A Daughter of Maryland — page 75: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

58 A DAUGHTER OF MARYLAND. ‘‘Go ahead to Sylvania,’’ ordered Aurian. ‘‘I will over- take you before you reach the main road. ’’ ‘‘Sartin, Missus Orry,’’ replied S’posen, ducking his head and leading Black Gyp away from the lonely scene he was only too glad to leave. Aurian had sought this isolated place with a desire to see the spot where the unfortunate Mrs. Berners had met her fate, though she could not convince her own mind that she had any tangible reason for doing so. ‘‘It must be my morbid curiosity,’’ she said to herself, as she turned from watching S’posen and his charge to look more closely at the old ruins than she had before. And as she gazed on the ruin and desolation the years had woven about the spot once bustling with life and activity, the long-forgotten story of him who had built the old Granary came by piece- meal back into her mind. His mother was a Lancier, and his father’s mother a Southard, so the blood of the two families was in his veins. It had proved anything but a happy mixture, for his quarrelsome nature had not only driven the families apart, but had estranged himself from his wife. In gloomy seclusion he had then lived and worked at his mill on the Lash, never seeing any one, save those who came to him with their grain to be ground. Finally, one man going as usual with his grist to the mill, returned saying that the miller’s helper was missing. If there had been foul play no one was able to say that the gruff old miller had done the deed. But the suspicions thrown about him so worried and irritated the other that he swore by all that was good and bad that he would never shut down his mill, or leave his post of duty until the missing man returned, or the river went dry. Thus day by day, and night after night, the hum of the machinery con- tinued without a break until the dusty figure of him who commanded it grew gaunt and haggard. But there must be an end to this unequal trial, and one day the old miller was found stark and silent at his post, the huge waterwheel