OF 
THE WATER-HEN 
Go down the hill, bearing south of the Old 
Fort. So, you cannot well miss the Dark 
Pool ; but should you by mischance do so, 
wait until dusk, and then I warrant that the 
first of the wood-people you shall meet will 
show you the way thither. There is a little 
stream which rises under the wall of the Fort 
(it used to run red in the old days) and the 
hunters and the hunted alike follow the loud 
magic of the running water, and so come to 
the more silent, yet not less potent magic of 
the Dark Pool, round which so many of the 
wood lives have been lived. But when the 
stream at last reaches the Dark Pool there is 
no more noise or babble, but only two or three 
rings of foam over the starwort beds, to show 
which way the current runs. 
Most of the wild people prefer to drink at 
the stream's source rather than lower down. 
There are thorn bushes all round the Pool, and 
A I 
