Will of the Mill

Will of the Mill, by George
Manville Fenn

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Title: Will of the Mill
Author: George Manville Fenn
Release Date: May 8, 2007 [EBook #21376]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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THE MILL ***

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Will of the Mill, by George Manville Fenn.
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A Huguenot settlement in the Derbyshire dales, in the middle of
England, in the mid-nineteenth century.
The Vicar's son, and the mill-owner's son are great friends. They
become friends with a visiting artist, who is lodging in the house of one
of the key-workers at the Mill, where they manufacture silk. The artist
falls down an old mine-shaft up in the hills, and the boys find him. At
home they are missed and a rescue party is sent out, and finds them all.
One day the mill mysteriously goes on fire, and, equally mysteriously,
the fire pump has been disabled. Just in time it is repaired by the man
the artist is staying with. The man's name was originally Boileau, but
like so many Huguenots, he has anglicised it to Drinkwater.
Drinkwater goes mad, and has an obsessional hatred for the
mill-owner. It is thought possible that he actually set the fire having
previously disabled the fire-pump.
But far worse is to befall. One night, in the autumn rains, the dam that
feeds the mill bursts its banks, and the village is flooded, with much
being washed away. Did Drinkwater do this too? There is a dramatic
finish to the book.
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WILL OF THE MILL, BY GEORGE MANVILLE FENN.
CHAPTER ONE.
DOWN IN THE COUNTRY.
"Here, I say, Josh, such a game!"
"What is it?"
The first speaker pointed down the gorge, tried to utter words, but
began to choke with laughter, pointed again, and then stood stamping

his feet, and wiping his eyes.
"Well," cried the other, addressed as Josh, "what is it? Don't stand
pointing there like an old finger-post! I can't see anything."
"It's--it's--it's--he--he--he!--Oh my!--Oh dear!"
"Gahn! What an old silly you are! What's the game? Let's have a bit of
the fun."
"The sun--sun--sun--"
"Don't stand stuttering there in that stupid way."
"I couldn't help it--there, I'm better now. I was coming along the top
walk, and there he was right down below, sitting under his old white
mushroom."
"Well, I can't see anything to laugh at in that. He always is sitting under
his old white umbrella, painting, when he isn't throwing flies."
"But he isn't painting. He's fast asleep; and I could almost hear him
snore."
"Well, if you could hear him snore, you needn't make a hyena of
yourself. I don't see anything to laugh at in that."
"No; you never see any fun in anything. Don't you see the sun's gone
right round, and he's quite in the shade?"
"Well, suppose he is; where's the fun?"
Will Willows wiped his eyes, and then, with a mirthful look,
continued--
"Oh, the idea struck me as being comic--keeping a great umbrella up
when it wasn't wanted."
"Oh, I don't know," said Josh, solemnly; "a shower might come down."

"But, I say, Josh, that won't do. I've got such a rum idea."
"Let's have it."
"Come along, then."
A few words were whispered, though there was not the slightest need,
for no one was in sight, and the rattle and whirr of machinery set in
motion by a huge water-wheel, whose splashings echoed from the vast,
wall-like sides of the lovely fern-hung glen in which it was placed,
would have drowned anything lower than a shout.
Willows' silk-mill had ages ago ceased to be a blot in one of the fairest
valleys in beautiful Derbyshire, for it was time-stained with a rich store
of colours from Nature's palette; great cushions of green velvet moss
clung to the ancient stone-work, rich orange rosettes of lichen dotted
the ruddy tiles, huge ferns shot their glistening green spears from every
crack and chasm of the mighty walls of the deep glen; and here and
there, high overhead, silver birches hung their pensile tassels, and scrub
oaks thrust out their gnarled boughs from either side, as if in friendly
vegetable feeling to grasp hands over the rushing, babbling stream; for
Beldale--Belle Dale, before the dwellers there cut it short--formed one
long series of pictures such as painters loved, so that they came
regularly from the metropolis to settle down at one of the