AUTUMN. 



107 



every sense, it seems, for it is as I had feared.: the flume is but a pile of 

 brown and mouldy timbers in the bed of the stream, and the old box- 

 wheel has rotted and fallen from its spokes, almost obscured beneath a 



rank growth of weeds. No sound of buzzing 

 '-■''lW:*^H^ teasels, no rumbling; of the water- 



wheel, no happy carder sing- 



ing at his work : nothing- — but a couple of boys, 



kneeling in a corner, sucking cider through a straw. 



Yes, the old mill has fallen from grace ; but what else might one expect 



from a mill in "Devil's Hollow," where all its neighbors are engaged in 



making hogshead staves, and the very water has turned to ruddy wine ? 



The carding-machine is gone, and has given place to a rustic cider- 

 press. A temporary undershot-wheel lias been rigged beneath the floor, 

 and a rude trough, patched up with sods, conducts the water from the 

 stream. 



