The Merry Men, and Other Tales and Fables Read online

  WILL O' THE MILL.

  CHAPTER I. THE PLAIN AND THE STARS.

  The Mill here Will lived with his adopted parents stood in a fallingvalley between pinewoods and great mountains. Above, hill after hill,soared upwards until they soared out of the depth of the hardiest timber,and stood naked against the sky. Some way up, a long grey village laylike a seam or a ray of vapour on a wooded hillside; and when the windwas favourable, the sound of the church bells would drop down, thin andsilvery, to Will. Below, the valley grew ever steeper and steeper, andat the same time widened out on either hand; and from an eminence besidethe mill it was possible to see its whole length and away beyond it overa wide plain, where the river turned and shone, and moved on from city tocity on its voyage towards the sea. It chanced that over this valleythere lay a pass into a neighbouring kingdom; so that, quiet and rural asit was, the road that ran along beside the river was a high thoroughfarebetween two splendid and powerful societies. All through the summer,travelling-carriages came crawling up, or went plunging briskly downwardspast the mill; and as it happened that the other side was very mucheasier of ascent, the path was not much frequented, except by peoplegoing in one direction; and of all the carriages that Will saw go by,five-sixths were plunging briskly downwards and only one-sixth crawlingup. Much more was this the case with foot-passengers. All the light-footed tourists, all the pedlars laden with strange wares, were tendingdownward like the river that accompanied their path. Nor was this all;for when Will was yet a child a disastrous war arose over a great part ofthe world. The newspapers were full of defeats and victories, the earthrang with cavalry hoofs, and often for days together and for miles aroundthe coil of battle terrified good people from their labours in the field.Of all this, nothing was heard for a long time in the valley; but at lastone of the commanders pushed an army over the pass by forced marches, andfor three days horse and foot, cannon and tumbril, drum and standard,kept pouring downward past the mill. All day the child stood and watchedthem on their passage--the rhythmical stride, the pale, unshaven facestanned about the eyes, the discoloured regimentals and the tatteredflags, filled him with a sense of weariness, pity, and wonder; and allnight long, after he was in bed, he could hear the cannon pounding andthe feet trampling, and the great armament sweeping onward and downwardpast the mill. No one in the valley ever heard the fate of theexpedition, for they lay out of the way of gossip in those troubloustimes; but Will saw one thing plainly, that not a man returned. Whitherhad they all gone? Whither went all the tourists and pedlars withstrange wares? whither all the brisk barouches with servants in thedicky? whither the water of the stream, ever coursing downward and everrenewed from above? Even the wind blew oftener down the valley, andcarried the dead leaves along with it in the fall. It seemed like agreat conspiracy of things animate and inanimate; they all went downward,fleetly and gaily downward, and only he, it seemed, remained behind, likea stock upon the wayside. It sometimes made him glad when he noticed howthe fishes kept their heads up stream. They, at least, stood faithfullyby him, while all else were posting downward to the unknown world.

  One evening he asked the miller where the river went.

  'It goes down the valley,' answered he, 'and turns a power of mills--sixscore mills, they say, from here to Unterdeck--and is none the wearierafter all. And then it goes out into the lowlands, and waters the greatcorn country, and runs through a sight of fine cities (so they say) wherekings live all alone in great palaces, with a sentry walling up and downbefore the door. And it goes under bridges with stone men upon them,looking down and smiling so curious it the water, and living folksleaning their elbows on the wall and looking over too. And then it goeson and on, and down through marshes and sands, until at last it fallsinto the sea, where the ships are that bring parrots and tobacco from theIndies. Ay, it has a long trot before it as it goes singing over ourweir, bless its heart!'

  'And what is the sea?' asked Will.

  'The sea!' cried the miller. 'Lord help us all, it is the greatest thingGod made! That is where all the water in the world runs down into agreat salt lake. There it lies, as flat as my hand and as innocent-likeas a child; but they do say when the wind blows it gets up into water-mountains bigger than any of ours, and swallows down great ships biggerthan our mill, and makes such a roaring that you can hear it miles awayupon the land. There are great fish in it five times bigger than a bull,and one old serpent as long as our river and as old as all the world,with whiskers like a man, and a crown of silver on her head.'

  Will thought he had never heard anything like this, and he kept on askingquestion after question about the world that lay away down the river,with all its perils and marvels, until the old miller became quiteinterested himself, and at last took him by the hand and led him to thehilltop that overlooks the valley and the plain. The sun was nearsetting, and hung low down in a cloudless sky. Everything was definedand glorified in golden light. Will had never seen so great an expanseof country in his life; he stood and gazed with all his eyes. He couldsee the cities, and the woods and fields, and the bright curves of theriver, and far away to where the rim of the plain trenched along theshining heavens. An over-mastering emotion seized upon the boy, soul andbody; his heart beat so thickly that he could not breathe; the scene swambefore his eyes; the sun seemed to wheel round and round, and throw off,as it turned, strange shapes which disappeared with the rapidity ofthought, and were succeeded by others. Will covered his face with hishands, and burst into a violent fit of tears; and the poor miller, sadlydisappointed and perplexed, saw nothing better for it than to take him upin his arms and carry him home in silence.

  From that day forward Will was full of new hopes and longings. Somethingkept tugging at his heart-strings; the running water carried his desiresalong with it as he dreamed over its fleeting surface; the wind, as itran over innumerable tree-tops, hailed him with encouraging words;branches beckoned downward; the open road, as it shouldered round theangles and went turning and vanishing fast and faster down the valley,tortured him with its solicitations. He spent long whiles on theeminence, looking down the rivershed and abroad on the fat lowlands, andwatched the clouds that travelled forth upon the sluggish wind andtrailed their purple shadows on the plain; or he would linger by thewayside, and follow the carriages with his eyes as they rattled downwardby the river. It did not matter what it was; everything that went thatway, were it cloud or carriage, bird or brown water in the stream, hefelt his heart flow out after it in an ecstasy of longing.

  We are told by men of science that all the ventures of mariners on thesea, all that counter-marching of tribes and races that confounds oldhistory with its dust and rumour, sprang from nothing more abstruse thanthe laws of supply and demand, and a certain natural instinct for cheaprations. To any one thinking deeply, this will seem a dull and pitifulexplanation. The tribes that came swarming out of the North and East, ifthey were indeed pressed onward from behind by others, were drawn at thesame time by the magnetic influence of the South and West. The fame ofother lands had reached them; the name of the eternal city rang in theirears; they were not colonists, but pilgrims; they travelled towards wineand gold and sunshine, but their hearts were set on something higher.That divine unrest, that old stinging trouble of humanity that makes allhigh achievements and all miserable failure, the same that spread wingswith Icarus, the same that sent Columbus into the desolate Atlantic,inspired and supported these barbarians on their perilous march. Thereis one legend which profoundly represents their spirit, of how a flyingparty of these wanderers encountered a very old man shod with iron. Theold man asked them whither they were going; and they answered with onevoice: 'To the Eternal City!' He looked upon them gravely. 'I havesought it,' he said, 'over the most part of the world. Three such pairsas I now carry on my feet have I worn out upon this pilgrimage, and nowthe fourth is growing slender underneath my steps. And all this while Ihave not found the city.' And he turned and went his own way alone,leaving them astonished.r />
  And yet this would scarcely parallel the intensity of Will's feeling forthe plain. If he could only go far enough out there, he felt as if hiseyesight would be purged and clarified, as if his hearing would grow moredelicate, and his very breath would come and go with luxury. He wastransplanted and withering where he was; he lay in a strange country andwas sick for home. Bit by bit, he pieced together broken notions of theworld below: of the river, ever moving and growing until it sailed forthinto the majestic ocean; of the cities, full of brisk and beautifulpeople, playing fountains, bands of music and marble palaces, and lightedup at night from end to end with artificial stars of gold; of the greatchurches, wise universities, brave armies, and untold money lying storedin vaults; of the high-flying vice that moved in the sunshine, and thestealth and swiftness of midnight murder. I have said he was sick as iffor home: the figure halts. He was like some one lying in twilit,formless preexistence, and stretching out his hands lovingly towards many-coloured, many-sounding life. It was no wonder he was unhappy, he wouldgo and tell the fish: they were made for their life, wished for no morethan worms and running water, and a hole below a falling bank; but he wasdifferently designed, full of desires and aspirations, itching at thefingers, lusting with the eyes, whom the whole variegated world could notsatisfy with aspects. The true life, the true bright sunshine, lay farout upon the plain. And O! to see this sunlight once before he died! tomove with a jocund spirit in a golden land! to hear the trained singersand sweet church bells, and see the holiday gardens! 'And O fish!' hewould cry, 'if you would only turn your noses down stream, you could swimso easily into the fabled waters and see the vast ships passing over yourhead like clouds, and hear the great water-hills making music over youall day long!' But the fish kept looking patiently in their owndirection, until Will hardly knew whether to laugh or cry.

  Hitherto the traffic on the road had passed by Will, like something seenin a picture: he had perhaps exchanged salutations with a tourist, orcaught sight of an old gentleman in a travelling cap at a carriagewindow; but for the most part it had been a mere symbol, which hecontemplated from apart and with something of a superstitious feeling. Atime came at last when this was to be changed. The miller, who was agreedy man in his way, and never forewent an opportunity of honestprofit, turned the mill-house into a little wayside inn, and, severalpieces of good fortune falling in opportunely, built stables and got theposition of post master on the road. It now became Will's duty to waitupon people, as they sat to break their fasts in the little arbour at thetop of the mill garden; and you may be sure that he kept his ears open,and learned many new things about the outside world as he brought theomelette or the wine. Nay, he would often get into conversation withsingle guests, and by adroit questions and polite attention, not onlygratify his own curiosity, but win the goodwill of the travellers. Manycomplimented the old couple on their serving-boy; and a professor waseager to take him away with him, and have him properly educated in theplain. The miller and his wife were mightily astonished and even morepleased. They thought it a very good thing that they should have openedtheir inn. 'You see,' the old man would remark, 'he has a kind of talentfor a publican; he never would have made anything else!' And so lifewagged on in the valley, with high satisfaction to all concerned butWill. Every carriage that left the inn-door seemed to take a part of himaway with it; and when people jestingly offered him a lift, he could withdifficulty command his emotion. Night after night he would dream that hewas awakened by flustered servants, and that a splendid equipage waitedat the door to carry him down into the plain; night after night; untilthe dream, which had seemed all jollity to him at first, began to take ona colour of gravity, and the nocturnal summons and waiting equipageoccupied a place in his mind as something to be both feared and hopedfor.

  One day, when Will was about sixteen, a fat young man arrived at sunsetto pass the night. He was a contented-looking fellow, with a jolly eye,and carried a knapsack. While dinner was preparing, he sat in the arbourto read a book; but as soon as he had begun to observe Will, the book waslaid aside; he was plainly one of those who prefer living people topeople made of ink and paper. Will, on his part, although he had notbeen much interested in the stranger at first sight, soon began to take agreat deal of pleasure in his talk, which was full of good nature andgood sense, and at last conceived a great respect for his character andwisdom. They sat far into the night; and about two in the morning Willopened his heart to the young man, and told him how he longed to leavethe valley and what bright hopes he had connected with the cities of theplain. The young man whistled, and then broke into a smile.

  'My young friend,' he remarked, 'you are a very curious little fellow tobe sure, and wish a great many things which you will never get. Why, youwould feel quite ashamed if you knew how the little fellows in thesefairy cities of yours are all after the same sort of nonsense, and keepbreaking their hearts to get up into the mountains. And let me tell you,those who go down into the plains are a very short while there beforethey wish themselves heartily back again. The air is not so light nor sopure; nor is the sun any brighter. As for the beautiful men and women,you would see many of them in rags and many of them deformed withhorrible disorders; and a city is so hard a place for people who are poorand sensitive that many choose to die by their own hand.'

  'You must think me very simple,' answered Will. 'Although I have neverbeen out of this valley, believe me, I have used my eyes. I know how onething lives on another; for instance, how the fish hangs in the eddy tocatch his fellows; and the shepherd, who makes so pretty a picturecarrying home the lamb, is only carrying it home for dinner. I do notexpect to find all things right in your cities. That is not whattroubles me; it might have been that once upon a time; but although Ilive here always, I have asked many questions and learned a great deal inthese last years, and certainly enough to cure me of my old fancies. Butyou would not have me die like a dog and not see all that is to be seen,and do all that a man can do, let it be good or evil? you would not haveme spend all my days between this road here and the river, and not somuch as make a motion to be up and live my life?--I would rather die outof hand,' he cried, 'than linger on as I am doing.'

  'Thousands of people,' said the young man, 'live and die like you, andare none the less happy.'

  'Ah!' said Will, 'if there are thousands who would like, why should notone of them have my place?'

  It was quite dark; there was a hanging lamp in the arbour which lit upthe table and the faces of the speakers; and along the arch, the leavesupon the trellis stood out illuminated against the night sky, a patternof transparent green upon a dusky purple. The fat young man rose, and,taking Will by the arm, led him out under the open heavens.

  'Did you ever look at the stars?' he asked, pointing upwards.

  'Often and often,' answered Will.

  'And do you know what they are?'

  'I have fancied many things.'

  'They are worlds like ours,' said the young man. 'Some of them less;many of them a million times greater; and some of the least sparkles thatyou see are not only worlds, but whole clusters of worlds turning abouteach other in the midst of space. We do not know what there may be inany of them; perhaps the answer to all our difficulties or the cure ofall our sufferings: and yet we can never reach them; not all the skill ofthe craftiest of men can fit out a ship for the nearest of these ourneighbours, nor would the life of the most aged suffice for such ajourney. When a great battle has been lost or a dear friend is dead,when we are hipped or in high spirits, there they are unweariedly shiningoverhead. We may stand down here, a whole army of us together, and shoutuntil we break our hearts, and not a whisper reaches them. We may climbthe highest mountain, and we are no nearer them. All we can do is tostand down here in the garden and take off our hats; the starshine lightsupon our heads, and where mine is a little bald, I dare say you can seeit glisten in the darkness. The mountain and the mouse. That is like tobe all we shall ever have to do with Arcturus or Ald
ebaran. Can youapply a parable?' he added, laying his hand upon Will's shoulder. 'It isnot the same thing as a reason, but usually vastly more convincing.'

  Will hung his head a little, and then raised it once more to heaven. Thestars seemed to expand and emit a sharper brilliancy; and as he keptturning his eyes higher and higher, they seemed to increase in multitudeunder his gaze.

  'I see,' he said, turning to the young man. 'We are in a rat-trap.'

  'Something of that size. Did you ever see a squirrel turning in a cage?and another squirrel sitting philosophically over his nuts? I needn'task you which of them looked more of a fool.'