Volume I Part 13 (1/2)
”I don't know,” said Fleda. ”I hope not. I think it is very ugly.”
”Do you? Oh! I admire it. It makes a man look so spry!”
A few hundred yards from Mr. Ringgan's gate the road began to wind up a very long heavy hill. Just at the hill's foot, it crossed by a rude bridge the bed of a noisy brook that came roaring down from the higher grounds turning sundry mill and factory wheels in its way. About half-way up the hill one of these was placed, belonging to a mill for sawing boards. The little building stood alone, no other in sight, with a dark background of wood rising behind it on the other side of the brook; the stream itself running smoothly for a small s.p.a.ce above the mill, and leaping down madly below, as if it disdained its bed, and would clear at a bound every impediment in its way to the sea. When the mill was not going, the quant.i.ty of water that found its way down the hill was indeed very small, enough only to keep up a pleasant chattering with the stones; but as soon as the stream was allowed to gather all its force and run free, its loquacity was such that it would prevent a traveller from suspecting his approach to the mill, until, very near, the monotonous hum of its saw could be heard. This was a place Fleda dearly loved. The wild sound of the waters, and the lonely keeping of the scene, with the delicious smell of the new-sawn boards, and the fascination of seeing the great logs of wood walk up to the relentless, tireless, up-and-down-going steel; as the generations of men in turn present themselves to the course of those sharp events which are the teeth of Time's saw; until all of a sudden the master spirit, the man regulator of this machinery, would perform some conjuration on lever and wheel, and at once, as at the touch of an enchanter, the log would be still and the saw stay its work; the business of life came to a stand, and the romance of the little brook sprang up again. Fleda never tired of it ? never. She would watch the saw play and stop, and go on again; she would have her ears dinned with the hoa.r.s.e clang of the machinery, and then listen to the laugh of the mill-stream; she would see with untiring patience one board after another cut and cast aside, and log succeed to log; and never turned weary away from that mysterious image of Time's doings. Fleda had, besides, without knowing it, the eye of a painter. In the lonely hill-side, the odd-shaped little mill, with its accompaniments of wood and water, and the great logs of timber lying about the ground in all directions and varieties of position, there was a picturesque charm for her, where the country people saw nothing but business and a place fit for it. Their hands grew hard where her mind was refining.
Where they made dollars and cents, she was growing rich in stores of thought and a.s.sociations of beauty. How many purposes the same thing serves!
”That had ought to be your grandpa's mill this minute,”
observed Cynthy.
”I wish it was!” sighed Fleda. ”Who's got it now, Cynthy?”
”O, it's that chap McGowan, I expect; he's got pretty much the hull of everything. I told Mr. Ringgan I wouldn't let him have it if it was me, at the time. Your grandpa 'd be glad to get it back now, I guess.”
Fleda guessed so too; but also guessed that Miss Gall was probably very far from being possessed of the whole rationale of the matter. So she made her no answer.
After reaching the brow of the hill, the road continued on a very gentle ascent towards a little settlement half a quarter of a mile off; pa.s.sing, now and then, a few scattered cottages, or an occasional mill or turner's shop. Several mills and factories, with a store and a very few dwelling- houses, were all the settlement; not enough to ent.i.tle it to the name of a village. Beyond these and the millponds, of which in the course of the road there were three or four, and with a brief intervening s.p.a.ce of cultivated fields, a single farmhouse stood alone; just upon the borders of a large and very fair sheet of water, from which all the others had their supply; so large and fair, that n.o.body cavilled at its taking the style of a lake, and giving its own pretty name of Deepwater both to the settlement and the farm that half embraced it. This farm was Seth Plumfield's.
At the garden gate Fleda quitted Cynthy, and rushed forward to meet her aunt, whom she saw coming round the corner of the house, with her gown pinned up behind her, from attending to some domestic concern among the pigs, the cows, or the poultry.
”O, aunt Miriam,” said Fleda, eagerly, ”we are going to have company to tea to-morrow ? wont you come and help us?”
Aunt Miriam laid her hands upon Fleda's shoulders, and looked at Cynthy.
”I came up to see if you wouldn't come down to-morrow, Mis'
Plumfield,” said that personage, with her usual dry, business tone, always a little on the wrong side of sweet; ”your brother has taken a notion to ask two young fellers from the Pool to supper, and they're grand folks, I s'pose, and have got to have a fuss made for 'em. I don't know what Mr. Ringgan was thinkin' of, or whether he thinks I have got anything to do or not; but anyhow, they're a comin', I s'pose, and must have somethin' to eat; and I thought the best thing I could do would be to come and get you into the works, if I could. I should feel a little queer to have n.o.body but me to say nothin' to them at the table.”
”Ah, do come, aunt Miriam!” said Fleda; ”it will be twice as pleasant if you do; and besides, we want to have everything very nice, you know.”
Aunt Miriam smiled at Fleda, and inquired of Miss Gall what she had in the house.
”Why, I don't know, Mis' Plumfield,” said the lady, while Fleda threw her arms round her aunt, and thanked her; ”there ain't nothin' particler ? pork and beef, and the old story.
I've got some first-rate pickles. I calculated to make some sort o' cake in the morning.”
”Any of those small hams left?”
”Not a bone of 'em, these six weeks. _I_ don't see how they've gone, for my part. I'd lay any wager there were two in the smoke-house when I took the last one out. If Mr. Didenhover was a little more like a weasel I should think he'd been in.”
”Have you cooked that roaster I sent down.”
”No, Mis' Plumfield, I ha'n't; it's such a plaguy sight of trouble!” said Cynthy, with a little apologetic giggle; ”I was keepin' it for some day when I hadn't much to do.”
”I'll take the trouble of it. l'll be down bright and early in the morning, and we'll see what's best to do. How's your last churning, Cynthy?”
”Well, I guess it's pretty middlin', Mis' Plumfield.”
” 'T isn't anything very remarkable, aunt Miriam,” said Fleda, shaking her head.