found hereabouts, if anywhere. Do you know whether the winged
horse Pegasus still haunts the Fountain of Pirene, as he used to do in
your forefathers' days?"

But then the country fellow laughed.

Some of you, my little friends, have probably heard that this Pegasus
was a snow-white steed, with beautiful silvery wings, who spent most of
his time on the summit of Mount Helicon. He was as wild, and as swift,
and as buoyant, in his flight through the air, as any eagle that ever
soared into the clouds. There was nothing else like him in the world.
He had no mate; he never had been backed or bridled by a master; and,
for many a long year, he led a solitary and a happy life.

Oh, how fine a thing it is to be a winged horse! Sleeping at night, as
he did, on a lofty mountain-top, and passing the greater part of the day
in the air, Pegasus seemed hardly to be a creature of the earth.
Whenever he was seen, up very high above people's heads, with the
sunshine on his silvery wings, you would have thought that he belonged
to the sky, and that, skimming a little too low, he had got astray among
our mists and vapours, and was seeking his way back again. It was very
pretty to behold him plunge into the fleecy bosom of a bright cloud, and
be lost in it, for a moment or two, and then break forth from the other
side. Or, in a sullen rain storm, when there was a gray pavement of
clouds over the whole sky, it would sometimes happen that the winged
horse descended right through it, and the glad light of the upper region
would gleam after him. In another instant, it is true, both Pegasus and
the pleasant light would be gone away together. But anyone that was
fortunate enough to see this wondrous spectacle felt cheerful the whole
day afterward, and as much longer as the storm lasted.

In the summer time, and in the beautifullest of weather, Pegasus often
alighted on the solid earth, and, closing his silvery wings, would
gallop over hill and dale for pastime, as fleetly as the wind. Oftener
than in any other place, he had been seen near the Fountain of Pirene,
drinking the delicious water, or rolling himself upon the soft grass of
the margin. Sometimes, too (but Pegasus was very dainty in his food), he
would crop a few of the clover blossoms that happened to be sweetest.

To the Fountain of Pirene, therefore, people's great-grandfathers had
been in the habit of going (as long as they were youthful and retained
their faith in winged horses)