The Laughing Mill, and Other Stories. Julian Hawthorne

it was deeper and tenderer like, and made you feel as how he had grown to be a man more than a scholar. I thought he was as a ship that had long been lingering in cold dark waters, baffled with winds that set towards no pleasant harbour, but which had at last found its sails filled with a fair fresh breeze, as was blowing her to warm southern seas and tropic islands full of heat and life. Ye’ll maybe laugh, sir, to hear an old sailor talk like this; but surely I had loved the man, and pitied him, too, for his loneliness; and it touched me, as I said, to see that he had found a good thing in the world, and could feel the happiness of it.

      “ ‘Pretty soon, Jack,’ says he again, ‘ye must help me carry her to the mill this morning, before the village folks are astir; and don’t tell them that she’s there, or whence she came. She’s my own, and her past is all gone for ever; God has sent her to me for my own. I shall make her love me as I now love her, and no other shall have any part in her. I will be to her all that she has lost, and more; and I will cherish her always and make her happy. And when the village folks find out that I have her (as soon of course they must), they shall be told that she is a good fairy come to bring me fortune and delight. I’d say that she rose up one morning out of the deep clear pool just above the mill-race; and that though appearing as a human being, she is in very truth not mortal, but has consented to live with me so long as I continue worthy of her companionship. But when the time comes—which God forbid it ever should!—that I prove unworthy, then shall she vanish back to her natural abode, and I be more desolate than before she came. And as for this necklace,’ says he, ‘it is a talisman; and should fate ever separate us, yet this be left me, ’twill be a pledge that’. …”

      “What’s happened?”

IV.

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      The yarn broke off abruptly enough. Poyntz and I had both started to our feet, our eyes and ears straining towards the mill-stream, where little Peter had during the last hour been quietly fishing. The sound of a quick scramble, a heavy plunge, and simultaneously a lusty scream, had sharply broken the repose of the summer afternoon.

      “ ’Tis the brat has toppled in!” cried Poyntz, the sunburnt ruddiness of his complexion turning to a tawny sallow hue. “He can’t swim; haste ye lower down, sir; I’ll to the pool; but if as he’s carried over the fall, ye’ll stop him at the rapid.”

      We had already set off on a run towards the bank, and we now separated in accordance with Poyntz’s suggestion. I saw no more of the latter, being wholly absorbed in carrying out my part of the programme; and in a few moments I was standing panting beside the rushing water, trying to select the best point from which to take my plunge. Just then I heard a swift rustling step behind me, and there was Agatha, her lovely face and eyes aglow with terrified excitement. Then it passed through my mind that she had always evinced a particular tenderness and affection for poor little Peter; and at the thought I must confess that my resolve to save him at all risks became tenfold as strong as it had been before.

      It was all a whirl and confusion; and only by comparing notes afterwards did we make out the order of events. Master Peter, it seems, after much unfruitful angling, had at last succeeded in hooking a huge trout, and straightway had lost first his mental and then his bodily balance. The fish being fairly on the hook, and pulling hard, the little man had rather chosen to go in after it, rod and all, than save himself at the cost of losing it. His scream, however, had startled not only his father and myself but Agatha and his mother likewise; and the latter had followed her husband, as Agatha did me. When Poyntz reached the brink of the pool, the young fisherman had just risen for the second time, and was circling helplessly in the eddy. Poyntz sprang forward; but his foot catching in a vine, he fell prone, his head in the water and the rest of his body on dry land.

      Before he could disentangle himself (an operation which the well-meant but too convulsive efforts of Mrs. Poyntz only served to retard) the child had drifted into the current and was carried over the fall. It was now that Agatha and I first caught sight of him. She pressed impulsively forward, and had I not retained her would have leaped into the headlong rapids herself. As I caught her arm, I felt rather than saw her glance at me, as though measuring my ability to do what must be done. Apparently her decision was in my favour, for she stepped back; and an instant after I was staggering breast deep in the boiling stream, watching the swift but topsy-turvy onset of Master Peter. Down he swept; and to make a long story short, I succeeded in catching hold of him without losing my footing, and thereby in saving his life and my own. Agatha helping from the bank, we were soon landed high and dry, or rather, very wet. Then ensued a great and indescribable hullaballo, wherein the first distinguishable words burst from Mr. Poyntz:

      “Look ye here, wife!” cried he, laughing and weeping in the same breath, “look if the lad hasn’t stuck to his fish through it all!”

      And so it proved; Peter had rivalled the childish exploit of his predecessor, stout little Kit North. There was the rod, still lightly gripped in his small fist; and a three-pound trout was flapping and gasping at the end of the line.

      “He’s but a chip of the old block, Mr. Poyntz,” said I, when the shouts that greeted the discovery had somewhat subsided. “What is that sticking in the corner of your mouth?”

      The old mariner put up his hand and took the thing out, and after staring at it for a moment in comical dismay, he burst into a laugh, in which everybody joined. It was the stem of his well-loved meerschaum, held unconsciously between his teeth throughout the entire turmoil; the bowl had probably been snapped off when he fell on the brink of the pool. So we all retraced our way to the house, the trout resting triumphantly in Peter’s arms, who was himself carried by his father. Agatha and I walked side by side; neither spoke to the other, and I knew not what thoughts were in her mind; but for my own part I had never been more light of heart, and I regarded Peter and his trout as the best friends that ever lover had. My achievement had been trifling enough, Heaven knows; but such as it was, it had been done before her eyes, and partly at least for her sake. When we had reached the house-door, and the others had passed in before us, she paused on the threshold and turned to me, smiling, with her finger upon the necklace-clasp.

      “I kissed it to save you … and Peter!” she added hastily, and with a light in her dark eyes that was half mischievous, half earnest.

      “And now that we’re saved, I suppose you are going to kiss … Peter?” I dared to reply, for my ducking had given me courage.

      She blushed, but looked straight at me; and the next moment was gone into the house, leaving me uncertain whether I had gone too far or not far enough. But, ah! happy Peter. A few bruises, and the involuntary swallowing of a gallon or two of water, were the extent of his injuries; while his blessings were beyond estimation. When I came downstairs half an hour later, after changing my clothes, I found him bundled up in an old pea-jacket of his father’s, and sitting in Agatha’s arms. He was watching his mother clean the big trout, the prize of his valour; and as I passed by, Agatha glanced up at me and kissed him!

      I stole out by the kitchen-door and looked about for Mr. Poyntz; for his yarn had, for several reasons, begun to interest me exceedingly, and I was most anxious to hear the end of it. But he was nowhere to be seen; he had gone off to attend to something on the farm, and would as likely as not be absent till supper-time. It was a long time till then, and meanwhile I was without anything to amuse me. My mind was restless and excited, and I would have been thankful for any distraction. Nothing turned up, however, and at length—without being at the pains even to notice what direction I was taking—I set off on an objectless tramp, and was soon out of sight of the farmhouse.

      I had plenty to think about—so much, indeed, that I could think coherently about nothing. Ideas crowded incongruously upon one another, now this one and now that catching my attention for a moment, and then receding to the background. From the picture of my late adventure in the mill-stream, I slid to a review of Agatha—my relations with her; did she care for me? had my lucky exploit really advantaged me? and ought I to have stolen a kiss upon the doorstep? Instead of considering these questions, I was pondering