Following a cart track through a gap in the hills, they came upon a highway in most excellent order, and bordered with trees, and saw, a little upon their left, the village of the peasants, consisting of houses built of mud and stone huddled together, many without glass, and no entrance for light except the door, the roofs covered with tiles, and not a tree near them.
Their attention was attracted by the towers of a large castle, evidently in ruins, upon the summit of an eminence that commanded the village. With curiosity greatly excited, they were about to climb the hill to view it more closely, when Ned said, "Let us go ahead, see the country, come back here to-night, and camp in the ruins."
Skirting the base of the hill upon which the castle stood, they came again upon the stream that watered the vale,—now increased in volume by affluents from the mountains,—falling over a cliff upon which were the remnants of a dam, and just below it a mass of half-burned timber and large stones, that Walter, more familiar than Ned with such matters, declared to be the ruins of some kind of a mill. These large circular stones lay embedded in a mass of coals and brands, the shafts burned out of them, white from the action of fire, and every one split in two. It seemed probable this had been accomplished by flinging water upon them while red hot.
There was no water, at this time, within several rods of the stones; but, from the appearance of the banks, it was evident that the stream, since the destruction of the dam, had changed its channel, and had once flowed near to the stones, to which it had been brought in a flume, the remains being still visible. After inspecting these stones with the greatest curiosity, Walter said,—
"I don't see what they could grind with such stones as these; they certainly couldn't grind grain; they couldn't grind anything; they are not 'picked,' like a millstone, but as smooth as my hand; they could only squat. If they raised apples here, I should think they were made to squat them."
Our young readers will bear in mind that mill-stones are "picked," or cut in sweeping furrows, which leave sharp edges to catch and grind the grain.
Still farther from the bank of the stream, on some high and level ground, were two more pairs of stones. These, it was evident, had not been enclosed in any building, as the only cinders lying around were those resulting from the burning of the shafts that had once been used to operate them. The lower stones were raised about two feet from the ground, and dishing nearly ten feet in diameter, with holes drilled through them, around a central one. Upon these lay two smaller stones, with square holes in their centres, in one of which was a half-burned shaft. These were all, save one upper stone, split in halves.
"How did they split these?" asked Ned. "They have not been heated."
"With powder," said Walter, pointing to holes drilled in the stones.
"Then why didn't they split this one?"