d not clear, and I
saw little sparks of blue light, and the stones looked as if they were
springing and dancing and twisting as they went round and round and
round. I was frightened again, and I cried out loud, and jumped up from
the stone I was sitting on, and fell down. When I got up I was so glad
they all looked still, and I sat down on the top and slid down the
mound, and went on again. I danced as I went in the peculiar way the
rocks had danced when I got giddy, and I was so glad I could do it quite
well, and I danced and danced along, and sang extraordinary songs that
came into my head. At last I came to the edge of that great flat hill,
and there were no more rocks, and the way went again through a dark
thicket in a hollow. It was just as bad as the other one I went through
climbing up, but I didn't mind this one, because I was so glad I had
seen those singular dances and could imitate them. I went down, creeping
through the bushes, and a tall nettle stung me on my leg, and made me
burn, but I didn't mind it, and I tingled with the boughs and the
thorns, but I only laughed and sang. Then I got out of the thicket into
a close valley, a little secret place like a dark passage that nobody
ever knows of, because it was so narrow and deep and the woods were so
thick round it. There is a steep bank with trees hanging over it, and
there the ferns keep green all through the winter, when they are dead
and brown upon the hill, and the ferns there have a sweet, rich smell
like what oozes out of fir trees. There was a little stream of water
running down this valley, so small that I could easily step across it. I
drank the water with my hand, and it tasted like bright, yellow wine,
and it sparkled and bubbled as it ran down over beautiful red and yellow
and green stones, so that it seemed alive and all colours at once. I
drank it, and I drank more with my hand, but I couldn't drink enough,
so I lay down and bent my head and sucked the water up with my lips. It
tasted much better, drinking it that way, and a ripple would come up to
my mouth and give me a kiss, and I laughed, and drank again, and
pretended there was a nymph, like the one in the old picture at home,
who lived in the water and was kissing me. So I bent low down to the
water, and put my lips softly to it, and whispered to the nymph that I
would come again. I felt sure it could not be common water, I was so
glad when I got up and went on; and I danced again and went