On the face of the mill, as it fronted the water, opening from the second story, was a curiously carved wooden gallery, such as one meets with in Nüremberg and some of the older German towns. It had been intended originally to hold sacks of corn or flour, which were hoisted up or lowered down by a crane from, or to, the narrow road-way—only broad enough at the widest to hold a single farm cart with its horses—that interposed between the mill and the water. The gallery had become obsolete for this purpose, having been superseded by other and ampler contrivances on the other side of the mill; and a great willow tree had been allowed to grow up and still farther impede the road-way, which it narrowed to a footpath, as it spread out its roots, and flung across its higher branches until they drooped over the water. But the respect which had been developed for every sign of the mill’s antiquity not only saved the gallery from destruction, but, in order to keep up its character, caused it to be occasionally used still, as a place of deposit for floury sacks. It was more frequently employed as a point of vantage which the miller could appropriate—a place for smoking his pipe and staring at the water beneath his feet; where the gentle folks from Copley could come and loiter and gaze abroad into the recesses of Copley Grange Park, which was only divided from the mill by the Brook and a sunk fence. The park was by no means large, but the ground was undulating, and, furnished with patches of bracken, old thorns, brakes of hazel and blackberry, and some magnificent oaks and beeches, it formed of itself dells and dingles, which had the appearance of stretching far and wide.