; the tawny smudges of bygone shoulders in the passage were
removed without regard to a certain genial and historical value which
they had acquired. The face of the clock, coated with verdigris as thick
as a diachylon plaister, was rubbed till the figures emerged into day;
while, inside the case of the same chronometer, the cobwebs that formed
triangular hammocks, which the pendulum could hardly wade through, were
cleared away at one swoop.

Mrs. Garland also assisted at the invasion of worm-eaten cupboards, where
layers of ancient smells lingered on in the stagnant air, and recalled to
the reflective nose the many good things that had been kept there. The
upper floors were scrubbed with such abundance of water that the
old-established death-watches, wood-lice, and flour-worms were all
drowned, the suds trickling down into the room below in so lively and
novel a manner as to convey the romantic notion that the miller lived in
a cave with dripping stalactites.

They moved what had never been moved before--the oak coffer, containing
the miller's wardrobe--a tremendous weight, what with its locks, hinges,
nails, dirt, framework, and the hard stratification of old jackets,
waistcoats, and knee-breeches at the bottom, never disturbed since the
miller's wife died, and half pulverized by the moths, whose flattened
skeletons lay amid the mass in thousands.

'It fairly makes my back open and shut!' said Loveday, as, in obedience
to Mrs. Garland's direction, he lifted one corner, the grinder and David
assisting at the others. 'All together: speak when ye be going to heave.
Now!'

The pot covers and skimmers were brought to such a state that, on
examining them, the beholder was not conscious of utensils, but of his
own face in a condition of hideous elasticity. The broken clock-line was
mended, the kettles rocked, the creeper nailed up, and a new handle put
to the warming-pan. The large household lantern was cleaned out, after
three years of uninterrupted accumulation, the operation yielding a
conglomerate of candle-snuffs, candle-ends, remains of matches,
lamp-black, and eleven ounces and a half of good grease--invaluable as
dubbing for skitty boots and ointment for cart-wheels.

Everybody said that the mill residence had not been so thoroughly scoured
for twenty years. The miller and David looked on with a sort of awe
tempered by gratitude, tacitly admitting by their gaze that this was
beyond what they had ever though