It was impossible to conceive whom it belonged to, or
what connection it had with the houses round about. It was all
intersected with pools and rivulets of clear water. Here was a space of
cultivated ground with homely vegetables. Here stood a mysterious
ancient building, which proved on examination to contain nothing but a
gushing well of water. Here was a lawn with a trim gravel walk bordered
with roses; while a few paces away was a deserted thicket of sprawling
shrubs, elders, and laurels, with a bit of wild rough meadow in the
heart of the copse; and here was a sight that nearly brought me to my
knees. Beside an ancient wall, with the towers and gables of the
Cathedral looking solemnly over, a great spring broke up out of the
ground from some secret channel into a little pool surrounded by rich
water plants, and flowed away in a full channel; not one, but three of
these astonishing fountains were to be seen in this little space of
grass and copse.
These are the Wells themselves, the _Aquae Solis_, as the Romans called
them, fed by some hidden channel from the hills, sent gushing up day
and night for the delight and refreshment of men. I wish that the
mediaeval builders had built the great church over instead of near
these wells, and had let them burst up in a special chapel, so that the
church might have been musical with the sound of streams; and so that
the waters might have flowed from the door of the house, as Ezekiel saw
them flow eastward from the threshold of the holy habitation to Engedi
and Eneglaim to gladden the earth.
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