Page:Daskam Bacon--Whom the gods destroy.djvu/209

 "'And what was the story of it all?' asked Joan. Oh, the story was disagreeable enough. The miller's daughter wanted to marry a poor young man, but her father would not let her. And she refused to accept his rich nephew. So he locked her in her room till she should consent. And she stayed there a week. And one night the nephew came home late and saw a tiny light in her window, and presently he saw some one place a ladder and go softly up, and the miller's daughter leaned out and helped him in. So he told her father, who came into her room the next night with a bloodhound, and bound her to the bed and hushed her cries with her sash, and lit the little light. And when her lover had climbed the ladder—the dog was there. And that was Christmas eve.

"'Do the people suffer this without complaint—these deaths and convulsions and apostasies?' asked Joan. Well, no. But if they destroyed the mill a liquor saloon would go up immediately. The proprietor was simply waiting. And they didn't want that. So they kept it quiet. And nobody need go there. Nobody had been alarmed or hurt except