Storyteller.

Southern Cross, Volume 1, Issue 46, 10 February 1894, Page 14

Storyteller.

CORNILLE'S SECRET

France! Mamai, an old French fifeplayer, related the following little village drama the other day as a true story of his native province. Our district has not always been the sleepy place it is now. All round the village the hills were once alive with windmills to which, from two leagues round, the fanners brought their wheat. Right and left you saw nothing but the sails of the mills flying round in the breeze. Unfortunately some Parisians took it into their heads to establish a steam mill on the Tarascon road and the farmers soon learned to send their wheat there, while the poor windmills were left without work. They tried to hold their own, but steam was too strong for them, and one after another they were compelled to close down. Then one fine day the city fathers ordered them to be destroyed, and vines and olives planted in their places. Maitre Cornille was an old miller who for sixty years had been devoted to his calling. The establishment of the new mill rendered him almost crazy. “ Those brigands make bread with steam,” an invention of the devil,” he would cry, “ while I use wind, which is the breath of heaven.” Rut no one listened to him. Then in despair the old man shut himself up in his room and lived like a wild animal. He would not even keep Vivette, his grand-daughter, a girl 15 years old, who since her parents’ death had|no one but Maitre Cornille in the world. The poor thing was obliged to earn her living by working out, now here and now there, as the farmers happened to want help. Yet her grandfather seemed to love the child, and often walked four leagues in the hot sun to visit her. The people of the village thought that the old man had been actuated by avarice in sending away Vivette, and respected him very little accordingly. Indeed, they regretted that a man like Maitre Cornille, who had always hitherto been esteemed, should now go about the streets like an old beggar, bare-footed, his cap in holes and his clothes in rags. The fact is that on Sunday when we saw him come to mass we were ashamed of him, and Cornille was so well aware of it that he always remained at the back of the church, among the poor. There was some mystery in the life of Maitre Cornille. It was a long time since anyone had taken him wheat to grind, and yet the sails of bis windmill turned just the same. In the evening he was often met driving his mule laden with big sacks of flour. “ Good day, Maitre Cornille,” cried the peasants. “ Does your work go on always ?” “ Always, my children,” the old man would reply, gaily. “ Thank God, I am never in want of work.” Then if any one asked him where in the world did all this work came from, he would put a finger on his lips and reply gravely, “ I am in the export business,” and they could never get any more information from him. As for putting one’s nose into his mill, it was nut to be thought of; even Vivette never entered. When people passed by the door was always closed and the great sails continually in movement, v bile the old mule browsed the grass of the platform, and a thin cat sunned itself on the window-sill. All this savoured of mystery, and made people gossip, each one explaining in his own fashion the secret of Maitre Cornille, but the rumour ran that in the mill were to be found even more sacks of gold pieces than of flour. However, everything was discovered and in the following manner ; One day, while playing my flute for the young people to dance, I perceived that my eldest son and little Vivette were in love with one another. This did not displease me at all, but thinking it better to come to some

arrangement on the subject, I went up to the mill for a word or two with Vivette’s grandfather. Ah ! the old wretch, you should have seen how he received me. It was impossible to make him open the door, so I had to explain my errand through the keyhole. He did not even give me time to finish, but called out that I had better return to my flute, and if I were in such a hurry to get my son married I might advertise for a wife. You can imagine what a rage I was in, but all the same I had enough sense not to show it, and leaving the old fool to his mill, I w r ent back to describe my reception to the lovers. The poor lambs would scarcely believe it, and begged me to let them go together to the mill and interview Vivette’s grandfather. When they reached the place Maitre Cornille had just gone out. The door was double locked, but the old man had left his ladder ouside, and the children determined to enter by the window and see what was inside this famous mill. Strange, the place was empty—not a sack, not a grain of wheat, not even a speck of flour on the walls nor on the spiders’ webs. The millstone was covered with dust, and the thin cat was asleep on it.

The room downstairs had the same air of wretchedness about it —-an old bed, a few rags, a morsel of bread on one of the stairs. And then in one corner there were four sacks filled with white sand. That was Maitre Cornille’s secret It was this rubbish that he canned about the roads to save the honour of his mill and deceive people into thinking that he still had wheat to grind. Poor Cornille ! The steam mill had long ago taken away his last customer. 'X* t"? The children came back in tears to tell me what they had seen. Without waiting a moment I ran to the neighbours and explained the matter to them in two words. We agreed at once to carry to Cornille’s mill all the wheat that was in the houses. Ho sooner said than done. All the village set out, and we arrived with a procession of mules laden with grain, real grain this time The mill was wide open. Before the door Maitre Cornille, seated on a sack of sand, was sobbing, with his face hidden in his hands. He had just perceived that during his absence someone had penetrated into his house and surprised his sad secret. “ Alas!” he moaned. “How I have nothing left but to die. The mill is dishonoured,” and he wept as if his heart were breaking, calling his mill by all sorts of names, as if it had been a living person. Here the mules arrived on the platform and we called out very loudly, “Mill, ahoy! Oho! Maitre Cornille!” just as in the prosperous days of windmills ; and the sacks were piled up before the door, while the golden grain fell down on all sides. Maitre Cornille opened his eyes. He took some wheat in the holloAv of his hand, and exclaimed, laughing and crying at the same time, “It is grain! My Hod! good grain!” Then turning towards us, “Ah, I knew you would come back to me; all those steam millers are robbers.” We wanted to carry him back in triumph to the village. “ Ho, my children, before anything else I must give food to my mill. Think how long it has been without even a grain of corn.” And we all had tears in our eyes as we watched the poor old man, hurrying backward and forward, opening the sacks and inspecting the machinery, while the wheat was ground and the fine flour dust rose to the roof. 1 must do ourselves the justice to soy that from that day we never let the old miller want for work. Then one fine morning Maitre Cornille died, and the sails of our last windmill ceased to turn. —Selected.