k into a foot or
more of black mud.

"Bad air--gas it is called--comes out of that stuff. That's what brings
fevers and kills the children," he said. "Oh, my friends, you must get
rid of all these things if you wish to have health." The people in
Hillbrook liked Farmer Grey; they knew that he wished them well, and the
wise ones did what he told them. The cholera at last came to England.
No one was ill in those cottages near which the cesspools and green
ditches and dirt holes had been filled up; but five or six died in the
cottages where they were left, and the stuff from them mixed with the
water they drank. Then people saw that Farmer Grey was right.

Somehow Mark Page did not like him, nor did Mistress Page, his wife, nor
his son, young Ben Page; they all spoke an ill word of him when they
could. Only Mary Page, of all in the house, would never do so. Mary
was not like the rest in the miller's house, she was sweet and kind.
She had been to a school where she had learned what was good and right,
and what God loved her to do. Mark Page said that the water which ran
off Farmer Grey's land came on to his and did it harm. "I can prove
it," he said. "Once my crops were as good as any which grew on that
land. Now look you here, his crops are as fine as you would wish to
see, and mine are not half as good. I'll see if I can't turn the water
back again." Farmer Grey wished to make a road through his farm, and
over some wild land, where, in winter, the carts often stuck fast.
There was no lack of gravel, but he had of course to drain the ground,
and then by just making the road round--that is, the middle higher than
the sides--the water ran off on both sides, and the road was as hard as
stone.

"Ah! ah! see, Farmer Grey has sent the water which used to remain quiet
on the top of the hill right down over my land, just to make his own
road, as if a road was of use up there," said Mark Page. "I'll be
revenged on him some day, that I will." These words were told to Farmer
Grey. "Will he?" he said; "Then I will heap coals of fire on his head,
and try which will win the day."

"What can he mean?" asked one or two of those who heard him: "That's not
like how Farmer Grey is wont to speak. Does he mean that he will burn
his house over his head?"

No, no; Farmer Grey did not mean that. He meant that he would do so
many kind acts to Mark Page that he would soften his heart. These words
are in the Bible. In the l