Broken steps led down to the river near a stake to which a boat was moored.

A wooden gallery passed above the wheel.

Windows opened, pierced irregularly.

It was a pell-mell of corners, of little walls, of constructions added too late, of beams and of roofs, which gave the mill the aspect of an old, dismantled citadel.

But ivy had grown; all sorts of clinging plants stopped the too-wide chinks and threw a green cloak over the ancient building.