Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1888-04-04
The Sturg Teller.
WILL O. THE MILL.
By ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

WILL U IHE MILL.
By ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
The mill where Will lived with his adopted
parents stood in a falling valley between
pine woods and great mountains. Above
hill after hill scared upwards until they
scared out of the depth of the hardest tim.
ber, and stood naked against the sky. Some
way up, a long gray village lay like a seam
or a rag Of vapor on wooded hillside, and
when the wind was favorable, the sound Of
the church bells would drop down, thin and
silvery, to Will Below. the valley grew
ever sleeper and sleeper, and at the same
time widened out on either hand, and from
an eminence beside the mill it was possible
to see its whole length and away beyond it
over wide plain, where the river turned
and shone, and moved on from city to city
on its voyage toward the sea- It CHANGED
that over this valley there lay pass into a
neighboring kingdom, SO that, quiet and
rural as it ,Bas, the road that ran along
beside the river was a high thorough
fare between two splendid and powerful
societies. All through the summer,
travelling carriages came crawling up, or
went plunging briskly downward past the
mill; and as it happened that the other side
pryery much easier Of ascent, the path was
not much frequented except by people going
in one direction; and of all the carriages that
VIII saw go by, five-sixths were plunging
briskly downward and only one-sixth crawl
ing up. Much more was this the case with
foot passengers. All the ightfooted tour
lists, all the peddlers laden with strange
wares, were tending downward like the river
that accompanied their path. Nor was this
all; for when Will was yet child disas-
trous war arose over great part Of the
world. The newspapers were full Of defeats
and victories, the earth rang with cavalry
hoofS, and often for days together and for
miles around the coil Of battle terrified good
people from their labors in the field. Of all
this, nothing was heard for long time in
the valley; but ut last one Of the command
ers pushed an army over the pass by forced
marches, and for three days horse and foot,
cannon and tumbril, drum and standard,
kept pouring downward past the mill. All
day the child stood and watched them on
their passage-the rhythmical stride, the
pale, unshaven faces tanned about the eyes, the
discolored regimentals and the tattered flags,
filed him with sense Of weariness, pity and
wonder; and all night long, after he was in
bed, he could hear the cannon pounding and
the feet trampling, and the great armament
sweeping onward and downward past the
mill. No one in the valley ever heard the
fate of the expedition, for they lay out Of the
way Of gossip in those troublous times; but
Will saw one thing plainly, that not man
returned. Whittier had they all gomez
Whittier went all the tourists and
peddlers with strange wares? whittier all the
brisk barouches with servants in the dickys
whittier the water Of tho stream, ever cours-
ing downward and ever renewed from aboves
Even the wind blew oftener down the valley,
and carried the dead leaves along with it in
the fall 1t seemed like great conspiracy
of things animate and inanimate; they all
went downward, feetly and gayly down.
ward. and only he, it seemed, remained be-
hind, like stock upon the wayside. 1t some
times made him glad when he noticed how
the fishes kept their heads up stream. They,
at least, stood faithfully by him, while all
else were posting downward to the unknown
world.
One evening he asked the miller where the
river went.
sit goes down the valley" answered he,
"and turns power of mills-six score mills,
they say, from here to Unterdeck-and it
none the wearier after all And then II Goes
out into the lowlands, and waters the great
corn country, and runs through sight Of
fine cities $50 they say) where kings live all
alone in great palaces, with sentry walking
up and down before the door. And it goes
under bridges with stone men upon them,
looking down and smiling so curious at the
water, and living folks leaning their elbows
on the wall and looking over too. And then
it goes on and on, and down through marshes
and sands, until at last it falls into the sea,
where the ships are that bring parrots and
tobacco from the Indies. Ay, it has long
trot before it as it goes singing over our weir,
bless its heart"
"And what is the sea!" asked Will.
1.-THE sea-" cried the miller. Lord help
US all, it is the greatest thing God made!
That is where all the water in the world runs
down into a great salt lake There it lies, as
fiat as my hand and as innocent like as
child; but they do say when the wind blows it
gets up into water mountains bigger than
any of ours and swallows down great ships
bigger than our mill, and makes such roar
ing that you can hear it mites away upon the
land There are great fish in it five times
bigger than bull, and one old serpent as
long as our river and as old as all the world,
with whiskers like a man and a crown Of Sill
YER on her head"
Will thought he had never heard anything
like this, and he kept on asking question after
question about the world that lay away down
tlse river, with all its perils and marvels, un-
til the old miller became quite interested
himself, and at last took him by the hand
and led him to the hilltop that over
looks the valley and the plain. The sun
was near setting and hung low down
in cloudless sky Everything was defined
and glorified in golden light. Will had never
seen SO great an eXpanse Of country in his life;
he stood and gazed with all his eyes He could
see the cities, and the woods and fields, and
the bright curves Of the river, and far away
to where the rim Of the plain trenched along
the shining heavens. An overmastering
emotion seized upon the boy, soul and body;
his heart beat so thickly that he could not
breathe; the scene swan before his eyes; the
sun seemed to wheel round and round, and
throw off, as it turned, strange shapes which
disappeared with the rapidity of thought, and
were succeeded b. others. Will covered his
face with his hands and burst into a violent
fit Of tears; and the poor miller, sadly disap-
pointed and perplexed, saw nothing better
for it than to take him up in his arms and
carry him home in silence.
From that day forward Will was full Of
new hopes and longngs. Something kept
tugging at his heart strings; the running
water carried his desires along with it as he
dreamed over its fleeting surface; the wind,
as it ran over innumerable tree tops, hailed
him with encouraging words; branches beck
oned downward; the open road, as II
shouldered round the angles and went turn
ing and vanishing fast and faster down the
valley, tortured him with its solicitations.
He spent long whiles on the eminence, look
ing down the rivershed and abroad on the
fiat lowlands, and watched the clouds that
Travelled forth upon the sluggish wind and
trailed their purple shadows on the plain; OF
he would linger by the wayside, and follow
the carriages with his eyes as they ratified
downward by theriver. 1t did not matter
what it was; everything that went that way,
were it cloud or carriage, bird or brown
water in the stream, he felt his heart flow
out after it in an ecstasy of longing
We are told by men of science that all the
ventures of mariners on the sea, all that
countermarching Of tribes and races that
confounds old history with its dust and rumor
sprang from nothing more abstruse than the
laws of supply and demand, and certain
natural instinct for cheap rations. To any
one thinking deeDly this will seem q dull