COLOMBINE. Old man, the night has but begun. DAN’L. The day be done. COLOMBINE. The moon has scarcely risen yet. DAN’L. The sun have set. COLOMBINE. The sun his wandering footsteps stays to greet the crescent moon. The nightjar and the nightingale will both be singing soon. DAN’L. Us don’t set much store by nightingales in these parts, and as for nightjars! Oh lor, us shoots they. Give I a linnet now, A-sitting on a bough; As sings his message to the sun, And goes to sleep when day be done, Respectable like! NATHAN’L. [_Coming forward._] Queer things, These here rings You sees in the grass When you pass. They say ’tis where Pharisees dances at night! Be that right? COLOMBINE. Quite right; yet once the circle that you see, Saw war and tumult. DAN’L. Lawks-a-mussey me! COLOMBINE. The Roman legions camped on yonder brow, And built the road you stand on. NATHAN’L. Did they now! COLOMBINE. The sun would sink out yonder in the west, And shine upon their helmets. DAN’L. Well I’m blest! COLOMBINE. The very spot where Julius Caesar sat, Lies just behind those beeches. NATHAN’L. Think of that! COLOMBINE. In yonder barrow treasures rare lie hid. Dig deep to find them. DAN’L. Well I never did! NATHAN’L. But when did all this Happen, Miss? How many years ago, I’d like to know? COLOMBINE. Roughly two thousand, on this very spot. DAN’L. Lor! What a memory you must have got. COLOMBINE. [_To_ NATHAN’L.] But tell me please; Beneath these trees, What travellers come, and whither bound? Do still these ancient heights resound With martial music and the tramp of men? NATHAN’L. Us gets a hurdy-gurdy now and then, And once a clown on stilts went through the wood; And oh! he could catch pennies, that he could. COLOMBINE. But in what fashion do you pass your days? NATHAN’L. I kill the time in various sorts of ways. Scaring the rooks as settles on the corn; Helping the shepherd when the lambs be born. Talking to Dan’l about these here rings, And wondering about a power of things. As don’t concern nobody, I suppose. But then, you must do summat, goodness knows. COLOMBINE. Of course. ’Tis lonely here without a doubt. What are the things you’re wondering about To-day? [Illustration] NATHAN’L. Such things as surely never was. Such things as surely no one ever does. And yet, of nothing, for they moves so fast, You finds as you’ve forgotten them at last. Just like a dream they passes and be gone. Just like a dream they passes....