In the narrow valley, far below the frowning ramparts of the ancient fort that has been more specially described, a beautiful spring breaks forth. Three irregularly circular green spots, brighter in colour than the dry herbage around, mark the outlets of the crevices in the earth through which the clear water finds its way to the surface. Three tiny threads of water, each accompanied by its riband of verdant grasses, meander downwards some few yards, and then unite and form a little stream. Then the water in its channel first becomes visible, glistening in the sun; for at the sources the aquatic grasses bend over, growing thickly, and hide it from view. But pressing these down, and parting them with the hand, you may trace the exact place where it rises, gently oozing forth without a sound. Lower down, where the streamlet is stronger and has worn a groove--now rushing over a floor of tiny flints, 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 over a steeper gradient, the undulations of its surface cross each other, plaiting a pattern like four strands interwoven. The resemblance 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 watercress, and some brooklime, said to be poisonous and occasionally 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 spring-head 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 stone skimming across to the other side of the narrow hollow, and its winding course is apparent.