Page:Morley--Travels in Philadelphia.djvu/215

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
DARBY REVISITED
199

with ice-making machinery. He says he went out West for a while, but he came back to Darby creek in the end. We don't blame him. The spell of that enchanting spot may well keep its hold on all who have ever loved it.

The Soothsayer and his passenger got out their pipes and brooded a while, watching the green swift water of the mill race; the sunny flicker of the creek below as it darts on its way through the meadows; the great oak tree steeped in sunlight, and the old millstones that still lie about by the front door. Inside the building the wooden beams and levers and grooved wheels are just as they were when the place was built as a flour and feed mill, in 1837. The woodwork still has that clean, dusty gloss that is characteristic of a flour mill. By the sawing shed lie a number of great logs, admirable site for a quiet smoke. The Soothsayer, tremendously impressed by this time, wandered about with us and listened kindly to all our spasms of reminiscence. We both agreed that the old mill, dozing in the sunlight, with the pale and tremulous shimmer of blue light in the porch where Mr. Flounders was working, was a fit subject for some artist's brush.

We did not fail to admire the remarkable old house across the road, where Mr. Flounders lives. It is built in three portions: a wooden lean-to, a very ancient section of whitewashed logs (which must be some 200 years old) and then the largest part of the dappled stone of various colors so