The Miller of Old Church

The Miller of Old Church

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Miller Of Old Church, by Ellen
Glasgow This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and
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Title: The Miller Of Old Church
Author: Ellen Glasgow
Release Date: April 30, 2006 [EBook #18286]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE
MILLER OF OLD CHURCH ***

Produced by Doug Levy

THE MILLER OF OLD CHURCH
by Ellen Glasgow
To my sister Cary Glasgow McCormack In loving acknowledgment of
help and sympathy through the years

CONTENTS
BOOK FIRST
JORDAN'S JOURNEY
Chapter
I.
At Bottom's Ordinary II. In Which Destiny Wears the Comic Mask III.
In Which Mr. Gay Arrives at His Journey's End IV. The Revercombs V.
The Mill VI. Treats of the Ladies' Sphere VII. Gay Rushes Into a
Quarrel and Secures a Kiss VIII. Shows Two Sides of a Quarrel IX. In
Which Molly Flirts X. The Reverend Orlando Mullen Preaches a
Sermon XI. A Flight and an Encounter XII. The Dream and the Real
XIII. By the Mill-race XIV. Shows the Weakness in Strength XV.
Shows the Tyranny of Weakness XVI. The Coming of Spring XVII.
The Shade of Mr. Jonathan XVIII. The Shade of Reuben XIX. Treats of
Contradictions XX. Life's Ironies XXI. In Which Pity Masquerades as
Reason
BOOK SECOND
THE CROSS-ROADS
Chapter
I.
In which Youth Shows a Little Seasoned II. The Desire of the Moth III
Abel Hears Gossip and Sees a Vision IV. His Day of Freedom V. The
Shaping of Molly VI. In Which Hearts Go Astray VII. A New
Beginning to an Old Tragedy VIII. A Great Passion in a Humble Place
IX. A Meeting in the Pasture X. Tangled Threads XI. The Ride to
Piping Tree XII. One of Love's Victims XIII. What Life Teaches XIV.
The Turn of the Wheel XV. Gay Discovers Himself XVI. The End

Author's Note: The scene of this story is not the place of the same name
in Virginia.

BOOK FIRST
JORDAN'S JOURNEY
THE MILLER OF OLD CHURCH
CHAPTER I
AT BOTTOM'S ORDINARY
It was past four o'clock on a sunny October day, when a stranger, who
had ridden over the "corduroy" road between Applegate and Old
Church, dismounted near the cross-roads before the small public house
known to its frequenters as Bottom's Ordinary. Standing where the
three roads meet at the old turnpike-gate of the county, the square brick
building, which had declined through several generations from a chapel
into a tavern, had grown at last to resemble the smeared face of a clown
under a steeple hat which was worn slightly awry. Originally covered
with stucco, the walls had peeled year by year until the dull red of the
bricks showed like blotches of paint under a thick coating of powder.
Over the wide door two little oblong windows, holding four damaged
panes, blinked rakishly from a mat of ivy, which spread from the
rotting eaves to the shingled roof, where the slim wooden spire bent
under the weight of creeper and innumerable nesting sparrows in spring.
After pointing heavenward for half a century, the steeple appeared to
have swerved suddenly from its purpose, and to invite now the
attention of the wayfarer to the bar beneath. This cheerful room which
sprouted, like some grotesque wing, from the right side of the chapel,
marked not only a utilitarian triumph in architecture, but served, on
market days to attract a larger congregation of the righteous than had
ever stood up to sing the doxology in the adjoining place of worship.
Good and bad prospects were weighed here, weddings discussed, births
and deaths recorded in ever-green memories, and here, also, were

reputations demolished and the owners of them hustled with scant
ceremony away to perdition.
From the open door of the bar on this particular October day, there
streamed the ruddy blaze of a fire newly kindled from knots of resinous
pine. Against this pleasant background might be discerned now and
then the shapeless silhouette of Betsey Bottom, the innkeeper, a soft
and capable soul, who, in attaching William Ming some ten years
before, had successfully extinguished his identity without materially
impairing her own. Bottom's Ordinary had always been ruled by a
woman, and it would continue to be so, please God, however loudly a
mere Ming might protest to the contrary. In the eyes of her neighbours,
a female, right or wrong, was always a female, and this obvious fact,
beyond and above any natural two-sided jars of wedlock, sufficed in
itself to establish Mrs. Ming as a conjugal martyr. Being