grand and tidal estuary, he would take his waste of waters to
the sea and the might of the river should meet with the might of the
waves, like to two Emperors clad in gleaming mail meeting midway
between two hosts of war; and the little Wrellis would become a
haven for returning ships and a setting-out place for adventurous
men.

A little beyond the bridge there stood an old mill with a ruined
roof, and a small branch of the Wrellis rushed through its emptiness
shouting, like a boy playing alone in a corridor of some desolate
house. The mill-wheel was gone, but there lay there still great bars
and wheels and cogs, the bones of some dead industry. I know not
what industry was once lord in that house, I know not what retinue
of workers mourns him now; I only know who is lord there today in
all those empty chambers. For as soon as I entered, I saw a whole
wall draped with his marvellous black tapestry, without price
because inimitable and too delicate to pass from hand to hand among
merchants. I looked at the wonderful complexity of its infinite
threads, my finger sank into it for more than an inch without
feeling the touch; so black it was and so carefully wrought,
sombrely covering the whole of the wall, that it might have been
worked to commemorate the deaths of all that ever lived there, as
indeed it was. I looked through a hole in the wall into an inner
chamber where a worn-out driving band went among many wheels, and
there this priceless inimitable stuff not merely clothed the walls
but hung from bars and ceiling in beautiful draperies, in marvellous
festoons. Nothing was ugly in this desolate house, for the busy
artist's soul of its present lord had beautified everything in its
desolation. It was the unmistakable work of the spider, in whose
house I was, and the house was utterly desolate but for him, and