floats by the heavy, impetuous rush of the torrent. Uncle Sam was away,
and so was Firm; from which, perhaps, the mischief grew. However, the
blame was all put on the river, and little more was said of it.

The following morning I went down before even Firm was out-of-doors,
under some touch, perhaps, of natural desire to know things. The stream
was as pure and bright as ever, hastening down its gravel-path of fine
granite just as usual, except that it had more volume and a stronger
sense of freshness. Only the bent of the grasses and the swath of the
pendulous twigs down stream remained to show that there must have been
some violence quite lately.

All Mr. Gundry's strengthening piles and shores were as firm as need
be, and the clear blue water played around them as if they were no
constraint to it. And none but a practiced eye could see that the great
wheel had been wounded, being undershot, and lifted now above the power
of the current, according to the fine old plan of locking the door when
the horse is gone.

When I was looking up and wondering where to find the mischief, Martin,
the foreman, came out and crossed the plank, with his mouth full of
breakfast.

"Show me," I said, with an air, perhaps, of very young importance,
"where and what the damage is. Is there any strain to the iron-work?"

"Lor' a mercy, young missus!" he answered, gruffly, being by no means a
polished man, "where did you ever hear of ironwork? Needles and pins is
enough for you. Now don't you go and make no mischief."

"I have no idea what you mean," I answered. "If you have been careless,
that is no concern of mine."

"Careless, indeed! And the way I works, when others is a-snorin' in
their beds! I might just as well do nort, every bit, and get more thanks
and better wages. That's the way of the world all over. Come Saturday
week, I shall better myself."

"But if it's the way of the world all over, how will you better
yourself, unless you go out of the world altogether!" I put this
question to Martin with the earnest simplicity of the young, meaning no
kind of sarcasm, but knowing that scarcely a week went by without his
threatening to "better himself." And they said that he had done so for
seven years or more.

"Don't you be too sharp," he replied, with a grim smile, partly at
himself, perhaps. "If half as I heard about you is true, you'll want
all your sharpness for yourself, Miss Remy. And the Britishers are worse
than we be."