THE MILLER'’S SECRET 139

done. All the village set out, and we
got up there with a procession of
donkeys loaded with corn—real corn
this time. The mill was wide open.
... In front of the door, Gaffer
Cornille, seated on a sack of lime, was
crying with his face hidden in his
hands. He had just found out when
he came back that during his absence
some one had got in and discovered
his miserable secret. ‘Woe is me!’
he said. ‘Now there is nought for me
to do but die... . The mill is dis-
graced.’

And he sobbed in a heartrending
way, calling his mill by all sorts of pet
names, speaking to it as if it was a
living thing.

Just then the donkeys reached the
summit, and we all began to cry out
loudly as in the good old times of the
millers :

‘Mill ahoy! .. . Gaffer Cornille,
ahoy!’ And there were the sacks piled
up at the door, and the fine red-brown