Black Swamp 



THE brook, which had rattled down so 

 gaily, with many a laughing rapid and 

 clattering white cascade, from the sunlit 

 granite terraces of Lost Mountain, fell silent 

 and hung back as it drew near the swamp. 

 Wheeling in slow, deep, purple-dark eddies, it 

 loitered for some hundred yards or so between 

 dim overhanging ranks of alder, then sank 

 reluctantly beneath an arch of mossed cedar- 

 roots, and was lost in the heavy gloom. 



Within the swamp the huge and ancient 

 trunks of cedar and tamarack crowded in a 

 sort of desperate confusion. Of great girth 

 at the base, some towered straight up, seeking 

 to get their tops out into the sunlight, under 

 those sparse patches of far-off, indifferent sky. 

 Others slanted ponderously, and laid upon 

 their neighbours the responsibility of sup- 

 porting their burden of massive branches. 

 Yet others, undermined in youth by some 



