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. Whither
had they all gone? Whither went all the tourists and pedlars with strange
wares? whither all the brisk barouches with servants in the dicky?
whither the water of the stream, ever coursing downward, and ever renewed
from above? Even the wind blew oftener down the valley, and carried the
dead leaves along with it in the fall. It seemed like a great conspiracy
of things animate and inanimate; they all went downward, fleetly and
gaily downward, and only he, it seemed, remained behind, like a stock
u