University of Virginia Library

22. CHAPTER XXII.

The burnt mill of which we have spoken stood at
the foot of the hills, at the termination of a road
which was called the mill-road, but which, since the
fire, had not been used except by Mr. Fitzhurst and
Elwood for farming purposes, or by such wayfarers
and rovers as Gordon and his companion whom
Bobby overheard the night of the husking-match.

The mill was of rude stone construction, and nothing
was left but its bare and blackened walls. The
scenery about it was picturesque. A stream called
the Falls dashed down by it, with its full supply of
water, for the mill-dam was broken down and the
mill-race choked up by deposits from its sides, made
by various rains, and overgrown with reeds.

About twenty feet above the mill, towards what
was once the dam, stood an old log-cabin, formerly
occupied by an assistant of the miller, who attended
to keeping the dam and race in repair. After the fire
he left his humble dwelling, and old Agnes took possession
of it.

Agnes had been housekeeper to Doctor Grattan's

mother, and her attachment to his daughter was so
great, that at Mr. Elwood's request she removed to
his house when he took the child home, and nursed
her with parental care. Had it not been for her
attachment to Sarah, Agnes would not have staid a
day at Mr. Elwood's. He treated her, it is true, better
than any other person about his farm, but then
she was a white woman, and she was very kind to
her little charge. This did not, however, prevent Mr.
Elwood from using towards her when in his cups the
roughest language. His unkindness to Agnes as
Sarah grew up, and her nurse became more helpless,
increased; and one day, on his telling her that she did
nothing, and that she must be off, she removed to the
miller's cabin.

The Falls, the descent of which was very rapid
opposite the cabin, dashed on wildly over projecting
rocks, throwing its silver spray against their faces,
and forming in their hollows many fantastic eddies
and pools, in which the leaves and pieces of bark and
wood floated round and round, ere they were borne
onward. Above these rocks the stream lay comparatively
quiet and lake-like; and jutting prominences,
covered almost entirely by moss and wild vines,
gave beauty to the view, which, on the right, as you
looked up the stream, stretched out into the valley,
and on the left was bounded by a bold chain of hills.

There had been an inclosure around the cabin, but
it was broken down before Agnes domesticated herself
there; and the wild honeysuckle and wild sweet
brier grew almost up to the very door. A single tall
oak stretched its branches above and over the cabin,
which had the appearance of leaning against it, as if
for support: the ruins of the mill below towered over
the cabin in aristocratic solemnity; its blackened
walls, relieved to the eye here and there by the “parisite”
plant, the ivy, which, unlike parisites in general,

was giving beauty to what all the rest of the vegetable
kingdom shrink from; but in this it was justifying
the simile of the poet, who, in comparing woman to it,
said, that—
A worthless thing to whom she has sacrificed everything,
and whose worthlessness and vice, in the abundance
of her love, she is endeavouring to hide.

A path from the cabin led to a garden spot by the
mill, which had been formerly cultivated by the miller,
and which was roughly inclosed by what in that
country is called a Virginia fence. It was formed
by laying a number of rails in zigzag manner on each
other. By the corners of the fence, on the outer side,
blackberry bushes and wild roses grew in abundance.
Agnes continued with the assistance of some of her
neighbours to keep the little inclosure free from
weeds, and to raise within vegetables sufficient to
supply her frugal wants. She also cultivated a quantity
of herbs, which were thought to possess greater
medicinal virtues when administered by her than
similar simples purchased from the apothecary.

The morning after the badinage between Fanny
and her brother, she visited Sarah Grattan according
to her promise. Her friend was delighted to see
her, and in much better spirits than usual. Though
the autumn was now far advanced, the day proved a
delightful one—one of those sunny remembrances of
summer, and Fanny proposed that they should make
a visit to Aunty Agnes.

Sarah readily assented; and, unattended, they proceeded
together, following a sheep-path through the
woods to the old woman's cabin.

On rapping at the door, the voice of old Agnes
bade them enter. They did so; and found the old

woman engaged at her spinning-wheel by the hearth,
in which a slight fire, which she fed from a quantity
of brushwood that lay in the corner, crackled and
sparkled. Agnes was dressed in a homespun frock,
with a plain, but clean cotton cap on her head.
Though very old, she was hale and hearty. Her
countenance expressed cheerfulness, but with an air
of character and decision. When young, she must
have been handsome, for though her skin was wrinkled,
it was evident that it had been fair; her nose was strait,
and her eye blue and bright. Her forehead had fewer
wrinkles than one might have supposed, and her hair,
silvered with years, was gathered neatly under her
cap.

The furniture of her humble room—the cabin had but
one—consisted of a small table, a pair of old drawers,
four old chairs, and a bed. A shelf beside the chimney
contained a few plates and tea-cups with an old-fashioned
tea-pot which had belonged to Sarah's
grandmother. Under the shelf was a tea-kettle, with
two or three articles for cooking. Different kinds of
herbs, together with strings of dried fruit, were hung
by nails to the wall, as were, also, two or three bundles
of wool.

“Come in, dears,” said Aunt Agnes, with a delighted
smile; “it makes my old eyes glad to see you—you
look so young and blithesome. Did you see anything
of my little dog, Benny, as you came along?”

“No, nurse; has he left you?” said Sarah.

“No, child; but I've missed him all this noon. He
followed me out to my garden; my cat seemed ailing,
and I went there to get some catnip for her with the
dew-freck on it; she did'nt seem to like the dried I
gave her; I suspect it had lost its qualities. A merciful
man is merciful to his beast, you know, dears, and
these dumb things are a great comfort to me. I
wonder how Mrs. Gammon's rheumatism is? That

granchild of her's, Bobby, they tell, is out of his
trouble.”

“Yes, aunty,” replied Fanny, “he is; he was up at
the house yesterday.”

“To be sure the old woman's health is bad, and
when that's bad, nothing appears bright to us; but I
think she ought bear it better; I don't think there is
any evil in the boy.

“He's a little mischievous,” said Fanny, “but we
all like him; he is now going to school in the village.”

“I hope he'll be a comfort to the old woman
yet, if she lives,” said Agnes. “Come, dears, it's such
a bright day, now I've got your company, I'll walk up
the little path, and look at the waters and the woods.
They're gladsome to old eyes: the nearer we grow
to the time when we must leave nature, the more we
like to look upon her face when it is smiling. It
gladdens an old heart, and makes it feel young again.
This, so far, has been a cheerful autumn; we've not had
many dark days yet; I think it will be a mild winter.
It will be a blessing for the poor, particularly for
those in the cities, if it is; I'm hale and hearty for one
of my years, but I can't expect, in the nature of things,
to see many more winters.”

“Nurse, you walk very firm yet,” said Sarah, as
she assisted the old woman to make a step from her
door, and fixed the hood of an old-fashioned cloak
upon her head.

“Oh! yes, dear, I can walk miles yet; but I'm
ninety-three, come next spring.”

With a very light step for one of her years, Agnes
walked between the girls, conversing in a similar strain
to that which we have recorded. They proceeded
up the Falls to where the waters lay lake-like, as we
have described, and seated themselves under an aged
elm, near a clump of willows.

“How beautiful this is,” said Sarah.

“Yes, dears, I've always liked it. The waters
glide along so quietly here, that they remind me of
my life. Heaven send that it shall not be so wild and
rough in its fall. See the hills there; how bold and
proud they look, like a haughty man upon a humble
one; but up the valley it appears so quiet and calm, and
there's something solemn, solemn,—death-reminding
in the turn and fall of the leaf. It comes like a
warning to be prepared.”

“Aunty, you never go to church now-a-days. If
you can't walk I'll send and have you taken,” said
Sarah.

“Thank you, child; thank you, no; our good minister
often comes to see me. And the variety of new
faces and the changes of things take my thoughts
away—make them wander at church. This is the
very spot, as I told you, where a young girl—I knew
her well when we were young together,—this is
the very spot, they say, where she drowned herself.
Lean over, dears, but mind you don't fall,” continued
Agnes, stretching out her hands as if to hold the girls
as they arose and looked over; “see, it's a deep distance
down, and the water is so quiet there that you
can see your own sweet faces in it. It is said that
ever since the poor thing drowned herself, the
waves grew calmer and calmer. 'Tis true they used
to be rough here, and the old miller, who was a hard-hearted
man, used to say it was because there was
a rock just above this that made the stream break
this way, and that it had been rolled down by the
force of the Falls in a terrible storm to the rocks
below; but the superstitious old folks about maintain,
that the spirit of the poor girl hovered over the place
where she leaped in, and made the waters calm.”

“Oh! I've heard something about it,” said Fanny,
musingly, turning to Sarah; “the poor girl who imitated

Sappho, without knowing there was such a
person, but who felt all that Sappho has expressed.”

“A character, Sarah, for whom somehow or other I
never could feel much sympathy; I suppose this suicide
first started the idea that the mill was haunted.”

“No, dear,” replied Agnes, “they had not the
idea that the mill was haunted then. It was always
said that her spirit hovered about this spot; but it
was never called an evil spirit. For my part I am
over-persuaded, at least I have got the idea, since I
have been living so much alone, that there are such
things as good spirits and evil spirits; but I believe the
worst of them are harmless to good people, though
they may tempt them.”

“I thought Jane Lovell, as you told me, nurse,” said
Sarah, “was the daughter of the miller. Was he the
hard-hearted man who, you say, asserted that the water
became quiet here because the rock was removed?”

“No, child, no; he was the one who took the mill
after Mr. Lovell, who built it. You must know,
after his only child drowned herself, that he and his
wife, as was natural, could'nt bear to stay, so they left.
The mill and his house, then, were the only places between
this and the village, except, dear, yon place,”
said Agnes, addressing Fanny. “I think, dear, that
the property was leased from yon people, and after
the mill was burnt down, it being not worth the rent,
it went back to them. It was the old miller, a rank
tory, who got the mill from Lovell, that used to have
folks to say it was haunted. They do say it was
haunted by flesh and blood, by some of the tories
that he gave meal to, in the night-time, when they
would steal through the hills here from where the
British lay at.”

“What was this story, aunty, about Jane Lovell?
do tell it to me?”

“Did'nt I tell it to you, children, together, one day?”

“No, nurse,” replied Sarah, “it was only to me;
tell it again, tell it again; I love to hear it, though it
always makes me sad.”

“That's natural, dear, and bless your heart; I, that
have nursed you, know that you feel for such poor
things. Then, dears, sit one on each side of me.
Mrs. Gammon, you tell me, is better; I am glad to
hear it; health is like a quiet conscience; we can't be
happy without it, but one we may lose, and it may not
be our fault. Yes, I was young as you are, dears, when
I first knew Jane Lovell. It was thought that the
British would take the city; as they lay just below it,
and the country round was full of tories. So, your
grandfather, Sarah, who was a good and true soldier
in the continental cause, sent your mother to Springdale,
which was pretty much such a place then, as it
is now, and I attended her. Some of the old villages,
dears, wear the same face they used to wear,
when everything else is so changed that, when amidst
present scenes, you look back and try to recollect
former ones, it seems impossible, as scarcely a vestige
of them remains to assist your memory. But Springdale
is much the same. I was young then, blithe
of heart, and blithe of limb, knowing no sorrow or
trouble, the world all seemed cheerful to me: but I
lost all that was left to me in that war, before it was
over—two brothers and a father. It comes like a
pride to my old heart, though, that they died in a
rightful cause, if ever fight was rightful.

“Your family then, dear, (to Sarah,) were among
the richest in the land, and your grandmother did
all she could to comfort me; and well she might, for
your grandfather was a soldier, and commanded the
very company that my father was killed in. It seems
strange that the troubles of other people should lessen
our own: but so it is; for when I came to think of
poor Jane Lovell for some time after, I felt it was

sinful to grieve so much. Poor thing! how she must
have grieved; it was a complete heart-break and despair.
I am old now, dears, but I have been young;
and I can feel for a poor young thing, and I believe
that, to forsake one that loves you, and whom you
have won to love you, is a sin that's set down among
the direst and the deepest. I believe it, and I always
have believed it.

“I knew Jane, as I tell you. She was the merriest,
truest-hearted girl in the neighbourhood; and
she and I grew as intimate as you two; for I spent
with your mother nearly a year in the village.”

“One day the militia had a skirmage with a number
of tories who haunted the hills, and who could
prowl about in the night and rob and steal, and be off
on the swiftest horses. The tories were led by a
British officer, and they got the worst of it, and fled
like cowards, as they were, and left him wounded up
the Falls, they say, not two miles from here. He was
hurt badly; so the militia, by the command of their
officer, made a litter out of some poles that they cut
in the wood, together with coats enough, which they
took off their backs for the purpose, and brought him
towards the village. He was so exhausted by the
time they got to the mill that it was thought he would
die, so they carried him in to Mr. Lovell's, and hastened
off for a doctor.”

“I remember that very day well; for in the afternoon
Jane came to the village and told me about it,
and she said what a handsome man the officer was,
and that she must hurry home, for he might need a
poultice or something else that she might make.”

“What kind of a looking girl, aunty, was Jane?” inquired
Fanny.

“One that was pleasing to look upon: she was
thought as pretty then over all the young girls of the
place, as is Peggy Gammon now. That child reminds

me of her—only Jane was not so lively, and
was more diffident; besides, she had a good education.
It made me happy to look upon her; nobody envied
her, everybody loved her.”

Here Fanny drew nearer to Aunt Agnes, and asked
her to go on, while Sarah, who had often heard the
story, arose from the side of the old woman, and often
gazing over the bank for a moment with a kind of
mental fascination, resumed her seat with renewed
interest.

“Well, it was a long time before the officer, who
was named Maynard, Lieutenant Maynard, recovered
even so that he could go out; and all the while
Jane's visits to the village grew fewer and fewer.
When she did come she was always talking of the
officer. After he got so as he could go about, he
was put upon his parole, but he continued to board
at the mill, saying that he liked the situation better
than the village. Mr. Lovel and his wife liked him
very much, and were glad of his staying: they were
unsuspecting people.

“Well, then, he staid; and folks who went to the mill
used to observe that Jane cared nothing for company,
and that she was always sitting in the room with the
officer, who would be found reading or talking to her.
On this very spot they would sit together for hours.”

“When Lieutenant Maynard recovered, he was
still upon his parole, and he frequently came to Springdale.
Everybody liked him: there he was thought to
be a fine, amiable young man. He used to call and
see your grandmother, child, (to Sarah,) and she
thought the world of him. Jane, too, whenever she
came to Springdale would call and see me, and her
perpetual talk was, as I have told you, about Mr. Maynard.
Poor thing! I hear her now; with what a fluttering
heart she would talk and talk, and of nothing
but him.”

“Was he handsome?” inquired Fanny.

“Yes, dear, as handsome as you find in a thousand.
So, one day I taxed her with being in love with him.
She was confused, but she laughed; and asked why
not. I spoke my mind to her. I told her that I did
not think he was in love with her, and that if he was,
did she expect to marry him and to go to England
among his high relations. Such a shade came over
her face! but she said no more, and I felt for her, and
changed the subject. Still Mr. Maynard staid at the
mill; but Jane, when I saw her after this, did not speak
so much of him, and she was not so lively; or rather
sometimes she was more lively, and then she
would get sad suddenly, and leave me.

“Unexpectedly one day, the news came that prisoners
were to be exchanged. Mr. Maynard walked
over from the mill to the village; and, without taking
leave of anybody, he left under the escort of the guard
who were to see him safe to the British lines. This
was about noon. As it grew towards night, Jane
came to Springdale to your grandmother's house, and
asked to see me. I didn't know her at first, she
looked so corpse-like, and her voice sounded as though
it came from the grave. She talked upon indifferent
things for a while, but it was too plain that something
was on her mind. I asked her what was the
matter? She affected to be in a joke, and said that Mr.
Maynard had bid them good-bye at the mill, but that
she wondered if he had gone, and would'nt I just
step over to the tavern for her and ask—that her mother
wanted to know. I told her that he had gone,
for that I myself had seen him depart under the escort.
She said no more; for some time she seemed
bewildered. Then she asked me if I did not think he
would come back. I told her I thought not: when I
said this, she got up and said good-bye, and after she
had passed out of the door she returned, and said:

“`Come Agnes, let you and I shake hands; for when
two part in this world, there's no knowing when
they'll meet again.”'

“I shook hands with her, and tried to cheer her,
saying, gaily, that I meant to come early in the morning
to see her, and that I would catch her before
she was up.

“`O! I shall sleep sound,' said she, `come, mother
will be so glad to see you.'

“She left me, and her words sounded so strange to
me that I stood in the door gazing after her. She
walked on at her usual step, when she stopped as if
she had forgot something; I advanced towards her,
but she went on, and I entered the house thinking of
her.

“The next day early, though there had been a most
awful storm that night, and the walking was bad in
consequence, I went over to the mill, for I could
not banish from my mind the idea that something had
happened to Jane. As I drew near the mill I met
Mr. Lovell like one distracted; the first word he
asked me was, if I had seen Jane. I told him that
I had not seen her since the afternoon before, and I
repeated all that she had said. He seemed beside
himself. He said that she had been at home until
nine o'clock in the evening, and that his wife said
she then stepped out the door just before the storm
came on, but that she thought she had returned and
gone to bed. They had not seen her since. He
bade me, for God's sake, to go and comfort his wife, and
he would go to the village in hopes of hearing something
of his daughter there. He started on like one
half crazy, and I entered the house. There I saw
Mrs. Lovell; Jane, as I have said, was a good scholar
for a girl like her, and her mother had been searching
the drawers and trunks to see if Jane had left anything
that would tell of what had become of her. She

discovered nothing; but in a looking-glass drawer
that belonged to the officer she found a lock of her
hair. When I opened the door, and I rapped twice
before I did so, and there came no answer, there was
the mother, standing by the drawer as motionless as
though she had been stone, and gazing on the lock
of hair which she had just taken out of it. When
she saw me, she threw herself in my arms and burst
into tears: it saved her heart from breaking on the
spot. All that I could get from her was, that Jane
had returned home that night, got supper as usual,
but did not eat any, though she made the efforts; nor
did she name Mr. Maynard once. The mother suspected
Jane's feelings, and did what she could to comfort
her, but never spoke of the officer. Mr. Lovell,
she said, was fatigued from working hard all day,
and he lay down on a settee and went to sleep. The
mother said, that she herself went into the next room,
and in looking through she saw Jane kiss her father
on the forehead, and clasp her hands together; that
then Jane entered the room where she was, and kissed
her and said good night. Mrs. Lovell, who was a
simple woman, told her daughter—as she told me—that
was right; that she had better go to bed, and she
would feel better in the morning. Jane, she said, left
the room, and she was certain that she heard her go
out; and until the morning she felt as certain that
she heard her footsteps as she returned and ascended
the stairs. In the morning, surprised that Jane had
not arisen, she entered her room to awake her, when
there was the bed untumbled, with Jane's bonnet and
shawl on it.

“When I entered the house I left the door open after
me, and while Mrs. Lovell was telling me about
poor Jane, their house dog, which was a great
favourite with the daughter, came in, and kept jumping
up and wagging his tail around us, as if to draw our

attention, and then he would run out of the door; but
finding we did not follow him, he returned and renewed
his solicitations. I remarked it to Mrs. Lovell,
and proposed that we should follow him, she said:

“`Well do, so; for he has been going on so all the
morning; and now I remember he was not in the
house last night where he usually stays, for when I
opened the door this morning he come in and acted
as you have seen him.'

“We followed the dog; he dashed impatiently ahead
of us, in this direction, and as we did not walk fast
enough to keep close behind him, he came to this
very spot, and then returned to us, and came again
here. When we reached this place I looked over
the bank—it has been washed away below since, and
it is steeper now than it was then—I looked over, and
the first thing I saw hanging to the end of a stump,
that stood near the water—the stream was very high
then, remember, for it was swollen by the storm—was
a bit of ribbon—pink ribbon. Though it was all
draggled in the water, I thought instantly it was
the very piece that poor Jane had had round her neck
when I saw her in the afternoon. I was young then
—I thought nothing of jumping down and getting it;
indeed I did'nt think at all but of poor Jane. In an
instant I snatched it loose from the stump, when a part
of it remained, it had caught so fast, and climbing up
the bank, handed it to Mrs. Lovell. Soon as she saw
it she exclaimed, `'Tis her's! 'tis my dear daughter's!
she's gone—gone!'

“'Twas with great difficulty I could get her to her
house. She looked wildly round for the tracks of her
daughter to the fatal spot, but the heavy storm had
washed them all away. There was no trace of her
but the bit of ribbon.

Mr. Lovell returned with several of his neighbours:
he had heard nothing of her, except what was in confirmation

of our fears. One of them stated that he
had been up the valley, and was hastening home, by
the mill road, late at night to avoid the storm, and
about ten steps from this spot he met Jane. He asked
her whither she was going so late, and she made him
no reply, but passed on. He said the gathering clouds
had nearly obscured the little starlight left, so that
he could not clearly distinguish the person of Jane, if
it was she; that he passed on in doubt, feeling assured
that if it was, she would have answered him had she
heard him, but his doubts were resolved on hearing
her well known voice speak to the dog. This was
all that was ever heard of poor Jane. The storm
that night was awful. I remember it well; and it was
in this storm the old miller who succeeded Mr. Lovell
used to say that the rock was rolled to the rocks
below, and that, according to him, accounted for the
calmness in the waters beside us which always had
been rough before, and which, as is the belief of many,
has never been rough since, in calm or storm, rain or
shine.”

“Aunty, what become of the father and mother?”
asked Fanny, wiping her eyes.

“They could not stay here after Jane's death.
Dears, it was sorrowful to see them. The father
neglected his mill, and the mother just did nothing
but look over her daughter's things and talk about
her. They grew so sad that they resolved to move
into another neighbourhood. The day of the removal
I came over to bid them good-bye, and when I entered
the room there was Mrs. Lovell with the lock
of her daughter's hair, which she had found in the
drawer of the officer's looking-glass. Poor childless
thing! she was folding it up in the bit of Jane's neckribbon
that I had taken from the stump. A mother's
love is next to God's—dear's, it's next to God's.”

“Where did the father and mother go, aunty?” inquired
Fanny.

“To the city, dear, they became very poor; he
hired out as a miller near by the city, and one morning
his body was found in the mill-race. It was not
known whether he had drowned himself or not—he
drank hard after his daughter's death, and he might
have fallen into the race in a fit of intoxication.”

“And the mother—”

“Poor thing, she went crazy, and was found roving
about the streets, and was taken to the poor-house.
She kept asking for her husband and her daughter,
but, they say, behaved perfectly harmless until the
keeper, who was a harsh man, and who, seeing her
hand closed upon something that looked like a purse,
attempted to take it from her. She then grew frantic,
raving mad, but the keeper insisted upon taking it,
and at last succeeded in doing so; but she died in
the struggle to keep all that was left her of her daughter—the
lock of hair with the ribbon round it.”

Both the girls wept bitterly; Sarah as much, if not
more, than Fanny, although she had heard the sad
narrative often before.

“And the officer!” exclaimed Fanny through her
tears, “was nothing ever found out? what became of
him? maybe Jane left with him.”

“No, dear, it was never thought so: an account of
his marriage with an earl's daughter, and of his promotion,
was republished from a London paper years
after the peace. Perhaps he never heard of the miller's
daughter again, and never thought of her in this
world—but there is another, at whose awful bar he
must hear and think of her—another when the retribution
must fall on him. Children, God is just; justice
is his highest attribute; and if it is, there must be a
future state from whose terrible punishment all those
broad hills cannot cover him. No; they and this

stream, and these woods, and these lands, and the
very ashes of that house that witnessed their meeting—
her innocence and his guilt—and her poor father and
her frantic mother—will rise up when she rises at the
great day, and bear testimony against him. Merciful
Father!” exclaimed old Agnes, elevating her face and
hands, “I am not certain that he was guilty; let me not
judge thy creatures. Be merciful in thy judgment,
but O! forget not those who, like this poor girl and
her broken-hearted parents, have suffered unto death.”