54 ALONG THE WATERWAYS 



at this point rushed along, its rock -bed full of pot- 

 holes, twenty feet below. Between road and river 

 were some old buildings, which in their day had 

 been grist-, saw-, and cider-mills. Two were so 

 crumbled that vines grew through the floors, and 

 the phcebe's nests of many generations strewed the 

 beams. The third, the cider -mill, still bore traces 

 of use. Moldy straw and dried apple -skins hung 

 from the clumsy press, while the rude platform, 

 under the vines and trees in full view of the river 

 where Tree -bridge spanned it, offered an ideal 

 resting place. So there we halted. 



A flowering Clematis vine climbed up from the 

 bank by way of some tall Alders, and leaning over, 

 I saw at the same glance a gorgeous company of 

 Cardinal Flowers, doubled by their reflection in 

 the water. A rock had protected their roots from 

 freshets, and they stood there like a company of 

 silent torch -bearers, their lights but newly lit, and 

 likely to burn a month or more before extinguish- 

 ment, save only this difference, that a pine-knot, 

 torch, or a candle, burns from the top downward, 

 while the flower- flame creeps upward and shows 

 its last gleam from the stalk's top. 



When the Cardinal Flower grows among the 

 tangles of low meadows or by muddy ponds where 



