thought struck Will, and he breathlessly shouted--
+
+"The engine!  The engine!  Who says my father was foolish now?"
+
+"I say he was a Solomon," cried Manners.  "Hurrah, boys!  Let's have the
+engine out!  Plenty of water!  Take it coolly; we'll soon have her going
+now."
+
+He had hardly finished speaking when John Willows' voice rose loudly
+above the babble of the little crowd, giving orders; and, as the boys
+rushed up with their friend, an iron bar was heard to rattle, two doors
+were flung back, and the grinding and crushing sound of wheels over
+gravel followed, as the little engine was run out with a hearty cheer;
+the excited men who took the place of horses and pushed wherever they
+could find a place for their hands, running the machine along the mill
+front right up towards where the fire was blazing fast, and bringing to
+it a current of air as it rose, which made the flames burn moment by
+moment more fiercely, as they obtained a greater hold.
+
+"No, no, no!" yelled Will.  "You're wrong, you're wrong, you're wrong!
+Back with her at once!"
+
+"Nay, it's all right, boys," cried one of the men; "it's all right; go
+on!"
+
+"It isn't," shouted Will.  "Back with her close to the dam!"
+
+"Nay," cried the same voice; "the fire's here."
+
+"I know that!" shouted Will, rushing at him and thrusting him aside.
+"Ah, here's father!  Give orders, father; it must be close to the water.
+The suction-pipe is short."
+
+"Yes, of course," cried Willows.  "You're wrong, men.  Back with her to
+the pool there below the wheel!  Mr Manners, take the lead, please,
+over getting out and connecting the hose.  Will, see to the
+suction-pipe, and that its rose is well clear of the gravel.  Get to
+work as soon as you can.  Josh, my boy, follow and help me.  I'm afraid
+the place is doomed, Mr Manners; I must go to the office and get out
+the safe and books."
+
+"Right, sir; we will do our best," cried the artist.  "How did it
+occur?"
+
+"Goodness only knows," was the reply, and each hurried to his appointed
+task.
+
+They worked well, but, as a matter of course, there was little
+discipline; every worker thought he knew best, gave his opinions, and
+hindered the progress of the rest; but at last the engine was in the
+most favourable place for operating, the suction-pipe attached and
+hanging down in a deep, dark hole, scooped lower year after year by tons
+of the water falling from the wheel; while forward, under the artist's
+guidance, length after length of the hose had been unrolled and the
+gun-metal screws fitted together till it stretched out far in the
+glowing light towards the burning timbers.  Here, as near as it was safe
+for man to go, the artist stood in shirt and trousers, sleeves rolled up
+over his massive arms, bending down, a picturesque object, like some
+gladiator fitting his weapon before doing battle with the fiery monster
+wreathing upwards above his head, as he screwed on the glistening copper
+branch.
+
+"Ready!" he roared, as Will's father and Josh came out of the open
+office door laden with heavy ledgers.
+
+"All right!" shouted Will.  "Now, boys, all together--pump!"
+
+Cling, clang!  Cling, clang!  Cling clang!  Three times over, the
+handles rose and fell with a strange, weird sound, and then, as if moved
+by one impulse, the workers stopped, and, sounding strangely
+incongruous, a man whose voice was blurred by the north-west country
+burr shouted--
+
+"Why, t'owd poomp wean't soock!"
+
+"Nay," cried another; "I never had no faith in t'owd mawkin of a thing.
+She's only fit to boon the roads."
+
+"What's the matter?" shouted Manners.
+
+"I don't know," cried Will, despondently; "it won't go."
+
+"Are the pipes screwed on right?" said Manners.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Is your end down in the water?"
+
+"Yes; three or four feet."
+
+"We must have got something screwed on upside down."
+
+"No," said Will, firmly; "it's all right, just as old Boil O put it
+together when it was done."
+
+"But it isn't all right," cried Manners; "the suckers or something must
+have been left out."
+
+"Oh, why didn't we try it?  Why didn't we try it when it was done?"
+groaned Will.  "I did want to, but Boil O said there was no time for me
+to be playing my games."
+
+At that moment Mr Willows ran up.
+
+"Well," he cried, "why don't you pump?"
+
+"We did, father, but it won't go."
+
+"Then don't waste time.  Here, Manners!"
+
+"Catch hold," shouted the artist, thrusting the copper branch into the
+nearest man hands and running up.
+
+"Yes!" he said.
+
+"Ladders and buckets," continued Mr Willows.
+
+"Right, and form a double line.  I say," he whispered; "here's
+treachery."
+
+"I fear so; I fear so," said Willows, in the same tone.  "It's revenge,
+and the engine has been purposely left out of gear.  No," he cried, as
+if in agony, his words having given him intense pain; "I won't believe a
+man could be so base."
+
+There was the scuffling rush of feet just then, and the object of his
+thoughts, wild and weird-looking from his dwarfish aspect, glistening
+head, and staring eyes, dashed up.
+
+"Here, fools!  Idiots!  Are you going to let the poor old mill burn
+down?"
+
+"Hurrah!" shouted Will; "here's Boil O!  Here, old fellow, what is there
+wrong?  I can't get the thing to go."
+
+"Stand aside!" cried the man, fiercely; and the next moment he was down
+on his knees, rapidly examining the connections, valve, piston, and rod.
+"Yah!" he roared, savagely.  "The pins are left out here."
+
+Clang went a box, as he threw up a lid in the front, snatched out a
+screw hammer and a copper pin, and then, tap, tap, tap, some half-dozen
+sharply given blows were heard, the hammer was thrown with a crash back
+into the box, and the man's hoarse, harsh voice rose in an angry roar.
+
+"Now, then, put your backs into it!  Pump!"
+
+_Clink, clank_!  _Clink, clank_!  _Clink, clonk_!  _Clink, clunk_!
+
+There was a whistling sound as the water forced the wind out of the
+leather tubes, rushed along spurting in fine threads out of a score of
+tiny holes, and from the joints where they were not tightly screwed up,
+and then, just as, seeing what was about to happen, Manners rushed
+forward and grasped the copper branch, a fountain as of golden rain
+darted out of the glistening branch, rose higher and higher, making the
+flames hiss and steam, and a roar of triumph rose above the thudding,
+steady clank of the engine, now doing well its work, while the
+north-country man who had spoken jeeringly before shouted lustily--
+
+"Three cheers, boys, for good old Boil O!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIFTEEN.
+
+IT'S A MYSTERY.
+
+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, which was to win.  At the end of the
+above-mentioned time, in spite of the inflammable nature of the old
+building, the matter was no longer in doubt.  The men worked away nobly
+at the clanging pumps, and every now and then in her eager excitement,
+some sturdy, strong-armed woman made a run forward to thrust husband or
+brother aside and take his place, working with a will, and sending quite
+a hissing deluge to flood the untouched parts of the roof, and gradually
+fight back the flames foot by foot, till their farther progress was
+stopped, and the rest was easy.
+
+All through the fight, Manners held his post right in the forefront, his
+face shining in the golden glow as he distributed the water.  Will and
+Josh kept close up after the books had been saved, always ready to help,
+and bringing refreshment, while Drinkwater raged about like some
+lunatic, thrusting the men here and there, urging them on to pump
+faster, and nearly getting himself crushed over and over again, as he
+dodged about with a small oil-can, seeking to lubricate the old and
+stiffened parts of the machinery.
+
+It was all to save the mill from destruction, and the master from injury
+from whom he had cut himself adrift, and there was the result at last.
+The ruddy light which had illumined the fern-hung sides and curtains of
+ivy of the great gorge began to fail.
+
+The great, black cloud of smoke which hung over from side to side began
+to turn from ruddy orange to a dull lead colour, and at last the word
+was given to cease pumping.
+
+"There's nothing to do now, my lads, but to carry a few buckets inside
+and look out for sparks," cried Willows.  "I thank you all!  You've
+worked grandly, and you have saved our old mill."
+
+"There'll be a big sore place upon it to-morrow, master," said one of
+the men.
+
+"Nothing but what James Drinkwater and three or four workmen," said
+Willows, speaking meaningly, "can put right within a month.  The
+machinery at this end seems to be uninjured."
+
+"I hope so," said Manners, "but the lads here and I have given it a
+tremendous washing where we sent the stream in through yon hole and
+those broken windows.  What about the silk?  Will it be spoiled?"
+
+"There was little there to signify, and the loss will be comparatively
+small.  Now then, everyone round to the big office, and let's see what
+we can do in the way of finding you all something to eat and drink."
+
+There was another burst of cheers, and soon after, while the men and
+women were partaking of the mill-owner's cheer, he and his friends had
+been making such examination as the smoke, the darkness, and the water
+which had flooded the drenched part of the building would allow.
+
+"Terrible damage, Carlile," he said.  "Still nothing compared to what
+might have been.  But what has become of Drinkwater?  Who saw him last?"
+
+"I think I did, father," cried Will.  "He was busy with a lantern down
+there by the engine, wiping and oiling the different parts.  I asked him
+to come in, but he only grunted and shook his head."
+
+"That's where I found him," chimed in Josh, "when you sent me with a
+message, father."
+
+"Yes, and I saw him there," said Manners.  "My word, how he kept the
+pumpers up to the mark!  The water never failed once.  Why, you got
+quite a bargain in the old engine, Mr Willows, and that fellow did it
+up splendidly."
+
+"And worked gloriously," cried Will.  "I think, father, he felt ashamed
+of all he had said, and wanted to put matters right."
+
+"I hope so," said Mr Willows; "at any rate I do for my miserable
+suspicions when the fire broke out."
+
+"Don't worry about that," said the Vicar.  "It looked horribly black
+after his threatenings about revenge.  But there, that's all past, and
+thank Heaven you can congratulate yourself upon the good that has arisen
+out of to-night's dark work."
+
+"Dark!" said Manners, wiping his black face.  "I think we had too much
+light."
+
+"Not enough to show how that fire broke out," said Mr Willows, gravely.
+"I cannot understand how it was caused."
+
+"Couldn't be a spark left by one of the flashes of lightning in the
+storms we have had lately, could it?" said Josh, innocently.
+
+"No," said Will, mockingly; "but it might have been a star tumbled
+down."
+
+"No, it couldn't!" cried Josh, angrily.  "Such stuff!  It must have been
+started somehow."
+
+"Yes, my boy," said the Vicar, smiling; "but it is a mystery for the
+present."
+
+"Let it rest," said Mr Willows.  "I don't concern myself about that
+now.  I have something else on my mind.  I shall not rest, Carlile, till
+I have thanked that man for all he has done, and shaken him by the
+hand."
+
+"Oh, he'll turn up soon, I daresay," said Manners.  "Here, I know! he
+must have got himself drenched with water."
+
+"Of course!" cried Will.  "I saw him lower himself down into the hole to
+move the suction-pipe."
+
+"That's it," said Manners, "and he's gone up to the cottage to have a
+change."
+
+"At any rate," said the Vicar, "I feel thankful that the trouble has
+passed, and I shall be seeing him back at his work to-morrow; eh, Mr
+Willows?"
+
+"I hope so," was the reply.  "Now then, we must have three or four
+watchers for the rest of the night, and those of you who are wet had
+better see about a change."
+
+"Well, I'm one," said Manners, "for I feel like a sponge.  I'm off to my
+diggings, but I shall be back in half an hour to join the watch."
+
+"No, no," cried Mr Willows, "you've done enough.  I'll see to that."
+
+"Yes, yes," cried the artist; "I want to come back and think out my plan
+for a new picture of the mill on fire.  It'll be a bit of history, don't
+you see, and I want to get the scene well soaked into my mind."
+
+"It ought to be burned in already," said Will, laughing.
+
+"Perhaps it is," said the artist, merrily; and he hurried away.
+
+So much time had been spent that, to the surprise of all, the early dawn
+was beginning to show, and as it broadened it displayed the sorry sight
+of one end of the mill blackened--a very mass of smoking and steaming
+timbers.
+
+"I say, Josh," said Will, "only look here!  If the fire had got a little
+more hold and the wind had come more strongly down, the flames would
+have swept everything before them: the mill would have been like a
+burnt-out bonfire."
+
+"Yes," said Josh; "and the house must have gone too."
+
+"How horrid!  But I say, why hasn't old Boil O been back?"
+
+The man had his own reasons.  Not only did he not show himself again
+after his work was done, but when in the course of the morning,
+impatient at his non-appearance, his employer left the busy scene where
+a clearance of the ruined part was going on, and walked up to the
+cottage with the Vicar, it was only to catch a momentary glimpse of the
+man they sought, as he glided across his garden and made for the woods,
+utterly avoiding all advances made by those who wished him well; and
+instead of the breach being closed by his conduct, the wound purified by
+the fire, his rage against his master and all friendly to the mill
+seemed to burn more fiercely than ever.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SIXTEEN.
+
+DOINGS IN THE DALE.
+
+"It's no use to bother," said Josh, when the state of affairs was being
+canvassed.  "Father says there's only one cure for it."
+
+"What's that?" said Will.
+
+"Time."
+
+"I think," said Will, speaking seriously, "that your father, as he's a
+clergyman, ought to give old Boil O a good talking to."
+
+"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 now, and let him come to his
+senses."
+
+"Yes, I suppose that's best," said Will.  "Everybody's been at him.  Old
+Manners says he got him one evening at the bottom of the garden, but, as
+soon as he began to speak, old Boil O turned upon him so fiercely that
+he had to cut away."
+
+"Oh, yes, of course, I'm going to believe that!" said Josh.  "Manners
+wouldn't run away from a dozen of him."
+
+"Well," cried Will, "he pretty well startled me when I had a try.  I'm
+not going to do it any more, I can tell you."
+
+"My father's right," said Josh.  "It only wants time."
+
+But time went on, and the work-people from the nearest town were hard at
+work day by day rebuilding and restoring, so that by degrees the traces
+of the late fire began to disappear, while new woodwork, beams, boards
+and rafters, bearing ruddy, bright new tiles, gave promise that within
+another three months the night's mishap would be a memory of the past.
+
+It was autumn--a splendid time for fishing; a better time for the
+painter, the artist declaring that the tints of the trees and bracken,
+the glow of the skies, and the lovely mists that floated down from the
+hills and up from the well-charged falls were more glorious than any he
+had ever seen before.
+
+His white mushroom, as Will called it, was always visible, and the boys
+spent much time with him when they were not reading with the Vicar up by
+the church, for Josh had declared that the message that had come from
+Worksop was about the jolliest piece of news he had ever heard.
+Doubtless, the headmaster and his subordinates did not think the same,
+the news being the breaking out of an exceedingly virulent epidemic of
+fever, necessitating the closing of the great school about the time when
+the bulk of the pupils were to return.
+
+Then rumours came that sanitary inspectors had condemned the whole of
+the arrangements there as being too old-fashioned to be tolerated, and
+instead of becoming once more a busy hive of study during the autumn
+term, the whole place had been put in the builders' hands, and rumour
+said that the school would not reassemble until the spring, even if the
+builders were got rid of then.
+
+"Well, I don't care," said Will.  "I didn't want longer holidays, but it
+is much nicer reading and doing exercises up at the Vicarage than with
+old Buzfuz's lexicon over there.  I'm learning twice as much, and quite
+beginning to like Latin now."
+
+"Of course," said Josh, complacently.  "My father used to be a famous
+college don before the Bishop gave him the living here."
+
+"Yes, but he's never been don enough to bring old Boil O back to his
+senses.  He's worse than ever now."
+
+"Bring him back to his senses!  I don't believe he's got any senses to
+bring back," said Josh.  "It wants a very clever college don to put
+something straight that isn't there."
+
+The boys were right about Drinkwater, for the man was more fiercely
+morose than ever.  His efforts to avoid all who knew him, and spend the
+greater part of his time moping in the woodlands and high up the valley
+towards the headwaters of the stream, were so much waste of time, for
+all men and women too, and the children, for the matter of that, avoided
+him now as one who was ogreish and evil.  Master, Vicar, the artist, and
+the two lads might cast away all idea of his guilt respecting the fire
+if they liked, but the work-people declared that his was the hand that
+fired the mill.  Nothing would alter that in their stubborn minds, and
+no one knew better than James Drinkwater that this was so.
+
+Consequently, he nursed up his blind grudge against the little world in
+which he dwelt, and became what Will called him--a regular wild man of
+the woods.
+
+But a change was coming.  The autumn rains were setting in, the woods
+were often dripping, the mosses holding the rain like so much sponge,
+and the shelter of a roof becoming an absolute necessity for the one who
+had sought it merely of a night.
+
+"Yes," said Manners, one morning, "the cuckoo's gone long ago, the
+swallows are taking flight, and it is getting time for me to pack up my
+traps and toddle south."
+
+"Oh, what a pity!" cried Will.
+
+"Humph!  Yes, for you.  What will you chaps do?  No one to play tricks
+with then."
+
+"Oh, I say, Mr Manners, play fair!" cried Josh.  "Why, I'm sure that
+we've behaved beautifully lately."
+
+"Very," cried the artist.  "Why, you young dogs, I've watched you!
+You've both been sitting on mischief eggs for weeks.  It isn't your
+fault that they didn't hatch."
+
+"Doing what?" cried Josh.
+
+"Well, trying to scheme some new prank.  Only you've used up all your
+stuff, and couldn't think one out."
+
+The boys exchanged glances, and there was a peculiar twinkle in their
+eyes, a look that the artist interpreted, and knew that he had judged
+aright.
+
+"But you'll be down again in the spring, Mr Manners?" cried Will.
+
+"I hope so, my lad.  I've grown to look upon Beldale as my second home.
+I say, you'll come and help me pack my canvases?"
+
+"Of course!  Are you going to stick up your toadstool to-day?"
+
+"No; it's going to rain again.  It has been raining in the night up in
+the hills."
+
+"Yes," said Josh; "the big fall is coming down with a regular roar."
+
+"But what about the dam?" said the artist.
+
+"Full, as it ought to be; they're going to open the upper sluice."
+
+"When?" said Manners.
+
+"This afternoon," cried Will.
+
+"Ah, I'll come and see it done.  And about my canvases: I must have some
+pieces of wood to nail round and hold them together."
+
+"As you did last time?" said Will.  "Well, old Boil O did that.  Won't
+you let him do it again?"
+
+"I've been after him twice, and whenever I spoke he turned away.
+Suppose I come down to the mill workshop.  We can cut some strong laths
+there."
+
+"Of course," said Will; "this afternoon, when we've seen them open the
+sluice."
+
+"Good," said the artist.  "I will be there; but look here, let's carry
+the canvases down; there are only twelve.  Nothing like the present.
+I'll bring them now."
+
+"You mean, we'll take them now," said Will, correctively.
+
+The matter was arranged by their taking four each.
+
+"Going to take them below to the mill to pack, Mrs Drinkwater," said
+Manners, as they went down the path.
+
+"Dear, dear, sir," said the woman, sadly; "it seems so early, and it'll
+be very dull when you're gone."
+
+"Next spring will soon come, Mrs Drinkwater," said Manners, cheerily;
+and the trio strolled on together, to come, at the angle of the second
+zig-zag, plump upon Drinkwater, with one arm round a birch trunk, his
+right hand to his shaggy brow, leaning away from the path as far as he
+could, as if gazing down at the dam.
+
+"Morning, Drinkwater," cried Manners, cheerily.
+
+The man started violently, stared at the canvases, then at their bearer,
+and hurried away in amongst the trees.
+
+"Nice cheerful party that to live with, lads," said the artist,
+laughingly.  "Only fancy being his wife!"
+
+"Yes," said Josh; "and now you see if he don't turn worse than ever.  I
+know."
+
+"Know what?" said Will.
+
+"He'll be as disagreeable as possible, because he's not going to nail up
+the canvases, and lay it all on his poor wife."
+
+"He'd better not let me hear him," said Manners.  "Surly brute!
+Wouldn't do it himself, and now turns nasty.  I saw his savage looks!  I
+should just like to shake some of his temper out of him.  Takes a lot of
+your father's physic, Josh, to set him right."
+
+"Time?" cried the boy.  "Ah, he'll have to have a stronger dose."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.
+
+MYSTERIOUS SOUNDS.
+
+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 across the narrow valley, standing
+some forty feet high from its base, to keep back the waters, and being
+naturally, when full, forty feet deep at its lower end.
+
+Mr Willows and two men were at one end of the wall when Manners and the
+boys climbed on to it that afternoon, to stand in the middle looking up
+the valley over the long sheet of water to where it dwindled from some
+fifty yards wide to less than as many feet.
+
+One of the upper sluices was opened, and though the great mill-wheel in
+its shed far below was going round at its most rapid rate, urged by the
+stream of water which passed along the chute, a good-sized fall was
+spurting out by the upper sluice.
+
+These two exits were, however, not enough to keep the water down, so
+rapid was the flow from the hills to swell the stream, and the water in
+the great pool still rose.  Hence it was that the second sluice was to
+be opened, and in a few minutes a third rush added its roar to that of
+the other two.  Mr Willows stood watching for a few minutes, till he
+had satisfied himself by observing the painted marks upon a post that
+the water had ceased to rise, and then he walked away, leaving the
+others to chat with the men, who hung back for a few minutes after
+securing the sluice door, before going down to resume their regular work
+in the mill.
+
+"Not much of a time for trout fishing, Mr Manners, sir," said one of
+the men.
+
+"No," was the reply; "it is all over for the season for me."
+
+"Suppose so, sir.  Have you young gents been below there to have a look
+at the eel-box?"
+
+"Eels?" said Manners.  "Ah, I like eels."
+
+"There'll be plenty to-night, sir; they'll be well on the move after
+sundown.  I shouldn't be surprised if there was a good take."
+
+"We ought to be there to see," said Will.  "The rains will have brought
+them down.  It's rare fun catching the slippery beggars.  You'll help,
+won't you, Mr Manners?"
+
+"Rather a slimy job," was the reply; "but I'll put on an old coat and
+pair of trousers, and come.  What time?"
+
+"About eight o'clock.  That'll do," said Will.  "Then you can come in to
+supper afterwards with us."
+
+"Right!" was the reply; and that night, prompt to their time, Josh, who
+had called at the cottage on his way down, presented himself at the Mill
+House garden-gate with Manners, both properly equipped for their
+slippery task, and finding Will awaiting their arrival.
+
+"Come on," he cried; "I thought you didn't mean to come.  I hate waiting
+in the dark."
+
+He led the way through the garden to the lower gate by the mill-yard,
+and then right along under the buildings to the huge shed built up over
+the wheel, which was turning rapidly to the hollow roar of the water
+descending the chute to pass into the many receptacles at the end of the
+great spokes, before falling with echoing splashes into the square,
+stone-built basin below.
+
+It was close to the exit here that a portion of the great shed had been
+devoted to the purpose of an eel-trap, which was most effective in warm,
+rainy times when the flooded waters were full of washed-out worms such
+as the fat eels loved, but for which they often had to pay very dear,
+for it came to pass that they were often carried by the swift waters
+into the great stone chute.  Then, in all probability, their fate was
+sealed, for they would be borne along to the end, writhing and
+struggling in vain, only to be carried right over the turning wheel
+before falling into the great, square, stone opening below, where
+another rushing chute carried them onward into a stout, iron-barred cage
+whose bottom and sides were so closely set that only the very small
+could wriggle through.  The larger collected in a writhing cluster just
+where an iron, cage-like door could be opened, and a basket held to
+receive the spoil.
+
+But this particular night, in spite of its promise, showed no
+performance.  The little party, lantern bearing, descended a flight of
+steps, hardly able to make each other hear, so great was the echoing
+splash going on around, and stopped at the bottom in a dank, dripping,
+stone chamber, close to the floor of the iron cage.
+
+"How are you going to cook 'em, Mr Manners?" said Will, with his lips
+close to his companion's ear.
+
+"Some stewed, some spitchcocked, and the rest in a pie."
+
+"Then we're not coming to dine," cried Will, laughing, as he threw the
+light of the lantern upon the cage, where there was a wet gleam as
+something slowly glided round.
+
+"Oh, what a shame!" cried Josh.  "Why, there's only one!"
+
+"Yes, only one," said Will, "and it isn't worth while to open this
+nasty, wet, slimy door for him."
+
+"Oh, but there'll be some more," cried Josh; "there's plenty of time.
+In about an hour there'll be as many as we can carry."
+
+"But we are not going to wait in this dreary hole," said Manners.  "I
+don't enjoy eels when I've got a cold."
+
+"Oh, no," cried Will; "we will go and have a bit of a walk, and come
+down again."
+
+They drew back from the eel-trap, Will leading the way, and made for a
+door in the huge shed, where the lantern was carefully extinguished and
+put on a ledge, before they stepped out into the dark night, the closing
+of the door behind them shutting in a good deal of the hollow roar, with
+its whispering echoes.  That which they listened to now was more splash,
+rush and hurry, as the wheel turned at greater than its usual speed, and
+the overladen dam relieved itself of its contents.
+
+Still there was too much noise for easy converse, and they tramped on,
+Will with the intention of climbing to one of the narrow paths that led
+in the direction of the upper stream.
+
+They were just on a level with the top of the stone dam, when Will
+stopped short.  The spot he had chosen for his halt was dark as pitch,
+for a clump of bushes overhung the way.
+
+"What's the matter?" said Josh, who came next.
+
+"Be quiet," replied Will.
+
+"Anything wrong?" asked the artist, for they blocked his way.
+
+"N-no," replied Will, dubiously; "only thought I heard something."
+
+"Thought you heard something!" said Manners.  "There's not much think
+about it.  My ears seem stuffed so full of sounds that I can hardly hear
+myself speak.  The rushing water and its echoes from up above seem to
+fill the air.  What did you think you heard?"
+
+"That's what I don't know," said Will, thoughtfully, with his lips close
+to the speaker's ear; "and I can't hear it at all now.  It was a dull,
+thumping sort of noise."
+
+"Echo," said Josh.  "The wheel's going so much faster round than usual."
+
+"N-n-no," said Will; "it wasn't like that.  I wish I could hear it
+again."
+
+"What for?" said Josh.  "What was the matter?  Here, I say, which way
+shall we go?  I know: let's go and see if any of the old owls are out
+beating the ivy for birds."
+
+"There," cried Will, "that's it!  You can hear it now!  Listen!"
+
+All stood perfectly still for a few moments.
+
+"Water, water everywhere, and far too much to drink," said Manners,
+spoiling a quotation.  "I can't hear anything else."
+
+"Oh, Mr Manners!  Why, there it is, quite plain.  You can hear it,
+can't you, Josh?"
+
+"Thumpety, thumpety, thump, thump, thump!" said Josh.  "Sounds like
+somebody beating a bit of carpet indoors.  Why, it's only echoes."
+
+"Pooh!  What could make echoes like that?"
+
+"The great axle of the wheel worked a little loose in its bearings
+through the weight of the water."
+
+"Nonsense!  Can't be that."
+
+"All right!  What is it, then?"
+
+"Don't know, don't care.  It's a nocturnal noise, isn't it, Mr
+Manners?"
+
+"Well, it's a noise," said the artist, "as if someone was hammering with
+a wooden mallet.  I heard it quite plainly just now, and it seemed to
+come from below there, out of the darkness down at the bottom of the
+dam."
+
+"Oh, no," cried Josh, "it was from right up yonder, ever so high."
+
+"No, no," said Will; "it seemed to me to come from just opposite where
+we are standing now."
+
+"Echo," said the artist, laconically.
+
+"Yes," said Will; "carried here and there by the wind."
+
+"Well," said the artist, "the water makes roaring noise enough, without
+our listening for echoes.  Let's go a bit higher where we can see the
+sky.  It's horribly dark down here, but the stars are very bright if we
+get out of the shadows.  What's the matter?" he said sharply, for Will
+caught his arm.
+
+"There it is again," cried the boy.  "Somebody must be hammering and
+thumping.  What can it be?"
+
+"It's what I said," said Josh; "the bearings of the big wheel are a bit
+loose.  Who could be hammering and thumping in the darkness?  Wouldn't
+he have a light?"
+
+"I don't know," said Will; "but if something's got loose, it ought to be
+seen to."
+
+"But you couldn't do anything in the dark," said Josh.  "My word, what a
+game it would be if the old wheel broke away!  What would happen then?"
+
+"Once started, I should say it would go spinning down the valley for
+miles," said Manners, laughingly.  "Just like a Brobdingnagian boy's
+hoop gone mad."
+
+"Ah, I should like to see that by daylight," cried Josh.
+
+"I shouldn't," said Will, bitterly.  "It wouldn't be much fun.  There!
+now, can you hear it?  That thumping?"
+
+"Yes, I heard it then," said Manners, "and I don't think that there's
+any doubt of its being the echo of something giving a thump as the wheel
+turns.  Is it worth while to go and tell old Jack-of-all-trades
+Drinkwater to come and see if anything's wrong?"
+
+"No," said Josh.  "I don't believe he'd come."
+
+"Perhaps it's nothing to mind," said Will, thoughtfully; "only, working
+machinery is such a ticklish thing.  There, I can't hear it now."
+
+They stood listening for quite ten minutes, but the unusual sound was
+not renewed.
+
+"Perhaps it's somebody in the mill," said Will.  "Let's go down and
+look."
+
+"All right; anything to fill up time," said Manners, "before we get my
+eels.  There's no occasion to go up here."
+
+They descended cautiously through the darkness to the mill-yard,
+following Will, who made straight for the door leading into the
+machine-room, the fastening yielding to his hand, for few precautions
+were used in the shape of bar or bolt in that quiet, retired place; and,
+as the door swung back, the three stood gazing into the darkness before
+them, listening and feeling.  The whole building seemed to thrill with
+the vibration caused by the turning wheel, the weight of the water
+making the entire building quiver as if it were alive.
+
+"Rather weird," said Manners.  "I never was here before at such a time.
+Does the place always throb in this way?"
+
+"When the wheel is going fast," replied Will, "it gently shakes the
+biggest beams."
+
+"Sounds as if it might shake the place down in time."
+
+"Oh, no," said Will; "it's too solid for that."
+
+"Well," said Josh, "there's nobody doing anything here.  If there was,
+there'd be a light.  It was only echoes.  Come along."
+
+"But if it was echoes," said Will, "why did they leave off?"
+
+"Not so much water coming down perhaps," suggested Manners.  "There,
+isn't it nearly time to go and see if there are any more eels?"
+
+"Hardly," replied Will, "but some might have come down.  It's just as it
+happens."
+
+"Oh, yes," said Josh.  "Sometimes there won't be one in a whole night,
+and another time there'll be pounds and pounds in half an hour.  It all
+depends upon whether they are on the move."
+
+They made for the lower door again at the bottom of the cage shed, and
+entered the hollow, dismal place.  Will felt for the lantern after
+closing the door, struck a match, and, to the artist's satisfaction, the
+rays fell upon several slimy, gleaming objects beyond the bars; and
+after a good deal of splashing, writhing, and twining themselves in
+knots, the prisoners were secured in a dripping basket that had been
+held beneath the opening formed by drawing back the little grating.
+
+"Capital!" cried Manners, eagerly.  "Why, there must be half a dozen
+pounds."
+
+"Nearer a dozen," said Will.  "Look out, Josh!  Hit that chap over the
+head, or he'll be out."
+
+Josh struck at the basket-lid, but a big, serpent-like creature had half
+forced its way through, to be down on the wet stone floor the next
+moment, making at once for the water a couple of yards away.
+
+"Stop him, Mr Manners!  It's the biggest one.  I can't leave the
+basket."
+
+"And I can't leave the light," said Josh; but, as they spoke, the artist
+was in full pursuit, seeing as he did that a delicious morsel was going
+to save itself from being turned into human food.
+
+There was a quick trampling faintly heard on the wet stone floor,
+followed by a rush, a glide, a heavy bump, and a roar of smothered
+laughter.
+
+"Yes, it's all very fine, young fellows," growled the artist, as he
+gathered himself up; "a nasty, slimy beast!  I tried to stop him with my
+foot, and it was like the first step made in a skate.  Has it gone?"
+
+"Gone?  Yes," cried Josh.  "Never mind; there are plenty left.  They're
+awful things to hold.  He would have got away all the same."
+
+"Not if I'd had a good grip," said Manners.
+
+"I don't know," said Will.  "He might have got a good grip of you.
+Those big ones can bite like fun.  Are you very wet?"
+
+"Bah!  Abominable mess.  This floor's covered with slime."
+
+"Shall we stop any longer?"
+
+"No," said the artist; "I've had enough for once.  Let's get out in the
+open air again, and try and find out what made your noise."
+
+In a few minutes they were back on the top of the great stone wall that
+held the waters back, listening in the darkness amidst the rush and roar
+of sluices and chute, supplemented by the distant thunder of the heavy
+falls high up the stream, for the peculiar thumping whose repetitions
+had caught Will's ears.
+
+But they listened in vain, and continued their way to Drinkwater's
+cottage, where the basket with its living freight was placed, spite of
+the artist's protests, in his landlady's hands.
+
+"Well, I suppose I must keep them," said Manners, "and I will, for this
+is about the finish up of our games, lads, for this year."
+
+He spoke unconsciously.  It was; for as soon as the trio had passed from
+the dam on their way to the first zig-zag, from out of the darkness at
+one end of the dam the strange, weird noise began again.  It was as if
+heavy blows were being given upon some great iron tool.  Now and then
+they would cease, but only to go on again for quite two hours, till all
+at once a fresh sound arose--a peculiar, whispering gurgle, which
+gradually gathered force, to go on increasing through the night; but not
+another blow was heard to fall.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.
+
+DANGER.
+
+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 to bed with a bad headache.
+
+It was his own time, too, and he hurried up to his bedroom, when, like a
+flash, came the recollection of the strange sounds he had heard.  It was
+too late to go out again, so he opened the window and leaned there,
+listening; but from that position he could hear the roar of many
+waters--nothing more.
+
+As a rule, Will's habit was to bang his head down on the pillow and draw
+one very deep, long, restful breath, as he stretched himself at full
+length, and the next moment he was asleep.
+
+Somehow, on this particular night, when he went through his customary
+movements, the result was that he was more wide-awake than ever.  Then
+for quite two hours he twisted, turned, stretched himself, yawned, got
+out of bed and drank cold water, bathed his face, walked up and down,
+tried to count a hundred forwards, then backwards, counting sheep going
+through a gap, did everything he could think of, and even thought of
+standing upon his head to see if that would do any good; but sleep would
+not come.
+
+"Am I going to be ill?" he asked himself, and while he was waiting for
+the answer he dropped off soundly.
+
+But for no pleasant rest, for it was into nightmare-like dreams of some
+great trouble.  While he was trying to sleep, all recollection of the
+mysterious sounds was in abeyance; but they attacked him again in his
+dreams, with this peculiarity, that he seemed to know now exactly where
+they were.  He was able to locate them precisely.  There they were--
+hammer, hammer, hammer, throb, throb, throb, till it was almost
+maddening.
+
+He tried to escape from them; he longed to get away; but there they were
+in the deep darkness, hemmed in by the deep booming chorus of the
+falling waters--the only part of his dreams that was real.
+
+For during the whole night, through the sluices, along the chute, and
+over the wheel, the waters continued their course, keeping down the
+overburdened pool to the same level, for once more heavy rains in the
+hills rushed along the stream to augment the supply.
+
+It was with a feeling of intense relief that the boy woke at last in the
+faint dawn of morning, sprang from the bed, and rushed to the open
+window again, to thrust his burning brow out into the cool, fresh air.
+The beating in his brain was gone, his mind was clear, and he strained
+out to try whether he could hear through the roar of falling waters the
+hammering that had tormented him all through the night.
+
+"No," he said, "it's impossible to hear it from this window;" and he
+hurriedly dressed, to make his way out and up to the spot where he had
+stood with his friends.
+
+"Nothing now," he said.  "Could it have been fancy?"
+
+He listened for a few minutes longer, and then mounted the rough steps,
+to stand on the top of the great stone wall to listen from there once
+more, before gazing up the valley and noticing that there were two
+little clusters of wild-ducks busily feeding just at the mouth of the
+stream where it entered the pool.  There was a faint glow in the east,
+and flecks of gold high towards the zenith, promises of a glorious day,
+and he turned slowly, hesitating as to whether he should go back to bed.
+
+"No!  Rubbish!" he said.  "I'll go and rouse up old Josh.  Yes, and wake
+up Mr Manners, too.  He'd like to see this glorious sky--ah! what's
+that?"
+
+That was something unusual which had just caught his eye, for as he
+spoke he turned to look right along the top of the dam, where he seemed
+to see a strange disturbance on the surface of the water just at the end
+where the wall joined the rugged cliff.
+
+"It must be a great trout," he said, "one that's being beaten against
+the stones, and is half-dead.  No; I believe it's an otter."
+
+He ran along the top of the wall and looked down in wonder, to see that
+a strange whirlpool seemed to have been formed, where twigs of dead
+wood, bits of grass, and autumn leaves were sailing round and round,
+before being sucked down a central hole.
+
+"What does that mean?" he thought; but he acted as well as thought,
+going quite to the edge of the wall, and then descending the steep
+built-up slope of stones and cemented earth, to where at the base of the
+dam-wall he found himself face to face with a sight so suggestive of
+peril that he turned at once and ran for the mill.
+
+For there below, gushing as it were from the bottom of the wall, was a
+little stream--a little fount equalling in bulk the tube-like shape
+formed by the swirling water he had noticed far above.
+
+The quantity was small, and quite a tiny stream ran down the valley,
+cutting itself a channelled course; but Will knew enough--knew the power
+of water, and what such a tiny stream could do.  In short, in those
+brief moments he had grasped the fact that a dangerous flaw had been
+formed in the dam, which, if unchecked, might mean destruction to them
+all.
+
+"Father!  Father!" cried Will, rushing into his father's bedroom.
+
+"I'm afraid it's worse, my boy," was the reply.  "I'll lie still for a
+few hours and see if my headache passes off."
+
+"Father, wake up; you don't understand--the water's breaking through the
+dam!"
+
+There was a heavy bump on the floor, which made the wash-hand jug rattle
+in the basin, as Mr Willows sprang out of bed, with his headache quite
+cured by the nervous shock.
+
+"Do you mean it?  Are you sure?"
+
+"Yes, father, it's twice as big now as it was when I saw it first."
+
+"Ah!" ejaculated Mr Willows, and he stood for a moment with brow knit
+and fists clenched, like a man gazing inwards.
+
+"Run to the big bell, boy, and pull with all your might!"
+
+"Yes, father.  Is it very dan--"
+
+"Run!  Act!" was the reply, and in a few seconds the great bell was
+sending its notes in what seemed to the boy a harsh jangle, such as he
+had never heard before.
+
+Rung at such a time and in such a manner, it carried but one message to
+those who heard--Danger!--and in a very short time the work-people came
+hurrying from the cottages which formed a scattered village down the
+vale, to where their master was standing on a block of stone where he
+could be well seen, waiting to give his orders.
+
+"You, Dacey," he shouted to the first man, "take one of the horses--
+don't stop to saddle--and gallop right down the vale, giving the
+warning.  Stop nowhere--shout as you go by each cottage, `The dam
+bursts!'"
+
+The man was off, and, while Willows was giving fresh orders, the clatter
+of the horse's hoofs was heard, and the man passed out of sight.
+Meanwhile, from the directions Willows was giving, the alarm was
+spreading fast, men's voices giving it everywhere.
+
+There were a few women's shrieks heard, children began to cry, and there
+was wild excitement about the Mill House.  Women's voices, too, were
+heard remonstrating, and words were uttered about saving this or that;
+but Willows rushed up to the first group, and shouted--
+
+"Silence, there!  Save your lives!  Up the sides as fast as you can, and
+as high as you can climb.  At any moment the dam may be washed away like
+so much salt.  Think of nothing but your lives!"
+
+A wild yearning cry full of despair arose at this, but the master's
+words went home, and the next minute the hurried scrambling of feet was
+heard, as women, carrying their children, began to climb up the sides of
+the vale, dragged and pushed up by the menfolk, in whose faces were seen
+reflected the looks of their chief; but to a man they were grim and
+stern; and all the while, harsh, wild and strange, bringing down as it
+were a shower of echoes of its tones, the great bell rang on, swung to
+and fro, and over and over under the feverish impulse given by Will's
+untiring arms.
+
+So effective were the commands, so deeply imbedded in every breast was
+the knowledge of what might happen, that the time seemed short before
+Mr Willows could draw breath and feel satisfied that the weaker portion
+of the community were in safety.
+
+"Now," he cried, "you who are old, and all you boys, follow the women.
+No words--Go!  Now, my lads, you who are ready to work, let's see what
+we can save.  But, mind, it must be one eye for what you are doing and
+one for yon tottering wall."
+
+"Why, master," shouted the north-country man, "I don't see nowt.  She'll
+stand for long after we are passed away.  Aren't this all a skear?"
+
+"No!" cried Willows, fiercely.  "The strong dam is wounded, and the
+place is bleeding fast.  Here, Will," he shouted, "leave that bell!"
+
+"Oh, father," cried the boy, as he ran up, "don't send me away at a time
+like this."
+
+"I am not going to, my boy; I want you to be my strong right hand.  Now
+then, I shall not be with you, so watch for your safety and that of
+those who are with you.  Take four men, and save the books first, then
+the chest, and all you can that is easiest to move.  Scatter the things
+anywhere that they will lodge, as soon as they are higher than the dam.
+Off with you!  Work for your lives!  One more word of warning!  When the
+wall goes, if go it does, it will be with one mighty rush, sweeping
+everything away.  Now, six men with me!"
+
+All the rest rushed to him, and he told off the number he required.
+
+"You others," he cried, "you have heard what I've said.  Off with you,
+and try to save your most treasured possessions--by _your_, I mean those
+of your neighbours and yourselves.  At a time like this all must be in
+common, as it shall be when, if, please God, we escape, I will try to
+make up to you for what you have lost.  Off!  Now, my lads, every man
+lift and bear as big a stone as you can.  Follow me!"
+
+The next minute, headed by their chief, a line of men, like ants from a
+disturbed hill, were seen staggering beneath their burdens up the rugged
+steps to the top of the dam.
+
+"Phew!  This here's a heavy one!" panted the north-country man as they
+reached the top.  "Say, maister, it'll be dangerous to be safe for us if
+the wall goes now."
+
+The words were uttered in such a cheery tone, that, in spite of their
+peril, a hearty laugh rose from the party, and, as Mr Willows paused
+for a moment to gaze downward and see how on both the steep sides of the
+valley his commands were being carried out, a grim smile for a moment
+relaxed his tightened lips.
+
+"Now," he cried, "do as I do," as he bent himself to his task, and
+stepping to the end of the wall where the whirlpool seen first by Will
+had begun to look more worthy of its name--for it was three times as
+swift and mighty as at its birth--he leaned forward and softly dropped
+in the great stone he carried, and stood back to let the others follow
+suit.
+
+"It seems a mere nothing," he said, as the last stone was cast, "but it
+is all that we can do, and we must keep on."
+
+"Ahoy, there!" came from the opposite end just then.  "What's the
+matter, Mr Willows?" and the burly figure of the artist came hurrying
+across the dam.  "Not safe?"
+
+There was another hail, and the Vicar came hurrying down the path,
+preceded by his son.
+
+"Why, Willows," he cried, breathlessly, "surely the dam is not giving
+way?"
+
+"Oh, father!" faltered Josh.  "It must be that--that--"
+
+"What do you mean, boy?  Speak!"
+
+"It is something to do with the noise we all heard last night."
+
+At that moment, with the rising sun shining full upon his fierce,
+contracted face and glistening bald head, Drinkwater stood leaning out
+from the farther bank, holding tightly with one hand to an overhanging
+birch, and if ever countenance wore a fiendish smile, it was his.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER NINETEEN.
+
+THE GREAT PERIL.
+
+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 breathless and exhausted from his
+efforts to answer the summons of the bell.
+
+"Where's Will?" he cried, earnestly.  "Where's Will?"
+
+"Safe, boy, safe," replied Willows, huskily.  "Back to the side.  It's
+dangerous here."
+
+"I only wanted to know where Will was.  I don't mind now.  I'm going to
+stop and help."
+
+"Ahoy, there!  Drinkwater!" shouted the north-country man.  "Come on!
+Here's lots to do.  This is bigger job than putting t'fire oot."
+
+The man addressed heard the appeal, shaded his eyes for a moment with
+his hand, and as if influenced by the strong man's words, came slowly
+down from his place of vantage to join the group, which now set to work
+loosening the stones near the top of the dam, to carry them to the wall
+end and pitch or roll them down into the weakened part.
+
+For a full half-hour all worked as men had never worked before,
+conscious the while that those they loved were gathered at each end of
+the threatened wall high up in safely, and watching their efforts to
+save the mill.  But at the end of that half-hour Willows suddenly
+stepped to where the Vicar and Manners were toiling like the rest, the
+latter, with dripping face, displaying his giant strength.
+
+"Stop!" he cried.  "The dam is bound to go!  Labour in vain!  We are
+sure to have some warning.  All follow to the mill.  Let's save there
+all we can."
+
+There was a hearty cheer at this, and the jocose weaver shouted--
+
+"Now, them's the words I like.  We'd have stopped till the old dam
+burst, but speaking for self and family, ah'd say I'd reather not."
+
+There was another good-humoured roar at this, but it was mingled with a
+sigh of relief, and a swift walk was soon hastened into a run, till all
+were gathered in a fairly safe position above the mill, where they
+paused to breathe.
+
+Willows and his friends came last, the former standing smiling to see
+the stack of household treasures Will and his helpmates had piled up.
+
+"Well done, my lads!" he cried.  "We've come to help you now."
+
+"Have you saved the dam, father?" cried Will, excitedly.
+
+There was a look of resignation on the father's face, as he gazed in his
+son's eyes and slowly shook his head.
+
+"Ahoy, there!  Drinkwater!  Ahoy!  What are you hinging back there for?"
+shouted the north-country man.  "More wuck to do.  Come on and help."
+
+All eyes were directed now to a solitary figure standing on the top of
+the great stone wall as if inspecting the damaged spot.
+
+"What's he stopping there for?" cried the Vicar, excitedly.
+
+"Why, Drinkwater, my lad," shouted Willows, between his hands, "you
+can't stay there.  Come over to us here.  Quick, man!  Quick!"
+
+The old fellow turned and shaded his eyes again, gazing fiercely at the
+speaker, and, as he lowered his hand and came slowly towards them, Will
+noticed that across his white brow there was a broad mark of blood.
+
+"Father, look," he whispered, hoarsely; "what does that mean?"
+
+"A mark from his hands, my boy.  He must have worn them raw.  Poor
+fellow!  He has been like a hero in this strife."
+
+The man came down, still slowly, and then ascended to where the group
+were awaiting further orders; but when these orders came, and with a
+rush the workers formed a line from the mill up to a shelf-like path
+where by no possibility could the pent-up water rise if the dam gave
+way, and began handing up rapidly bale after bale of finished silk, and
+mighty skeins of twisted thread, he did not stir a hand, but stood with
+the stain upon his brow, leaning against a corner of the mill,
+apparently exhausted, and never once taking his eyes from his master.
+
+For a full hour the men worked on, cheering loudly as the announcement
+was made that the wareroom was empty; and then a rush was made for the
+Mill House, where in turn all that was portable and good was borne away.
+Then came the end.
+
+For a long while past Willows and his friends had ceased to give any
+thought to the worldly goods, standing together intently watching for
+the danger they felt must come, and watching as it were in vain; for,
+save its ragged edge, from whence stones had been torn, the green and
+mossy old wall stood intact.  The sluices still roared; along the great
+chute a solid-looking mass of crystal water rushed and gleamed and
+flashed before it bent over in a glorious curve to plunge on to the
+wheel and break in spray, while the men laughed and joked merrily, as
+they made a play of their heavy toil and shouted gaily to the two groups
+of watchers--their wives and children and work-mates--who shouted
+encouragingly back.
+
+And all at once, as if hoping to lighten their labours--lovers of music
+as these people are--a shrill, musical, woman's voice arose, starting a
+familiar chorus, which was taken up directly by the young, to rise and
+fall and swell along the valley, the sweet soprano tones supported by
+the roaring waters' heavy bass.
+
+"Bravo!  Bravo!" shouted the Vicar, huskily, and as he spoke Will
+noticed that his voice sounded strange, and in the glance he obtained he
+noted that his eyes were filled with tears.
+
+The next minute he was hurrying up towards his people, walking-stick in
+hand, to leap upon a stone where he could be well seen by the choral
+singers on either side of the vale, and there for about a minute he
+stood, waving his baton-like stick, conducting his strange double choir,
+who sang more loudly their cheery mill-song, and at their best, till in
+an instant, like a thunderclap, there was a sharp report, the song
+became a wail of agony, and the voice of the master was heard above all,
+crying--
+
+"For your lives, men, run!"
+
+It could only have been for a few seconds, during which nothing seemed
+to happen save that there was the patter and scramble of many feet as
+with one accord all seemed to have made for safety, while, as that haven
+was reached, all turned their eyes towards the dam, to look in wonder,
+seeking as they did in vain for the cause of that sharp report.
+
+Another or two of those strangely drawn-out seconds passed, and then the
+watchers had their reward.  The great, green, mossy wall, with all its
+luxuriance of orange-tinted bracken and golden fern, seemed to shiver as
+if touched by a passing wind.  Then the quivering motion ceased, the
+whole centre crumbled softly down, and it was as if some huge, hoary
+monster, a living earthquake, had leaped from the prison in which it was
+bound, to spring upon its prey--the great mill buildings below.
+
+One moment all were there intact; the next they were gone, and in their
+place a mighty river of water was tearing down the vale with a hiss and
+roar that struck the gazers dumb; and then a great gap was visible where
+the vast dam-wall had been, the pool was empty, there was little more
+than a stream, and the roaring monster that had swept all before it
+could be heard gnashing, raging and destroying, far away below.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY.
+
+FIGHTING THE DESTROYER.
+
+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 the dumb.
+
+Then the Vicar's voice was heard, and the sound thereof was like the key
+that opened a closed-up door.
+
+"Where's Mr Willows?" he shouted.
+
+"Here!" came from close at hand, followed by, "And who has seen Will?"
+
+"Here--close by me," cried Manners.
+
+"Josh!  Josh!" shouted Will.
+
+"Here!  Here!  All right!"
+
+"Then everyone is safe," cried the boy.  "No, no, no!" he shouted, in
+anguished tones.  "Where's poor old Boil O?  He was there just now,
+standing by that corner.  No, no! there is no corner--everything has
+gone.  Oh, surely he can't be drowned!"
+
+There was no reply, but, headed by Willows, a strong party of the men
+followed him and the boys down the track of the mighty torrent--a
+clean-swept path of stone, for mill, house, sheds, cottages, the whole
+of the tiny village was not!
+
+There was nothing to impede their way for fully half a mile, and there,
+in a deep curve down in the valley, in a turgid stream still running
+fast, lay in wild confusion, baulk and beam, rafter and mass of
+swept-down stone, the relics of the water's prey.
+
+In his excitement Willows was the first to reach this pool; but Will was
+close behind, near enough to stretch out a hand to try an check him as
+he tore off his coat, rushed to the edge, stepped on to one stone, and
+leaped to another and another projecting above the surface, before
+plunging in and swimming towards where a pile of timbers were crushed
+together with the water foaming by.
+
+"What's he going to do?" cried Manners, panting as he came up.
+
+"I don't know," cried the boy, wildly.  "Oh, Mr Manners, help me--he'll
+be drowned!"
+
+As the boy spoke he followed his father's example, to leap from stone to
+stone and finally plunge in, trying almost vainly to swim, for the
+foaming water gave but the poorest support.  There were stones, too,
+everywhere, hewn blocks and others that had been torn from their native
+beds; but somehow, helped by the stream, Will reached the spot at length
+where he could see his father, apparently helpless, clinging to the
+naked roots of a swept-down tree as if for his very life.
+
+"Father!" cried the boy, as he anchored himself in turn, and gazing in
+horror in the staring eyes that met his own.  "What shall I do?" he
+cried.
+
+But help was near, and the despairing feeling that was overcoming poor
+Will died out as the gruff, familiar voice of Manners just behind
+cried--
+
+"Hold on, Will, lad!  That's right!  I've got him tight!  Why, Willows,
+man, what's gone wrong?"
+
+He whom he addressed turned his eyes slowly to give the speaker an
+appealing look, and then they closed, the head dropped back, the surging
+waters swept over the face, and, but for the artist's sturdy arm, it
+would have gone ill indeed; but the next moment the fainting man's head
+was raised and rested on the artist's shoulder.
+
+"He must be badly hurt, Will.  But all right; I've got him safe, and
+I'll soon take him to the shore."
+
+"Here, let me take one side," cried Will.
+
+"Nonsense, dear lad!  Stay as you are."
+
+"I can't," cried Will; "I must help.  He is my father, and I must and
+will!"
+
+"That's right, my boy, but on my word you can't.  I am a strong man, I
+believe, but it is all I can do to hold my own.  If you leave go you'll
+be swept away, and your father will be drowned; for I tell you now, I
+couldn't stop by him and see you go."
+
+Will gazed at him blankly, and for a few moments that group in the midst
+of the tangle of broken timber and jagged root hung together, boy and
+man staring into each other's eyes.
+
+"Will, dear lad," said the artist, at last, "we are good old friends.
+Trust and believe in me.  I'll save your father if I can.  If I don't,
+it is because I can't, and I've gone too.  Promise me you'll hold on
+there till I come back, or some of your friends come down.  They must
+know how we are fixed.  Will you do what I say?  I am speaking as your
+father would.  Hold on where you are."
+
+"Would he say that?" gasped Will, faintly.
+
+"He would, I vow."
+
+Will bowed his head, and the next moment he was clinging there, to the
+clean-washed roots of the uptorn tree, watching the heads of father and
+friend being rapidly swept-down the stream, while the waters were
+surging higher and higher about his breast, for the depression was being
+filled rapidly by the undammed stream.
+
+"To be alone like this!" groaned Will.  "Why didn't I swim with them and
+try to help?"
+
+He spoke aloud, his words sounding like a long-drawn moan; and then he
+started, for an echo seemed to come from close at hand, heard plainly
+above the rushing of the stream.  His next thought was that it was
+fancy, but, as the idea flitted through his brain in silence, there was
+the moan again from somewhere at the back.
+
+It was the faint cry of someone in grievous peril, and it drove out self
+from the generous boy's breast.  Someone wanted help, and he was strong
+and hearty still.  It took but little time to find out whence the
+deep-toned moaning came.  It was from out of a jagged mass of broken
+timbers, whose ends were anchored among the stones, and through them the
+rising waters were rushing fast.
+
+It was like turning from a great peril into dangers greater far, but the
+boy never thought of that.  He measured the distance with his eyes, and
+came to the conclusion that he could pass hand by hand through the
+waters, among the roots, till he was straight above the swaying timbers.
+To swim would be impossible, he knew; but he felt that he could let
+himself go, be carried those few yards, catch at one or other of the
+timbers, and hold on there.
+
+As he finished thinking, he drew a deep breath, felt stronger than ever,
+and began to act.
+
+Reaching out with his right hand, he got a grip of the nearest root, let
+go with his left, and in an instant, he felt as if the water had seized
+him, and was trying to tear his right arm out of the socket.  The jerk
+was numbing, but he got a grip with his left hand, and tried again and
+again, till he lay on his back, his arms outstretched above his head,
+his feet pointing straight at the chaos of timbers, took another deep
+breath, and then let go.
+
+There was a quick, gliding motion, and his feet struck against one big
+beam, slipped right over it, and the next minute he was in the very
+centre of the tangle, while his progress was checked for a sufficiently
+long time for him to get a good hold, and feel that for the time being
+he was safe.  His breath was coming and going fast, though, from the
+excitement as well as exertion.  And then it was almost in horror that
+his heart seemed to stand still.  It was a momentary sensation, and it
+gave way to a feeling of joy, for there, close at his side, so near that
+he could touch, was the grim, upturned face of Drinkwater, with eyes
+staring wildly into his.  He, too, was clinging with all his might to
+one of the broken timber baulks, and, as his eyes met Will's, he uttered
+a piteous, gasping cry, and murmured the one word--
+
+"Help!"
+
+That appeal went straight to the boy's heart, and seemed to nerve him
+for his task.
+
+"Help?  Yes!" he cried.  "I've come to bring you help;" and then a pang
+shot through his breast as he spoke his next words.  "Mr Manners was
+here just now, and he'll soon be back."
+
+Would, he asked himself, as he thought of his father, those words prove
+true?
+
+"Cheer up, old fellow!" he cried, and he felt stronger still.
+
+Here was something he could do.
+
+"Can you raise yourself a little higher?" he said, for the rising water
+lapped in a wave nearly to the sufferer's mouth.
+
+"No, no," said the man, faintly; "I'm gripped between two timbers fast
+by the legs.  There, I feel better now.  Ah, Will, lad, I am glad you
+have come!  I can think and see all now.  That burning pain has gone
+from my head, and it's all quite clear.  And how just and right all is,
+if we could always only see."
+
+"Yes, yes, of course," cried Will, cheerily; "but keep a good heart.
+They'll come and help us soon.  But I want to see you higher up; the
+water's getting deeper, and you must raise your head."
+
+The man smiled softly in his face; his old grim and savage look had
+gone, and, after making a vain effort, his head sank back so low that
+the water swept right over his nostrils, and, fast held as he was, he
+must have drowned; but in an instant Will shifted his position, took
+another grip, and forced his legs beneath him till his knees were below
+the prisoner's shoulders, wedging him up so that he could breathe freely
+once more.
+
+"There, that's better," cried Will, hoarsely.  "You'll be all right
+now."
+
+"Yes, for a few minutes, lad, but the end is near, and it's all quite
+right.  Will, lad, I used to make toys for you, when you were a little
+child, and, when you grew bigger, I used to let you spoil my tools, for
+I never had bairn of my own, and, after my way, I somehow got to love
+you, lad.  And then, I must have gone kinder sorter mad.  That burning
+pain came in my head.  I can see it all clearly now, just at the last.
+I got cursing the best of masters that ever stepped, and one night in a
+mad fit, I tried to burn him out of house and home; but when I saw the
+dear old mill a-fire, I couldn't bear it, and fought, like the madman I
+was, to put it out--and did.  Then it all came back again worse and
+stronger than before.  I felt that I must do it--and did.  `The fire
+fails,' I said, `but the water wins.  It made him a rich man'--your good
+father, boy--`and now it shall make him poor.  My revenge!'  I said.
+Yes, my revenge!  Last night, Will--tell him this when I am gone--I got
+down by the bottom of the dam and worked with mallet and long crowbar,
+as I had worked night after night before, till the water began to run
+just in one little tiny trickle.  And then I stopped.  Water--my slave
+then--I knew would do the rest.  And it has, lad, just as I thought,
+given me my revenge, as I called it, but turned and slain me too.  Well,
+it was right it should be so.  I know it now.  Tell him--my good old
+master--all that I have said, and ask him to forgive me, if he can, for
+I know it now--I must have been mad."
+
+He ceased speaking, and lay quite still with his eyes gazing sadly in
+the son's face, while a feeling of horror and repulsion was gathering
+strongly in the lad's breast, till the wretched being spoke again, with
+the water once more gathering closely about his lips.
+
+"Now then," he said, "you know the truth.  It's all over Will, lad.  But
+for you, I should have been drowned before.  You are young and strong; I
+know you can swim.  This water's nowt to you.  Go, dear lad, and save
+your life.  Don't look back once to see me die.  It would come harder if
+I thought you did.  There," he gasped, as a wave lapped close to his
+lips once more, "think of your own self now.  I have had my day, and
+ended badly.  Your time has all to come.  Will, lad, bad as I have been,
+can you grip my hand once more?"
+
+"Only in my heart!  If I let go, we both shall drown.  There!  Cheer up!
+Help must come soon."
+
+"Not for me.  Quick, swim for your life.  Good-bye!"
+
+"What, and leave you here to drown?  Not if I know it!"
+
+"What, after all that I have done?"
+
+"Yes; I couldn't leave you even now.  I tell you, help must come, and--
+there, what did I say?"
+
+At that moment, the artist's cheery voice sounded from close at hand,
+and, directly after, he and two more of the mill hands were helping to
+free the wretched prisoner from his wooden bonds.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.
+
+THE STORY TOLD.
+
+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 soon as the sufferers were borne
+dripping and senseless from the water, scores of hands were ready to
+bear them into shelter, where doctors soon declared that there was no
+further danger to fear.
+
+John Willows, as he lay on a couch grasping his son's hand, hurriedly
+explained his action when he had dashed into the flood, for he had
+caught sight of Drinkwater for a moment, and seen that he was in peril
+of his life, but it was only to nearly lose his own, for he had been
+caught between two heavy beams sailing with the rapid current, and been
+so crushed that insensibility came on.
+
+As for Drinkwater, he lay calm and sensible, like a man just recovering
+from some long illness, and there was a look of pathetic wonder in his
+eyes that he was still alive which was pitiful to see.
+
+"No wonder," said one of the doctors; "he's been within an inch of
+losing his life; but in a few days he will be all right again;" and his
+words proved true.
+
+That same afternoon the man was carried by friendly hands up to his own
+cottage, which, of course, lay high above the broken dam, while others
+formed a kind of litter upon which Mr Willows was borne up to the
+Vicarage, which he was bidden to consider his home.  So that, after the
+horrors of the morning, as the various employes found shelter or
+returned to their uninjured homes, a strange feeling of peace began to
+reign.
+
+It was quite evening when Josh and Will descended to Drinkwater's
+cottage, Will having declared himself none the worse for all that he had
+gone through, and, as his father was sleeping calmly, and the boy was
+looking strained and white, Mr Carlile agreed that the fresh air would
+do him good.
+
+"Tell Mr Manners," he said, "that we have plenty of room here, and that
+I should be glad if he will join us, and so leave the cottage to its
+owner, and his wife's hands tree.  You understand, Josh.  Be insistent,
+and tell him that if he does not come I shall feel quite hurt."
+
+"Yes, father, I understand," cried Josh, and the boys set off.  "I
+wonder," said Josh, "that old Toadstool has not been up."
+
+"Oh, he meant kindly," said Will.  "He was afraid of disturbing us, for
+I heard the doctor tell him that father must be kept very quiet for a
+day or two."
+
+They reached the cottage, which looked as attractive as ever in its nest
+of flowers; but, as they approached, they saw no sign of the artist, and
+they were about to go up to the door when they heard a voice from one of
+the open bedroom windows, and both stopped short as the words struck
+their ears.
+
+It was Mrs Drinkwater speaking, and her voice was half-choked with
+sobs, so that her words were indistinct.  But Will caught this--
+
+"Don't, don't say more.  I have nothing to forgive you.  It is enough
+for me that you are your own dear self again."
+
+The boys stole away on tiptoe, Will saying, huskily: "We can't disturb
+them now.  Let's go and look at the broken dam."
+
+Josh stopped short to peer into his companion's face.
+
+"Can you stand it, Will?" he said.
+
+The boy was silent for a few moments, and then, after making an effort
+to clear his voice--
+
+"Yes," he said, but very huskily.  "Everybody has been saved, and I am
+going to try and bear it like--well, like a man."
+
+"Hooray!" cried Josh, softly.  "But I say, what can have become of old
+Manners?"  And then, with a hearty laugh, "I say!  Oh, just look there!"
+
+He pointed in the direction of a verdant shelf overlooking the
+clean-swept vale; and there, beneath his white umbrella, sat the object
+of their search, calmly smoking his big black briar pipe, contemplating
+the ruins of the dam and a small pile of stones, the only vestige of the
+vanished mill.
+
+"Why, here you are," cried Josh.
+
+"Ah, boys," he said, sadly.  "But you, Will, ought not you to be in
+bed?"
+
+"Bed?" cried the boy, scornfully.  "What for?  Josh lent me a suit of
+his clothes, and I'm quite dry now."
+
+"Oh, yes," said Manners; "so am I, but I feel as if I could make a
+handkerchief precious wet by blubbering like a great, weak girl."
+
+"Oh, don't worry about it," cried Will.  "Think how we've all been
+saved.  Father's in the best of heart, and he says as soon as he's well
+that he'll set to and build the whole place up bigger and better than it
+was before."
+
+"Yes," said Josh, "I heard him; and he said, too, that he could do it
+with a better heart in his thankfulness that not a life was lost."
+
+"Ah, yes," said Manners, sadly, "that's quite right, boys; but when you
+came I wasn't thinking about that, but about my own loss."
+
+"Oh," said Will.  "You mean about the place being so spoiled?"
+
+"No, I don't," said the artist, gruffly.  "I was thinking about my
+pictures--twelve canvases, a whole year's work, washed right away, dead,
+as it were, and buried under some heap of stones.  Ah, boys, they were
+only so much painted cloth, and I'm afraid they were very bad, but it
+was all so much work that was somehow very dear to me, and--bah!  Never
+say die!  I'll begin again like your father, and build up something
+fresh."
+
+For some days Will paced about the devastated scene, looking white and
+strange--like one who had a burden on his mind.
+
+The Vicar noticed it, and spoke to the doctor when he came to see his
+patient.
+
+"Oh, yes," said the doctor; "I saw it at once.  Shock, my dear sir--
+shock!  The poor boy has a deal to bear, but a young, elastic, healthy
+chap like that will soon come round."
+
+Josh mentioned it, too, in confidence to his father, saying--
+
+"I don't like poor Will's looks.  He's so white and strange."
+
+But, on hearing the doctor's words, he said--
+
+"Well, he ought to know.  We must wait."
+
+He had not long to wait.  A few days later, Will was himself again, for
+the burden was off his mind.  He had rested till he thought that his
+father was well enough to hear what he had to say, and then, alone by
+his bedside, he repeated almost word for word the confession Drinkwater
+had made.
+
+Mr Willows listened silently right to the end, and then, after a long
+silence, he lay holding his son's hand clasped between his own.
+
+"Horrible, indeed, my boy," he said, gently.
+
+"Yes, horrible, indeed, father.  What shall you do?"
+
+There was another spell of silence before Mr Willows spoke again.
+
+"Forgive, my boy," he said, "as I hope to be forgiven.  What did he say
+when he believed he was a dying man--that he was mad?  Those must have
+been the words of truth."
+
+They were, for the time passed on, and as the new mill rose, James
+Drinkwater was one of the busiest hands, restoring the place to its old
+working state, a man completely changed, the most faithful worker about
+the establishment.
+
+"It is our joint secret, Will, my boy," said his father.  "Let it rest."
+
+And it has rested until now, when, long years after the Drinkwaters have
+been laid to their rest, and Manners, the artist, has ceased to visit
+the beautiful vale, the story of Will of the Mill is told.
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Will of the Mill, by George Manville Fenn
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