"That is very well for a
beginning. How long is it since the mill was used?" she asked, looking
up at the frowning walls of rough, dark stone, covered with moss and
lichens.
"Farmer Hartley's gran'f'ther was the last miller," replied Bubble
Chirk. "My father used to say he could just remember him, standin' at
the mill-door, all white with flour, an' rubbin' his hands and laughin',
jes' the way Farmer does. He was a good miller, father said, an' made
the mill pay well. But his eldest son, that kem after him, warn't no
great shakes, an' he let the mill go to wrack and ruin, an' jes' stayed
on the farm. An' then he died, an' Cap'n Hartley came (that's the
farmer's father, ye know), an' he was kind o' crazy, and didn't care
about the mill either, an' so there it stayed.
"This way, Miss Hildy!" added the boy, breaking off suddenly, and
plunging into the tangled thicket of shrubs and brambles that hid the
base of the mill. "Thar! ye see that hole? That's whar I get in. Wait
till I clear away the briers a bit! Thar! now ye kin look in."
The "hole" was a square opening, a couple of feet from the ground, and
large enough for a person of moderate size to creep through. Hildegarde
stooped down and looked in. At first she saw nothing but utter
blackness; but presently her eyes became accustomed to the place, and
the feeble light which struggled in past her through the opening,
revealed strange objects which rose here and there from the vast pit of
darkness,--fragments of rusty iron, bent and twisted into unearthly
shapes; broken beams, their jagged ends sticking out like stiffly
pointing fingers; cranks, and bits of hanging chain; and on the side
next the water, a huge wheel, rising apparently out of the bowels of the
earth, since the lower part of it was invisible.
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