Will of the Mill

by George Manville Fenn

Would, he asked himself, as he thought of his father, those words prove true?

“Cheer up, old fellow!” he cried, and he felt stronger still.

Here was something he could do.

“Can you raise yourself a little higher?” he said, for the rising water lapped in a wave nearly to the sufferer’s mouth.

“No, no,” said the man, faintly; “I’m gripped between two timbers fast by the legs. There, I feel better now. Ah, Will, lad, I am glad you have come! I can think and see all now. That burning pain has gone from my head, and it’s all quite clear. And how just and right all is, if we could always only see.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” cried Will, cheerily; “but keep a good heart. They’ll come and help us soon. But I want to see you higher up; the water’s getting deeper, and you must raise your head.”

The man smiled softly in his face; his old grim and savage look had gone, and, after making a vain effort, his head sank back so low that the water swept right over his nostrils, and, fast held as he was, he must have drowned; but in an instant Will shifted his position, took another grip, and forced his legs beneath him till his knees were below the prisoner’s shoulders, wedging him up so that he could breathe freely once more.

“There, that’s better,” cried Will, hoarsely. “You’ll be all right now.”

“Yes, for a few minutes, lad, but the end is near, and it’s all quite right. Will, lad, I used to make toys for you, when you were a little child, and, when you grew bigger, I used to let you spoil my tools, for I never had bairn of my own, and, after my way, I somehow got to love you, lad. And then, I must have gone kinder sorter mad. That burning pain came in my head. I can see it all clearly now, just at the last. I got cursing the best of masters that ever stepped, and one night in a mad fit, I tried to burn him out of house and home; but when I saw the dear old mill a-fire, I couldn’t bear it, and fought, like the madman I was, to put it out—and did. Then it all came back again worse and stronger than before. I felt that I must do it—and did. ‘The fire fails,’ I said, ‘but the water wins. It made him a rich man’—your good father, boy—‘and now it shall make him poor. My revenge!’ I said. Yes, my revenge! Last night, Will—tell him this when I am gone—I got down by the bottom of the dam and worked with mallet and long crowbar, as I had worked night after night before, till the water began to run just in one little tiny trickle. And then I stopped. Water—my slave then—I knew would do the rest. And it has, lad, just as I thought, given me my revenge, as I called it, but turned and slain me too. Well, it was right it should be so. I know it now. Tell him—my good old master—all that I have said, and ask him to forgive me, if he can, for I know it now—I must have been mad.”

He ceased speaking, and lay quite still with his eyes gazing sadly in the son’s face, while a feeling of horror and repulsion was gathering strongly in the lad’s breast, till the wretched being spoke again, with the water once more gathering closely about his lips.