spring as you see here, which soaks up out of a white gravel in the
bog, among red fly-catchers, and pink bottle-heath, and sweet white
orchis; nor such a one as you may see, too, here, which bubbles up
under the warm sandbank in the hollow lane by the great tuft of
lady ferns, and makes the sand dance reels at the bottom, day and
night, all the year round; not such a spring as either of those;
but a real North country limestone fountain, like one of those in
Sicily or Greece, where the old heathen fancied the nymphs sat
cooling themselves the hot summer's day, while the shepherds peeped
at them from behind the bushes. Out of a low cave of rock, at the
foot of a limestone crag, the great fountain rose, quelling, and
bubbling, and gurgling, so clear that you could not tell where the
water ended and the air began; and ran away under the road, a
stream large enough to turn a mill; among blue geranium, and golden
globe-flower, and wild raspberry, and the bird-cherry with its
tassels of snow.

And there Grimes stopped, and looked; and Tom looked too. Tom was
wondering whether anything lived in that dark cave, and came out at
night to fly in the meadows. But Grimes was not wondering at all.
Without a word, he got off his donkey, and clambered over the low
road wall, and knelt down, and began dipping his ugly head into the
spring--and very dirty he made it.

Tom was picking the flowers as fast as he could. The Irishwoman
helped him, and showed him how to tie them up; and a very pretty
nosegay they had made between them. But when he saw Grimes
actually wash, he stopped, quite astonished; and when Grimes had
finished, and began shaking his ears to dry them, he said: