m open the
sluice."

"Good," said the artist. "I will be there; but look here, let's carry
the canvases down; there are only twelve. Nothing like the present.
I'll bring them now."

"You mean, we'll take them now," said Will, correctively.

The matter was arranged by their taking four each.

"Going to take them below to the mill to pack, Mrs Drinkwater," said
Manners, as they went down the path.

"Dear, dear, sir," said the woman, sadly; "it seems so early, and it'll
be very dull when you're gone."

"Next spring will soon come, Mrs Drinkwater," said Manners, cheerily;
and the trio strolled on together, to come, at the angle of the second
zig-zag, plump upon Drinkwater, with one arm round a birch trunk, his
right hand to his shaggy brow, leaning away from the path as far as he
could, as if gazing down at the dam.

"Morning, Drinkwater," cried Manners, cheerily.

The man started violently, stared at the canvases, then at their bearer,
and hurried away in amongst the trees.

"Nice cheerful party that to live with, lads," said the artist,
laughingly. "Only fancy being his wife!"

"Yes," said Josh; "and now you see if he don't turn worse than ever. I
know."

"Know what?" said Will.

"He'll be as disagreeable as possible, because he's not going to nail up
the canvases, and lay it all on his poor wife."

"He'd better not let me hear him," said Manners. "Surly brute!
Wouldn't do it himself, and now turns nasty. I saw his savage looks! I
should just like to shake some of his temper out of him. Takes a lot of
your father's physic, Josh, to set him right."

"Time?" cried the boy. "Ah, he'll have to have a stronger dose."

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

MYSTERIOUS SOUNDS.

There was not much to see. The great pool was very full--a great,
V-shaped sheet of water, or elongated triangle, whose shortest side was
formed by the massive stone dam built across the narrow valley, standing
some forty feet high from its base, to keep back the waters, and being
naturally, when full, forty feet deep at its lower end.

Mr Willows and two men were at one end of the wall when Manners and the
boys climbed on to it that afternoon, to stand in the middle looking up
the valley over the long sheet of water to where it dwindled from some
fifty yards wide to less than as many feet.

One of the upper sluices was opened, and though the great mill-wheel in
its shed far below was going round at its most rapid rate, urged by the
s