and do not bubble up from below. These are the waters that tell their
presence by sound, and have been the natural models of all the drinking
fountains ever built,--jets that, spouting in a rainbow curve, hollow out
basins below them, cut in the marble floor, cool cisterns ever running
over, at which demi-gods watered their horses, and the white feet of the
nymphs were seen dancing at sundown.

A tributary of the Severn, near Bisley, in the Cotswolds, bursts from a
real fountain pouring from a hollow face of stone. But fountains in this
sense are rare in England, though among the Welsh hills and the Yorkshire
dales they may be seen springing full grown from the sides of the glens or
"scarrs," and cutting basins and steps in marble or slate. But in the
South the gentle springs take their place, silent, retiring, seldom found,
except by chance, or by the local tradition which always attaches to the
more important of our English natural wells. These it is the ambition of
misdirected zeal to enclose in walls of stone, and to furnish with steps
and conduits. If the old goddess Tan was once worshipped as the deity of
the spring, it has usually undergone conversion by the early monks and
changed its title to "St. Anne's Well," or been assigned to St. Catherine
or some other of the holy sisterhood of saints.[1] But there are hundreds
of tiny springs in Britain still left as Nature made them, and not yet
settled in trust on any of the modern successors to the water rights of
classic nymphs and Celtic goddesses. He who discovers for himself one of
these springs will visit it each time he passes near. Some are in the
woods, known only to the birds and beasts which live in them, and come
daily to drink the pure, untainted waters. Wood springs are among the most
beautiful of all, for they have a setting of tall timber, and their
margins are never trampled by cattle, or the natural play of their waters
disturbed to draw for the beasts of the farm. In the wood below Sinodun
Hill there rises an everlasting spring. There may be seen how great an