eak to the old
man about his daughter. With the mother the Vicar had often spoken
of her lost child, and had learned from her how sad it was to her
that she could never dare to mention Carry's name to her husband. He
had cursed his child, and had sworn that she should never more have
part in him or his. She had brought sorrow and shame upon him, and
he had cut her off with a steady resolve that there should be no
weak backsliding on his part. Those who knew him best declared that
the miller would certainly keep his word, and hitherto no one had
dared to speak of the lost one in her father's hearing. All this Mr.
Fenwick knew, and he knew also that the man was one who could be very
fierce in his anger. He had told his wife that old Brattle was the
only man in the world before whom he would be afraid to speak his
mind openly, and in so saying he had expressed a feeling that was
very general throughout all Bullhampton. Mr. Puddleham was a very
meddlesome man, and he had once ventured out to the mill to say a
word, not indeed about Carry, but touching some youthful iniquity of
which Sam was supposed to have been guilty. He never went near the
mill again, but would shudder and lift up his hands and his eyes when
the miller's name was mentioned. It was not that Brattle used rough
language, or became violently angry when accosted; but there was a
sullen sternness about the man, and a capability of asserting his own
mastery and personal authority, which reduced those who attacked him
to the condition of vanquished combatants, and repulsed them, so that
they would retreat as beaten dogs. Mr. Fenwick, indeed, had always
been well received at the mill. The women of the family loved him
dearly, and took great comfort in his visits. From his first arrival
in the parish he had been on intimate terms with them, though the old
man had never once entered his church. Brattle himself would bear
with him more kindly than he would with his own landlord, who might
at any day have turned him out of his holding. But even Fenwick had
been so answered more than once as to have been forced to retreat
with that feeling of having his tail, like a cur, between his legs.
"He can't eat me," he said to himself, as the low willows round the
mill came in sight. When a man is reduced to that consolation, as
many a man often is, he may be nearly sure that he will be eaten.

When he got over the stile into the lane close to the mill-door,
he found that the