There is nothing further left to be told of this story of the village of Bullhampton and its Vicar beyond what may be necessary to satisfy the reader as to the condition and future prospects¹ of the Brattle family. The writer of these pages ventures to hope that whatever may have been the fate in the readers’ mind of that couple which are about to settle themselves peaceably at Dunripple, and to wait there in comfort till their own time for reigning² shall have come, some sympathy may have been felt with those humbler personages who have lived with orderly industry at the mill,—as, also, with those who, led away by disorderly passions, have strayed away from it, and have come back again to the old home.

For a couple of days after the return of the miller³ with his daughter and son, very little was said about the past;—very little, at least, in which either the father or Sam took any part. Between the two sisters there were no doubt questions and answers by the hour together as to every smallest detail of the occurrences at Salisbury. And the mother almost sang hymns⁴ of joy over her child, in that the hour which she had so much dreaded⁵ had passed by. But the miller said not a word;—and Sam was almost equally silent. “But it be all over, Sam?” asked his mother, anxiously one day. “For certain sure it be all over now?”

“There’s one, mother, for whom it ain’t all over yet;—poor devil.”

“But he was the—murderer, Sam.”

“So was t’other fellow. There weren’t no difference. If one was more spry to kill t’old chap than t’other, Acorn⁶ was the spryest. That’s what I think. But it’s done now, and there ain’t been much justice in it. As far as I sees, there never ain’t much justice. They was nigh a-hanging o’ me; and if those chaps had thought o’ bringing t’old man’s box nigh the mill, instead of over by t’old woman’s cottage, they would a hung me;—outright. And then they was twelve months about it! I don’t think much on ’em.” When his mother tried to continue the conversation,—which she would have loved to do with that

分享到：