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The Haunted Spring

Pat and Jingle discover a spring in the back woods, which becomes one of their favourite haunts. They name it “The Haunted Spring.”

In the end they found a beauty spot… a deep, still, woodland pool out of which the brook flowed, fed by a diamond trickle of water over the stones of a little hill. Around it grew lichened spruces and whispering maples, with little “cradle hills” under them; and just beyond a breezy slope with a few mossy, grass-grown sticks scattered here and there, and a bluebird perched on the point of a picket. It was all so lovely that it hurt. Why, Pat wondered, did lovely things so often hurt?

“This is the prettiest spot I’ve ever seen,” cried Pat… “almost”… remembering the Secret Field.

“Isn’t it?” said Jingle happily. “I don’t think any one knows of it. Let’s keep it a secret.”

“Let’s,” agreed Pat.

“It always makes me think of a piece of poetry I learned at school… The Haunted Spring… ever hear it?”

Jingle recited it for her. He must be clever, Pat thought. Even Sid couldn’t recite a long piece of poetry off by heart like that. And some of the lines thrilled her like a chord of music… “gaily in the mountain glen,”… “distant bugles faintly ring.” But what did “wakes the peasants’ evening fears,” mean? What WAS a peasant? Oh, just a farmer… “wakes the farmer’s evening fears…” no, that was too funny. Better leave it peasant. She and Jingle had one of those chummy laughs that ripen friendship.

-Pat of Silver Bush ch.11,2

The Haunted Spring
By Samuel Lover

[It is said, Fays have the power to assume various shapes for the purpose of luring mortals into Fairyland; hunters seem to have been particularly the objects of the lady fairies fancies.]

Gaily through the mountain glen
The hunter’s horn did ring,
As the milk-white doe
Escaped his bow,
Down by the haunted spring.
In vain his silver horn he wound,–
‘Twas echo answered back;
For neither groom nor baying hound
Were on the hunter’s track;
In vain he sought the milk-white doe
That made him stray, and ’scaped his bow;
For, save himself, no living thing
Was by the silent haunted spring.

The purple heath-bells, blooming fair,
Their fragrance round did fling,
As the hunter lay
At close of day,
Down by the haunted spring.
A lady fair, in robe of white,
To greet the hunter came;
She kiss’d a cup with jewels bright,
And pledged him by his name;
“Oh, lady fair,” the hunter cried,
“Be thou my love, my blooming bride,
“A bride that well might grace a king!
“Fair lady of the haunted spring.”

In the fountain clear she stoop’d,
And forth she drew a ring;
And that loved Knight
His faith did plight
Down by the haunted spring.
But since that day his chase did stray,
The hunter ne’er was seen,
And legend tell, he now doth dwell
Within the hills so green;
But still the milk-white doe appears,
And wakes the peasants’ evening fears,
While distant bugles faintly ring
Around the lonely haunted spring.