Will O' the Mill

CHAPTER I. THE PLAIN AND THE STARS.

THE Mill here Will lived with his adopted parents stood in a
falling valley between pinewoods and great mountains. Above, hill
after hill, soared upwards until they soared out of the depth of
the hardiest timber, and stood naked against the sky. Some way up,
a long grey village lay like a seam or a ray of vapour on a wooded
hillside; and when the wind was favourable, the sound of the church
bells would drop down, thin and silvery, to Will. Below, the
valley grew ever steeper and steeper, and at the same time widened
out on either hand; and from an eminence beside the mill it was
possible to see its whole length and away beyond it over a wide
plain, where the river turned and shone, and moved on from city to
city on its voyage towards the sea. It chanced that over this
valley there lay a pass into a neighbouring kingdom; so that, quiet
and rural as it was, the road that ran along beside the river was a
high thoroughfare between two splendid and powerful societies. All
through the summer, travelling-carriages came crawling up, or went
plunging briskly downwards past the mill; and as it happened that
the other side was very much easier of ascent, the path was not
much frequented, except by people going in one direction; and of
all the carriages that Will saw go by, five-sixths were plunging
briskly downwards and only one-sixth crawling up. Much more was
this the case with foot-passengers. All the light-footed tourists,
all the pedlars laden with strange wares, were tending downward
like the river that accompanied their path. Nor was this all; for
when Will was yet a child a disastrous war arose over a great part
of the world. The newspapers were full of defeats and victories,
the earth rang with cavalry hoofs, and often for days together and
for miles around the coil of battle terrified good people from
their labours in the field. Of all this, nothing was heard for a
long time in the valley; but at last one of the commanders pushed
an army over the pass by forced marches, and for three days horse
and foot, cannon and tumbril, drum and standard, kept pouring
downward past the mill. All day the child stood and watched them
on their passage - the rhythmical stride, the pale, unshaven faces
tanned about the eyes, the discoloured regimentals and the tattered
flags, filled him with a sense of weariness, pity, and wonder; and
all night long, after he was in bed, he could hear the cannon
pounding and the feet trampling, and the great armament sweeping
onward and downward past the mill. No one in the valley ever heard
the fate of the expedition, for they lay out of the way of gossip
in those troublous times; but Will saw one thing plainly, that not
a man returned.