FERNS. 25 



away to the very borders of Westmoreland ; and, by a 

 little divergence, we caught sight of the pretty water- 

 fall of Ivelet. The road led along; the edge of one of the 

 hills. We passed the mouth of a lead mine, and the 

 miners whom we met greeted us with cordial goodwill, 

 albeit, their manner, as well as that of all the country 

 people in that district, partakes more of Saxon bluntness 

 than of Norman courtesy. Honest, true-hearted people, we 

 can dispense with surface culture for the sake of your 

 staunch goodwill ! A very rough road led down the hill. 

 We crossed a romantic bridge which spanned the waters 

 of the Swale : and, tying our ponies to a gate, we 

 scrambled down a rocky wood, and arrived in due time 

 at the foot of a deafening waterfall. The narrow gorge, 

 shut in with rocks and wood, was wild and lovely in the 

 extreme. The hills on either side were high, and the 

 river seemed to have washed a passage for itself of up- 

 wards of a hundred feet deep : only a sturdy block of 

 mountain limestone seemed to resist the further encroach- 

 ment of the insidious waters, and so they were compelled 

 to pour over it in the manner in which they were now 

 doing. They indemnified themselves, however, for its 

 interruption, by digging a deep hole immediately below 

 it, into which they hoped some clay to tumble it. Seated 

 upon rocks there, we ate our sandwiches, drinking from 

 a spring which bubbled from a bank to the left of us. 



After our refreshment we began our search, and were 

 soon rewarded by finding several plants of the Green- 

 stalked Spleenwort (A. viride). This varies from the 

 Black-stalked species chiefly in the colour of the said 

 stalk ; but the paler tint of the leaflets, and the less rigid 



