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 up and up
the valley, under hanging hills. And when I came to the top, the ground
rose up in front of me, tall and steep as a wall, and there was nothing
but the green wall and the sky. I thought of 'for ever and for ever,
world without end, Amen'; and I thought I must have really found the end
of the world, because it was like the end of everything, as if there
could be nothing at all beyond, except the kingdom of Voor, where the
light goes when it is put out, and the water goes when the sun takes it
away. I began to think of all the long, long way I had journeyed, how I
had found a brook and followed it, and followed it on, and gone through
bushes and thorny thickets, and dark woods full of creeping thorns. Then
I had crept up a tunnel under trees, and climbed a thicket, and seen all
the grey rocks, and sat in the middle of them when they turned round,
and then I had gone on through the grey rocks and come down the hill
through the stinging thicket and up the dark valley, all a long, long
way. I wondered how I should get home again, if I could ever find the
way, and if my home was there any more, or if it were turned and
everybody in it into grey rocks, as in the 'Arabian Nights.' So I sat
down on the grass and thought what I should do next. I was tired, and my
feet were hot with walking, and as I looked about I saw there was a
wonderful well just under the high, steep wall of grass. All the ground
round it was covered with bright, green, dripping moss; there was every
kind of moss there, moss like beautiful little ferns, and like palms and
fir trees, and it was all green as jewellery, and drops of water hung on
it like diamonds. And in the middle was the great well, deep and shining
and beautiful, so clear that it looked as if I could touch the red sand
at the bottom, but it was far below. I stood by it and looked in, as if
I were looking in a glass. At the bottom of the well, in the middle of
it, the red grains of sand were moving and stirring all the time, and I
saw how the water bubbled up, but at the top it was quite smooth, and
full and brimming. It was a great well, large like a bath, and with the
shining, glittering green moss about it, it looked like a great white
jewel, with green jewels all round. My feet were so hot and tired that I
took off my boots and stockings, and let my feet down into the water,
and the water was soft and cold, and when I got up I wasn't tired any
more, and I felt I must go on, farther and farther, and see what was on
the other side of the wall. I climbed up it very slowly, going sideways
all the time, and when I got to the top and looked over, I was in the
queerest country I had seen, stranger even than the hill of the grey
rocks. It looked as if earth-children had been playing there with their
spades, as it was all hills and hollows, and castles and walls made of
earth and covered with grass. There were two mounds like big beehives,
round and great and solemn, and then hollow basins, and then a steep
mounting wall like the ones I saw once by the seaside where the big guns
and the soldiers were. I nearly fell into one of the round hollows, it
went away from under my feet so suddenly, and I ran fast down the side
and stood at the bottom and looked up. It was strange and solemn to look
up. There was nothing but the grey, heavy sky and the sides of the
hollow; everything else had gone away, and the hollow was the whole
world, and I thought that at night it must be full of ghosts and moving
shadows and pale things when the moon shone down to the bottom at the
dead of the night, and the wind wailed up above. It was so strange and
solemn and lonely, like a hollow temple of dead heathen gods. It
reminded me of a tale my nurse had told me when I was quite little; it
was the same nurse that took me into the wood where I saw the beautiful
white people. And I remembered how nurse had told me the story one
winter night, when the wind was beating the trees against the wall, and
crying and moaning in the nursery chimney. She said there was, somewhere
or other, a hollow pit, just like the one I was standing in, everybody
was afraid to go into it or near it, it was such a bad place. But once
upon a time there was a poor girl who said she would go into the hollow
pit, and everybody tried to stop her, but she would go. And she went
down into the pit and came back laughing, and said there was nothing
there at all, except green grass and red stones, and white stones and
yellow flowers. And soon after people saw she had most beautiful emerald
earrings, and they asked how she got them, as she and her mother were
quite poor. But she laughed, and said her earrings were not made of
emeralds at all, but only of green grass. Then, one day, she wore on her
breast the reddest ruby that any one had ever seen, and it was as big as
a hen's egg, and glowed and sparkled like a hot burning coal of fire. And they asked how she got it, as she and her mother were quite poor. But she laughed, and said it was not a ruby at all, but only a red
stone. Then one day she wore round her neck the loveliest necklace that
any one had ever seen, much finer than the queen's finest, and it was
made of great bright diamonds, hundreds of them, and they shone like all
the stars on a night in June. So they asked her how she got it, as she
and her mother were quite poor. But she laughed, and said they were not
diamonds at all, but only white stones.