THE LAUGHING MILL & OTHER STORIES

CONTENTS.


PAGE
THE LAUGHING MILL 3

CALBOT'S RIVAL 105

MRS. GAINSBOROUGH'S DIAMONDS 177

THE CHRISTMAS GUEST. A Myth 295




THE LAUGHING MILL.


I.

Among the pleasantest memories of my earlier days is one of an old
gabled farmhouse overlooking the sea. It is a July afternoon, calm and
hot. The sea is pale blue and its surface glassy smooth; but the passage
of a storm somewhere to the eastward causes long slumberous undulations
to lapse shorewards. They break upon the Devil's Ribs--that low black
reef about half a mile out--and the sound is borne to our ears some
seconds after the white-foam line has marked itself against the blue and
vanished. There is a fine throb of sun-loving insects in the air, which
we may hear if we listen for it; but more immediately audible is the
guttural drawing of old Jack Poyntz's meerschaum pipe, and the delicate
clicking of his sweet daughter Agatha's polished knitting-needles. From
within doors comes the fillip of water and the clink of chinaware--good
Mrs. Poyntz washing up the dinner-things. For we have just dined, and
the blessing of a good digestion is upon all of us.

Yes; there we three sit, in my memory, side by side upon the stone
bench outside the farmhouse door. The projecting eaves throw a quiet,
transparent shadow over us. Two or three venerable hens are scratching
and nestling in the hot sandy soil near yonder corner, and conversing
together in long-drawn comfortable croakings. The fragrant smoke from
Poyntz's pipe-bowl circles upwards on the air, until it takes the
sunlight high over head. Truly a pleasant time, whose peacefulness is
still present with me after so many years. I am old, who then was young;
but that July sunshine is warm in my heart to-day.

Poyntz was an ancient mariner--not lean and uncanny, however; but burly,
jovial, and brown; with a huge grizzled beard spreading over his mighty
chest, a voice as deep and mellow as a sea-lion's, and eyes as blue and
clear as the ocean upon which they had looked for more than sixty years.
He had been a successful sailor, had visited many lands and brought home
many cargoes, and was, in a rough simple way, a thorough cosmopolitan.
After his last voyage he had settled down in the ancestral farmhouse,
and applied himself to agriculture. He was as prosperous, contented, and
respected a man as any in the neighbourhood; and during the fortnight
or so that I had lodged beneath his roof, I had grown into a hearty
liking for him. While as to Agatha--ah, it was not liking that I felt
for her! Strange that that fair, finely-moulded, queenly creature was
only a sailor's daughter! Much as I honoured Poyntz, I could not help
sometimes feeling surprised at it. At all events, she was as perfect
a lady as ever stepped on high-arched feet; and I fancied that the
old mariner and his wife treated her in a manner more befitting a
distinguished visitor than a child of their own. There was sturdy little
Peter, now--he whose brown legs were visible beneath the low spreading
bough of a scrub-oak beside the mill-stream yonder--there could be no
doubt as to _him_. But what a brother for Agatha!