April 4, 1889.


Down in the valley which runs below the house is a mill. I passed
it to-day at dusk, and I thought I had never seen so
characteristically English a scene. The wheel was silent, and the
big boarded walls, dusted with flour, loomed up solemnly in the
evening light. The full leat dashed merrily through the sluice,
making holiday, like a child released from school. Behind was the
stack-yard, for it is a farm as well as a mill; and in the byre I
heard the grunting of comfortable pigs, and the soft pulling of the
hay from the big racks by the bullocks. The fowls were going to
roost, fluttering up every now and then into the big elder-bushes;
while high above, in the apple-trees, I saw great turkeys settled
precariously for the night. The orchard was silent, except for the
murmur of the stream that bounds it. In the mill-house itself
lights gleamed in the windows, and I saw a pleasant family-party
gathered at their evening meal. The whole scene with its background
of sloping meadows and budding woods so tranquil and contented--a
scene which William Morris would have loved--for there is a
pleasant grace of antiquity about the old house, a sense of homely
and solid life, and of all the family associations that have gone
to the making of it, generation after generation leaving its mark
in the little alterations and additions that have met a need, or
even satisfied a pleasant fancy.

The miller is an elderly man now, fond of work, prosperous, good-
humoured. His son lives with him, and the house is full of
grandchildren. I do not say that it puzzles me to divine what is
the miller's view of life, because I think I know it. It is to make