f miles
from Lewes, although it was at most but fifty or sixty years old, had
all a look of weather-beaten age, for the cypress shingles, of which it
was built, ripen in a few years of wind and weather to a silvery, hoary
gray, and the white powdering of flour lent it a look as though the
dust of ages had settled upon it, making the shadows within dim, soft,
mysterious. A dozen willow trees shaded with dappling, shivering ripples
of shadow the road before the mill door, and the mill itself, and the
long, narrow, shingle-built, one-storied, hip-roofed dwelling house.
At the time of the story the mill had descended in a direct line of
succession to Hiram White, the grandson of old Ephraim White, who had
built it, it was said, in 1701.

Hiram White was only twenty-seven years old, but he was already in local
repute as a "character." As a boy he was thought to be half-witted or
"natural," and, as is the case with such unfortunates in small country
towns where everybody knows everybody, he was made a common sport and
jest for the keener, crueler wits of the neighborhood. Now that he was
grown to the ripeness of manhood he was still looked upon as being--to
use a quaint expression--"slack," or "not jest right." He was heavy,
awkward, ungainly and loose-jointed, and enormously, prodigiously
strong. He had a lumpish, thick-featured face, with lips heavy and
loosely hanging, that gave him an air of stupidity, half droll, half
pathetic. His little eyes were set far apart and flat with his face, his
eyebrows were nearly white and his hair was of a sandy, colorless
kind. He was singularly taciturn, lisping thickly when he did talk,
and stuttering and hesitating in his speech, as though his words moved
faster than his mind could follow. It was the custom for local wags to
urge, or badger, or tempt him to talk, for the sake of the ready laugh
that always followed the few thick, stammering words and the stupid
drooping of the jaw at the end of each short speech. Perhaps Squire
Hall was the only one in Lewes Hundred who misdoubted that Hiram was
half-witted. He had had dealings with him and was wont to say that
whoever bought Hiram White for a fool made a fool's bargain. Certainly,
whether he had common wits or no, Hiram had managed his mill to pretty
good purpose and was fairly well off in the world as prosperity went in
southern Delaware and in those days. No doubt, had it come to the pinch,
he might have bought some of his tormentor