Page:Love's trilogy.djvu/361

 'GOD'S PEACE' 35 1

One day, when Greta had left the room, and he and I sat on the sofa together, he moved close to me and whispered : ' I think you must have noticed that Greta does not like my going over to the mill. Has she told you her reason ? No. Well, shall I tell you what I think ? She is afraid because I am old and blind ; she fears I cannot any longer take care of myself, and that an accident might happen. Greta is a good daughter and takes such care of me that I don't like to upset her. But if I had any- thing to do I am sure I should find my way on Rough-Hill and in the mill as well as any young person with two strong eyes.'

On the whole his mind dwells in an unhealthy fashion on the mill. It is not only when he talks in his sleep at night, to which Greta has sometimes listened, but in broad daylight, that his thoughts hover about it. He talks about it as though the mill were a human being who had a grudge against him, and whose revenge he fears.

The other night he said to me : ' Don't you think that a mill that stands still in this way is a curious thing.? If it was old and dilapidated, it would be different, but nothing is amiss with this mill, it has got its machinery in order inside as well as out, and its meaning in this world is, after all, to work as long as it is able. You see there is something humiliating in the fact that people who do not know better, who^did not know it when it was the best mill in the neighbourhood, might think that it could not work at all. No, I have not treated the mill fairly.