"When the wind blows,
Then the mill goes:
When the wind drops,
Then the mill stops."
But he was wont to growl out, "The wind is sure to drop when I have most
grist to grind--just to spite me."
Hillbrook was a nice spot. There was the brook which ran out of the
hill, fresh and pure, right through the village. There was not water
enough to turn a mill, but enough to give the people right good water to
drink and to cook with. It is a sad thing not to have good water. Bad
water, from ponds, or ditches, or wells near drains, makes many people
ill, and kills not a few. The people of Hillbrook prized their good
water. They said, "we have good water and pure air, and now what we
have to do is to keep our cottages clean and we shall be well." They
did keep the floors and the walls of their cottages clean, but somehow
fevers still came. At times, when the sun was hot, many people were
ill: no one could tell how it was.
There was a farm to let, called Hillside farm. No one would take it,
for it was said that the land was cold and wet, and too open. At last
one Farmer Grey came to see it. The rent was low, the terms fair; "I'll
take it on a long lease," he said; "and if God wills it, ere many years
go by, it will yield good crops." Farmer Grey soon gave work to many
hands, he paid good wages too, and was always among his men to see that
each man did his proper work. He put deep down in the ground miles and
miles of drain pipes, it was said.
Hillside was next to the Mill farm. When Mark Page saw the tons and
tons of dung of all sorts, chalk, and guano, which comes from over the
sea, put on the land, he said that Farmer Grey had put more gold on it
than he would ever get out of it. Farmer Grey said, "Bide a bit,
neighbour, and we shall see."
Farmer Grey heard some people one day talk about their good water and
fine air and clean cottages, and yet that fevers came to the place. So
he went into the village, and walked from cottage to cottage: "Look
here, what is this hole for?" he asked one; "I must hold my nose while I
stand near it. Why it's just under the room where some of you sleep!"
"Oh, that's just a hole where we empty slops, and throw in cabbage
stalks and dirt of all sorts," said the good woman; "we take it out
sometimes to spread on the garden."
"Now hear me, dame," said Farmer Grey, "that hole is just a nest sure to
hatch a fever some day; drain it off, fill it up, and dig a new one at
the end of the garden, and take care that none of the drainings run into
your brook."
"Why is this green ditch close under your window, dame?" he asked of
another.
"Why you see, farmer, it is there, it has always been there, and it's so
handy just to empty the slops and such-like dirt," said the dame; "to be
sure it does smell bad sometimes, but that can't be helped."
"Hear me, dame," said Farmer Grey, "I have a notion that God lets bad
smells come out of such muck just to show us that if we breathe them
they will do us harm; the bad air which comes out of the muck mixes with
the air we are always taking into our insides, and that makes us ill.
You had one child die last summer of fever, and one is now ill. Now
just do you get your good man to drain that off when he comes home, and
tell him that he need not come to work till after breakfast to-morrow,
or noon, if he has not done it."
In another cottage a drain full of filth ran right under the floor. A
cesspool was close to a fourth cottage. In several the floors were
clean; but all sorts of filth had dropped through and stayed there, and
when it rained the water ran under the floor. "Just lift up a plank,"
said Farmer Grey; it was done, and he stuck his stick into a foot or
more of black mud.
"Bad air--gas it is called--comes out of that stuff. That's what brings
fevers and kills the children," he said. "Oh, my friends, you must get
rid of all these things if you wish to have health." The people in
Hillbrook liked Farmer Grey; they knew that he wished them well, and the
wise ones did what he told them. The cholera at last came to England.
No one was ill in those cottages near which the cesspools and green
ditches and dirt holes had been filled up; but five or six died in the
cottages where they were left, and the stuff from them mixed with the
water they drank. Then people saw that Farmer Grey was right.
Somehow Mark Page did not like him, nor did Mistress Page, his wife, nor
his son, young Ben Page; they all spoke an ill word of him when they
could. Only Mary Page, of all in the house, would never do so. Mary
was not like the rest in the miller's house, she was sweet and kind.
She had been to a school where she had learned what was good and right,
and what God loved her to do. Mark Page said that the water which ran
off Farmer Grey's land came on to his and did it harm. "I can prove
it," he said. "Once my crops were as good as any which grew on that
land. Now look you here, his crops are as fine as you would wish to
see, and mine are not half as good. I'll see if I can't turn the water
back again." Farmer Grey wished to make a road through his farm, and
over some wild land, where, in winter, the carts often stuck fast.
There was no lack of gravel, but he had of course to drain the ground,
and then by just making the road round--that is, the middle higher than
the sides--the water ran off on both sides, and the road was as hard as
stone.
"Ah! ah! see, Farmer Grey has sent the water which used to remain quiet
on the top of the hill right down over my land, just to make his own
road, as if a road was of use up there," said Mark Page. "I'll be
revenged on him some day, that I will." These words were told to Farmer
Grey. "Will he?" he said; "Then I will heap coals of fire on his head,
and try which will win the day."
"What can he mean?" asked one or two of those who heard him: "That's not
like how Farmer Grey is wont to speak. Does he mean that he will burn
his house over his head?"
No, no; Farmer Grey did not mean that. He meant that he would do so
many kind acts to Mark Page that he would soften his heart. These words
are in the Bible. In the land where the Bible was written by God's
order, when people want to soften any hard meat, they put it into a pot
with a top and put the pot into a hole full of hot coals, and then they
pile more hot coals over the top, so that all parts of the pot are hot;
so that to heap coals of fire on a man's head has come to mean, to
soften his heart by many kind deeds--heaping them upon his head.
Mark Page did not know what a kind man Farmer Grey was. The miller had
a man to help in the mill, Sam Green by name. There is a saying, "Like
master, like man." Sam was very like the miller--may be worse. Sam was
a man of few words, the miller did not speak much--young Ben was like
his father. One night the talk was about the new road. "Why not go and
dig it up?" asked young Ben Page. "Best thing to do," growled out Sam
Green. It was moonlight, so they all three went out with spades and
picks to the road. "Where shall we dig, father?" asked Ben. The miller
looked about; his farm was on the left of the road. "Stop these two or
three drains here," he said, as he struck his spade on the left side.
"But it seems to me that most of the water runs to the right, off into
the brook; still I don't see what cause Farmer Grey had to go and make
this road." The next day, Farmer Grey rode by and saw where the drains
had been stopped. He might have known who did it. He said not a word,
but sent a man to put them to rights.