Litchfield enquirer., 1879-01-02

dining room. At the back of the latter was a smaller room, nsed apparently by the late occupant mainly as a receptacle for fishing tackle. 1.-The staircase was in recess opposite to this spare room, and at the back of the drawing room. At the end of the passage was door communicating with the kitchen and offices. The furniture was faded and shabby, but sufficient for my purposes. There were some easy-chairs ill the drawing room, and couch, all covered with faded chintz; il also boasted piano very much out of tune, as Wyatt ascertained by striking few chords on it. The dining room, in addition to the ordi- nary furniture, had a writing table near the window, at which 1 thought l would establish myself. The least satisfactory part of the rooms was the state of the walls, papered with a dull and dismal paper, now dlscolored with damp, the more conspicuous as they were bare of pictures or ornament, save in the drawing room, over the fireplace of which hung the portraits of man and woman, -colored pho tographs apparently, not badly executed, al though somewhat overdone. The womans was the better work of the two; the figure was taa and graceful, and the face, although not altogether prepossessing in expression, 8 verT hsldsorae one. Whether the person rep. resented was quite lady could not be told, but the man was certainly not quite a gentle man, and the painter, perhaps in trying to please, had laid on his color to c0arseiy. The representation was of swaggering fellow with broad chest and fine head of greasy hair, with black, curly whiskers meeting un- der the chin. nloustaches. and black imper- rial, wearing good deal of jewelry, care. fully picked out by the colourist altogether a beauty man of an objectionable type, whom some women may be found to admire, but no
 l,ct of suppose, remarked Wyatt; ''the lady had a temper of her own. or the artist has libeled her; and that fellow was not the sort te stand
 it, either, I'll be bound he thinks good deal too much about number one for that"
 We wanted to find the miler's daughter, to get some information about the amount of crockery and kitchen utensils available, but she did not appear to be anywhere about the place; so I passed into the kitchen to make a rough inventory of it's appliances, and after. wards went upstairs and looked over the bed .0v-'-4 while Wyatt returned to the garden to have a smoke.
 fonnd him lying on the ssass by the bank of the stream. Il say, Phil, my b6y,"> he ob. served, as 1 strolled down towards him, s'yeu will be establishing filtration with the mil very fine young woman she is, 1 am bound to say Don't you think so?"
 answered that was not yet in a position to form an opinion, not having seen her.
 Why" exclaimed Wyatt, raising himself on his elbow, do you mean to say you didn't meet her inside? Why, she went in not two minutes before you came out. She came out of the grove here on her way from the mill. J
 I replied that supposed must have been up stars when she entered, for did not see her. nor even hear her.
 ''Tou may we'll not have heard her, for she walked so lightly glided rather than walked. Our friend the miller must have given her les sons in calisthenics; fhstic beauties seldom make the most of themselves in the matter of carnage"
 We now went up to the house together and called out once or twice. No one answered. and we came away. Well. she is all uncom- mon fine girl, :" continued Wyatt, as we re- face is at all equal to her figure I didn't see her face. I whistled to attract her attention, but she kept her head turned away, with a hood over it. She came quickly out of the thlcket, as if she were in a hurry and thinking about something, and went straight into the house. What jungle this is, to be sure :" he cont;Iiued, as we made our way in single file alqng' the traces of the path, now overgrown wiSn tiorns and bushes "You will have to get leave to have some of this cut away"
 We found the miller smoking hls pipe on the bridge. He said that the rent of the cot tage was four guineas week; and on my de murring to that amount, he added that very likely the agent would accept less. He could not take upon himself to lower the terms; his share in the matter was simply to get a com mission on the let Had not better see the agent in town, and make an offer The agent wanted very much to get d tenant. He had been told to name four guineas, but he dared say something less would be taken to secure d tenant. ''Offer three guineas, and you will get it," Wyatt observed to me aside, ''and the place will Dc cheap at the money it would fetch three times the amount in most parts of the river with so much ground about it. |" ''How long had it been empty P I asked Two years the miller believed, but it was empty before he came to the mill. Two years!" said Wyatt: 'why, from the look of the place it might have been uninhabted for twenty. The last occupants must have been fond of jungle life; but perhaps they did not stay there long" The miller said he did not know much about it ; they left before he came there. He spoke with an air of con- straint, as if not wishing to pursue the subject but Wyatt, who was not easily put, down, asked if the pictures in the drawing room rep resented the late occupants, and the miller re- piled in the affirmative, but with marked re- serve of manner
 We now turned to go, and as the miller ac- us to where anr boot --~-.e .-.earnd a few yards peIow the bridge, his manner be- ca,nn innrn free and open. ''These stakes are very handy, gentlemen" he said, as Wyatt stopped to unfasten the painter; and on our concurrence, he went on {: 'Ay, fl,nv tK,h n1ryf q are main handy in plore ways than one These stakes are what call my bait-lnes catches some very large bait here, mostly in them deep stakes there, in the middle, under water dead bait calls it. Yousee, this is the way to the ferry over my bridge, and sometimes parties come along here of night, tight or what not, and they loses their way over my bridge, and falls in, and then instead of float ing down. they get caught in these here stakes: and so sees 'em of morning and pulls them out But it's too late then to send forthe doc tor"
 ''Does this often happen?" asked Wyatt.
 "Wonderful often il s wonderful how many folk about here gets tight of a night, and mis- ses the road over my bridge-wonderful many considering how few folks there be in these parts altogether. 'Tisnt like as if it were Lon don, you see, or even Stainham; there's only villages about here"
 You ought to have a railing put to your bridge" called out Wyatt, as he pushed the boat eff, and sent her stern foremost down the stream.
 ''So ought-nastcr, so ought" chuckled the miller in reply; ''leastways ought to draw them stakes away. and then l shouldn't be troubled with dead bait of morning."
 That old fellow thinks himself wag," said Wyatt, as we dropped slowly down i; ''who would have thought an old clown like that would have such stylish daughter!"
 Now it so happened that, before we went down to the boat had stopped to have few words with the miller about the best way of obtaining supplies, and so forth, while Wyatt wandered about the island to find good place for boating in the morning. Just as I was preparing to follow him, the millers daughter came up to us to tell her father that she had returned from the cottage, who bade her put the Key on the hook over the fireplace and took the opportunityto arrange that she should be there to meet me when expected to arrive the day but one following to take possession. And but that 1 could make allowance for my friends infatuation about the fair sex, and his disposition to discover some beauty in every woman he met, undistinguishable by any one else, should have been astenished at the hy- perbole he employed about the miler's daugh- IL