At the Springhead 49 



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now partly buoyed up and chafing against a smooth round 

 lump of rubble — there is a pleasant murmur audible at a 

 short distance. Still farther from the source, where, 

 grown wider, the shallow water shoots swiftly oyer a steeper 

 gradient, the undulations of its surface cross each other, 

 plaiting a pattern like four strands interwoven. The re- 

 semblance to the pattern of four rushes which the country 

 children delight to plait together as they wander by the 

 brooks is so close as almost to suggest the derivation of 

 the art of weaving rushes, flags, and willows by the hand. 

 The sheep grazing at will in the coombe eat off the herbage 

 too closely to permit of many flowers. Where the springs 

 join and irrigate a broader strip there grows a little water- 

 cress, and some brooklime, said to be poisonous and occa- 

 sionally mistaken for the cress ; a stray cuckoo flower 

 shows its pale lilac petals in spring, and a few bunches of 

 rushes are scattered round. They do not reach any height 

 or size ; they seem dry and sapless, totally unlike the tall 

 green succulent rush of the meadows far below. 



A water-wagtail comes now and then ; sometimes the 

 yellow variety, whose colour in the spring is so bright as to 

 cause the bird to resemble the yellowhammer at the first 

 glance. But besides these the springhead is not much 

 frequented by birds ; perhaps the clear water attracts less 

 visible insect life, and, the shore of the stream being hard 

 and dry, there is no moisture where grubs and worms may 

 work their way. Behind the fountain the steep green wall 

 of the coombe rises almost perpendicularly — so steep as 

 not to be climbed without exertion. At the summit are 

 the cornfields of the level plain which here so suddenly 

 sinks without warning. The plough has been drawn along 

 all but on the very edge, and the tall wheat nods at the 

 verge. From thence a strong arm might send a flat round 



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