The Laughing Mill, and Other Stories. Julian Hawthorne

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      “In my walk I happened by the boulder where I’d been with the Scholar overnight, and there I picked up a small iron box, with a big lock on it; it was lashed to four bits of wood, so as it might float, and I think it must have come ashore along with the raft that brought the little girl. Just as I laid hands on it, and cut away the lashings, I sighted one of the villagers a-coming over the cliff path towards me. So, not caring to be hailed at that time, I slipped the box in the pocket of my jacket, and steered for the house.

      “And lo! there was the fair child sitting in the chair, and the Scholar he was kneeling in front of her, with her hands in his, and they were a-talking together in that same foreign lingo as she had spoken in to me; for, d’ye see, he had learnt it all from his books, and understood it as well as she who was born to it. The child was a bit scared and tearful still, and he seemed to be a-comforting of her; and as I came in, says he, ‘Don’t let on that her folks are drowned, Jack; for I’ve told her they’re but borne away to another harbour, and will return one day to claim her. So meanwhile,’ says he, ‘she’ll come to live with me at the mill, and be my little girl; for is she not my little girl now, since ’twas I brought her forth from the ocean that would have robbed her sweet young life?’ With that he kisses her little hands, and says somewhat to her again in her own tongue. It touched my heart to see the two together, sir; for, d’ye see, the Scholar had never seemed to be aware, as I may say, of women or children until now; he had moved through life without seeing them or speaking to them, save at times in an absent, dreamy sort of a way, as though they were in different worlds. But now he was full of earnestness and a kind of joyful trembling surprise, as one who had all of a sudden opened his eyes to a great treasure, and was delighting in it all the more for that he had been unknowing of it before. He was all in all a changed man, and softened, and waked up inside, so that his eyes seemed to be a-seeing the things that was round him, and not things in a dream; and methought there was a difference in his voice, too; 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.

       Table of Contents

      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 СКАЧАТЬ