rate per acre, which, as both he and his landlord well
knew, would make it acceptable on the same terms to any farmer in the
parish; and neither for his mill, nor for his land, had he any lease,
nor had his father or his grandfather had leases before him. Though
he was a clever man in his way, he hardly knew what a lease was.
He doubted whether his landlord could dispossess him as long as he
paid his rent, but he was not sure. But of this he thought he was
sure,--that were Mr. Gilmore to attempt to do such a thing, all
Wiltshire would cry out against the deed, and probably the heavens
would fall and crush the doer. He was a man with an unlimited love
of justice; but the justice which he loved best was justice to
himself. He brooded over injuries done to him,--injuries real or
fancied,--till he taught himself to wish that all who hurt him might
be crucified for the hurt they did to him. He never forgot, and never
wished to forgive. If any prayer came from him, it was a prayer that
his own heart might be so hardened that when vengeance came in his
way he might take it without stint against the trespasser of the
moment. And yet he was not a cruel man. He would almost despise
himself, because when the moment for vengeance did come, he would
abstain from vengeance. He would dismiss a disobedient servant with
curses which would make one's hair stand on end, and would hope
within his heart of hearts that before the end of the next week the
man with his wife and children might be in the poorhouse. When the
end of the next week came, he would send the wife meat, and would
give the children bread, and would despise himself for doing so.
In matters of religion he was an old Pagan, going to no place of
worship, saying no prayer, believing in no creed,--with some vague
idea that a supreme power would bring him right at last, if he worked
hard, robbed no one, fed his wife and children, and paid his way. To
pay his way was the pride of his heart; to be paid on his way was its
joy.

In that matter of his quarrel with his landlord he was very bitter.
The Squire's father some fifteen years since had given to the miller
a verbal promise that the house and mill should be repaired. The old
Squire had not been a good man of business, and had gone on with his
tenants very much as he had found them, without looking much into the
position of each. But he had, no doubt, said something that amounted
to a promise on his own account as to these re