"Nothing new? Nobody's cow calved? The mare not lost her hindmost shoe—nothing?" asked Paul, and laughed.
"I know no more nor you," said Natt, in a grumpy tone.
Paul looked at him and laughed again. Not to-night were good spirits like his to be quenched by a servant's ill humor.
They drove some distance without speaking, the silence being broken only by Paul's coaxing appeals to the old mare to quicken the pace that was carrying him to somebody who was waiting at the vicarage.
Natt recovered from his natural dudgeon at an attempt to play upon him, and began to feel the humor of the situation. It was good sport, after all—this little trick of Master Paul. And the best of it was that nobody saw through it but Natt himself. Natt began to titter and look up significantly out of his sleepy eyes into Paul's face. Paul glanced back with a look of bewilderment; but of course that was only a part of the game.
"Keep it up," thought Natt; "how we are doing 'em!"
The landscape lying south was a valley, with a double gable of mountains at the top; the mill stood on a knoll two miles further up, and on any night but the darkest its black outlines could be dimly seen against the sky that crept down between these fells. There was no moon visible, but the moon's light was behind the clouds.
"What has happened to the mill?" said Paul, catching sight of the dismantled mass in the distance.
"Nowt since Saturday neet, as I've heard on," said Natt.
"And what happened then?"