Story 1—Chapter 3.
It would have been a good thing for Mark Page if Sam Green had left him. When Mark thought of doing anything bad, there was Sam at hand to say, “Go on; no harm; you have a right to do what you like. No man should tell me what I ought to do; that I know.”
Sam was a stupid fellow too, as are many bad people, and it seemed strange that he did not get into more scrapes than he did. He hated Farmer Grey even more than did Mark Page. Why, it would have been hard to say, except just for this cause, that Sam was a bad man and the farmer was a good one.
The sails of the mill had been going round and round for many a day, and hundreds of sacks of grist had been ground, when one night Mark was roused from his sleep by the sound of the wind howling round the house.
“I made all right and snug at the mill,” he thought; “there is no use to get up and look to it.” Still the wind went on howling through the windows and doors, and the window-panes shook and rattled, and the doors creaked, and it seemed at times as if the house would come down.
“Will the mill stand it?” asked Mark of himself. He tried to go to sleep again, but he could not. He thought and he thought of all sorts of things which he could not drive out of his head.
When a good man thinks at night, his thoughts may often be pleasant; but when a bad man thinks, and thinks, as did Mark Page, in spite of himself, his thoughts are very sad and full of pain.
Mark thought of the many bad things he had done. There was not one good deed he could think of. “If I was to die where should I go to?” he asked himself. “If my mill was to be blown down, who would pity me? What friends have I? What have I done to gain friends? Not one thing. I am not kind to the poor; I do not give anything to help them. No one loves me; no one cares for me. My son does not; he never does what I ask him. My wife does not, she never cares to please me. Mary does, may be; but then she looks at me as if she wished that I was different to what I am. Oh I do wish the day would come, that I might get up and go about my work and not think of all these things.”
Still the wind howled and moaned and whistled, and the doors and windows rattled, and the rain came down, pat, pat, pat, on the roof, and the water rushed by the house in torrents, and the walls shook as if they would come down.