Muttering to himself these wayward fancies, he hurried back to Milverton as to his heart’s home. There he could see sunlight upon the earth, and feel warm in the comfort of it. Nor in his then mood was he sorry that the guest chambers would be full: he wished a day of cheerful cups, and pleasant voices, and music. Thus absorbed, he reached the mill, and passed it as swiftly as in the morning.
“There he goes,” said the old miller, speaking to his daughter, who was spreading out some linen to bleach—“There he goes, as shy as a hare, and as fast as if he were making for his form. I never gets a bit of chat with him. He’s not much for company.”
“Why, father,” replied the girl, coming upon the pathway, “he’s a scholar, you know, and that’s the fashion of them, you know.”
“Well, it’s a bad fashion to go poking about the woods as lonesome as a stray mule; no good comes of those crazy fashions. I like an open face, and an open hand, and a free tongue.”
“Eh! he can talk fast enough, I’ll warrant me, if he had a sweetheart to talk to.”
“He talk to a sweetheart! She must be a poor silly body that would listen. There are merry men and merry hearts enough in old England for the lasses to choose from, without giving ear to such as he.”
“Well, they give him kind words at the Hall,—and they say he’s always more for good than harm; and I find him pleasant spoken enough when he comes to angle in the mill-pool.”
“There it is! I can never make him say a dozen words, black or white; now Parson Mullins will chat free for an hour on, and tosses you off a pot of ale with good words and good will. Why, he and I have smoked many a pipe together; and he’s a clerk, and a rare scholar too. He doesn’t give you ignorant stuff o’ Sundays; but Latin, and Greek, and all the best that he has learned at college. That’s the man for my money.”
“Well, father, for the matter o’ that, I like to know what folk are saying; and it might be gipsy language for all you or I are the wiser.”