But the wooden cottage attached to it had felt the devastating march of time.

A portion of the decrepit building still stood revealed in its wretched old age; propped, partly by beams which reached from the thatched roof to the ground, and partly by the wall of a new cottage attached, presenting in yellow brick-work a hideous modern contrast to all that was left of its ancient neighbor.
Had the miller whom I remembered, died; and were these changes the work of his successor?
I thought of asking the question, and tried the door: it was fastened.

The windows were all dark excepting one, which I discovered in the upper storey, at the farther side of the new building.
Here, there was a dim light burning.

It was impossible to disturb a person, who, for all I knew to the contrary, might be going to bed.

I turned back to The Loke, proposing to extend my walk, by a mile or a little more, to a village that I remembered on the bank of the river.
I had not advanced far, when the stillness around me was disturbed by an intermittent sound of splashing in the water.