114 
HARDY FERNS. 
garden. Jack offered me a part of liis spoil. No, I 
must find some for myself. Would I take him 
with me ? Certainly, and give him an extra shilling 
if I found plenty. So the next day we set off for 
the ascent of Helvellyn hy Grisdale Tarn. Half- 
way we ascended the rocky path, down which little 
streams were trickling here and there : presently 
there was a cry of Found ! " and I saw my first 
plant of Viride growing wild ; it was peeping from 
under a drippling boulder of rock, like a green 
lizard. I could only find it in the places where 
the trickling stream kept perpetual moisture, and 
yet where the sloping hill and pebble bed made 
perpetual drainage. I learned the peculiar habit 
of Viride on this particular morning, and I never 
allow any stagnant moisture to be near it ; if I do, 
the fronds rot and drop off. The views from Hel- 
vellyn are magnificent : they steal on the waiting 
eye, as you ascend higher and higher, in new and 
varied forms of loveliness. Lake after lake, like 
silver purified, nestles amidst these ever-changing, 
ever-lasti]ig hills, over which a milhon lights gleam 
