"Well, I think we'd better clear out, anyhow. Let's go over to the mill. Say, Dorothy, sha'n't we?"
"Wait. There comes another wave!"
The second onset was not so violent, but they hastened to gather together a few blankets, and the boys filled their pockets, with a delightful sense of unusualness and peril, almost equal to a shipwreck or an attack by Indians. Dorothy took her unlucky chickens under her cloak and they made a rush, all together, across the road and up the slope to the mill.
"Why didn't we think to bring a lantern?" said Dorothy, as they huddled together on the platform of the scale. "Will thee go back after one, Shep?"
"If Reuby'll go, too."
"Well, my legs are wet enough now! What's the use of a lantern? Mighty Moses! What's that?"
"The old mill's got under weigh!" cried Shep. "She's going to tune up for Kingdom Come!"
A furious head of water was rushing along the race. The great wheel creaked and swung over, and with a shudder the old mill awoke from its long sleep. The cogs clenched their teeth, the shafting shook and rattled, the stones whirled merrily round.
"Now she goes it!" cried Shep, as the humming increased to a tremor, and the tremor to a wild, unsteady din, till the timbers shook and the bolts and windows rattled. "I just wish father could hear them old stones hum."
"Oh, this is awful!" said Dorothy. She was shivering, and sick with terror at this unseemly midnight revelry of her grandfather's old mill. It was as if it had awakened in a fit of delirium, and given itself up to a wild travesty of its years of peaceful work.