The Vicar of Bullhampton

by Anthony Trollope

"I'd go and dig, if I were you," said the Vicar.

"Perhaps I will. Do you know, I've half an idea that I'll go to Loring."

"What good will that do?"

"I'll find out whether this man is a blackguard. I believe he is. My uncle knows something about his father, and says that a bigger scamp never lived."

"I don't see what good you can do, Harry," said the Vicar. And so they parted.

Fenwick was about half a mile from the mill when Gilmore left him, and he wished that it were a mile and a half. He knew well that an edict had gone forth at the mill that no one should speak to the old man about his daughter. With the mother the Vicar had often spoken of her lost child, and had learned from her how sad it was to her that she could never dare to mention Carry's name to her husband. He had cursed his child, and had sworn that she should never more have part in him or his. She had brought sorrow and shame upon him, and he had cut her off with a steady resolve that there should be no weak backsliding on his part. Those who knew him best declared that the miller would certainly keep his word, and hitherto no one had dared to speak of the lost one in her father's hearing. All this Mr. Fenwick knew, and he knew also that the man was one who could be very fierce in his anger. He had told his wife that old Brattle was the only man in the world before whom he would be afraid to speak his mind openly, and in so saying he had expressed a feeling that was very general throughout all Bullhampton. Mr. Puddleham was a very meddlesome man, and he had once ventured out to the mill to say a word, not indeed about Carry, but touching some youthful iniquity of which Sam was supposed to have been guilty. He never went near the mill again, but would shudder and lift up his hands and his eyes when the miller's name was mentioned. It was not that Brattle used rough language, or became violently angry when accosted; but there was a sullen sternness about the man, and a capability of asserting his own mastery and personal authority, which reduced those who attacked him to the condition of vanquished combatants, and repulsed them, so that they would retreat as beaten dogs. Mr. Fenwick, indeed, had always been well received at the mill. The women of the family loved him dearly, and took great comfort in his visits. From his first arrival in the parish he had been on intimate terms with them, though the old man had never once entered his church. Brattle himself would bear with him more kindly than he would with his own landlord, who might at any day have turned him out of his holding. But even Fenwick had been so answered more than once as to have been forced to retreat with that feeling of having his tail, like a cur, between his legs. "He can't eat me," he said to himself, as the low willows round the mill came in sight. When a man is reduced to that consolation, as many a man often is, he may be nearly sure that he will be eaten.

When he got over the stile into the lane close to the mill-door, he found that the mill was going. Gilmore had told him that it might probably be so, as he had heard that the repairs were nearly finished. Fenwick was sure that after so long a period of enforced idleness Brattle would be in the mill, but he went at first into the house and there found Mrs. Brattle and Fanny. Even with them he hardly felt himself to be at home, but after a while managed to ask a few questions about Sam. Sam had come back, and was now at work, but he had had some terribly hard words with his father. The old man had desired to know where his son had been. Sam had declined to tell, and had declared that if he was to be cross-questioned about his comings and goings he would leave the mill altogether. His father had told him that he had better go. Sam had not gone, but the two had been working on together since without interchanging a word. "I want to see him especially," said Mr. Fenwick.

"You mean Sam, sir?" asked the mother.

"No; his father. I will go out into the lane, and perhaps Fanny will ask him to come to me." Mrs. Brattle immediately became dismayed by a troop of fears, and looked up into his face with soft, supplicating, tearful eyes. So much of sorrow had come to her of late! "There is nothing wrong, Mrs. Brattle," he said.

"I thought perhaps you had heard something of Sam."