Stories told by the miller

Janet and little Peter lived in an old white-washed cottage that stood in a field by the border of the mill-pool. It was a tiny, weather-stained cot, to which a narrow path led through a gap in the low wall of the highroad. Across the road stood the mill itself, grey, windowless, and solid, with stone steps leading up to a door, through which, on a grinding day, you could hear the noise of the machinery and see the dusty atmosphere within. Peter and Janet thought the mill-field over the road a charming place; and so it was, for at one end the overflow from the tree-hidden dam poured down its paved slide in a white waterfall, to wander, a zigzagging stream, through the field and out, under the road, to the pool near their cottage. From the farther side of the dam the mill-lead ran evenly below the gnarled roots of the trees shadowing its course, and was lost in that dark hole in the wall behind which the flashing wheel turned. The water came racing out to join the overflow and dive with it through the causeway, coming up in the pool beyond. From there it meandered over the country into the river, which carried it to the sea. On wild days in winter you might hear the roaring sound of the North Sea beating against the coast.

Janet and her brother were orphans, and their lives were very hard; for their grandmother, with whom they had been lately sent to live, was a cruel old woman who beat poor little Peter when she was out of temper. Janet came in for rough words, and blows, too, sometimes, although she was almost seventeen, and old enough to take care of herself. Many a time she longed to run away, but in her heart she knew that she would never do so because she could not leave her brother alone. She was a good girl, and a pretty one besides, for her hair was like the corn and she was as slender as a bulrush. The neighbours whose boys and girls passed on their way from school would not let their children have anything to do with little Peter, for many thought that his wicked old grandmother was a witch. The children had made a rhyme that they used to sing. It was like this:

“Peter, Peter, the witch’s brat, Lives in the house with a green-eyed cat! Peter, Peter, we jump for joy, Throwing stones at the witch’s boy!”

And then sometimes they would throw them, but not when Janet was by, for she would catch them and shake them.

“_You_ are the green-eyed cat!” they would shout, as they saw her angry face. But they took care to run as they said it.

In spite of their troubles, the brother and sister were not always unhappy, for there were many things they liked. One was the crooked old cherry-tree that grew between their cottage and the pool, and when the leaves turned fiery rose-colour in the autumn Peter would pick them up as they dropped and make them stand in rows against the wood-pile, pretending they were armies of red soldiers. The brightest and reddest ones were the generals, the paler ones the privates. And the wild cherries tasted delicious.

One day Peter was crying bitterly. The old woman had beaten him and he was very sad.

“Come away,” said Janet. “We will go to the mill, for I can hear the grinding going on. No one will notice if we slip into the field, and we can look right in and see the wheel itself.”

Peter forgot all about his trouble and stopped crying, for she had never allowed him to go so near the wheel before. They set off and went round the back of the mill buildings. Oh, how charmed he was! Janet lifted him up and he looked through the big hole. Round and round went the great spokes of the wheel, and the water, clear as crystal in the darkness, dripped from it and fell in showers into the brown swirl below. The sides of the walls were green with slime and little clumps of fern, and the long mosses streamed down like tresses of emerald-coloured hair. At last he drew back and she sat him on the ground. Then they turned round to go home, and nearly jumped out of their skins, for there was the miller looking at them. He was a tall young man, with a brown face and clothes covered with white dust; even the leather leggings he wore were white, and his hat, which he had pushed back, was white too.

“Well, my man,” said he to Peter, “and what do you think of the wheel?”

Peter did not know what to say, he was so much taken aback.

“When I was a little boy,” said the miller, “I was just like you, and couldn’t keep away from a mill-wheel if there was one within twenty miles. ‘When I’m a man,’ said I, ‘it’s a miller I’ll be.’ And a miller I am.”

But little Peter was still too much startled to understand friendliness. He pointed to the cottage over the road.

“You won’t tell grandmother we came here?” he asked, his eyes filling with tears.

“Not I,” said the miller.

“She would beat him if you did,” remarked Janet.

“That’s bad,” observed the miller, pushing his hat farther back. “I had a grandmother, too, when I was a little lad; she had a great cap and horn spectacles.”

“And did she beat you?” said Peter, gaining courage.

“Not she!” exclaimed the miller. “But she used to comfort me if anyone else did. Such fine tales she used to tell me, too—some out of a book and some out of her head! I’ve got the book in the house now.”

Little Peter loved stories more than anything in the world, and every moment he was growing less afraid of the miller.

“Oh, tell me one!” he cried. “Please tell me one!”

“Sit down, then,” he said, “and you, too, my pretty lass. The first I can mind her telling me was about this very mill. Would you like to hear about that?”

“Yes, yes!” cried little Peter.

And so they sat down by the mill-lead, and the miller began his story.