The pace it is coming down!--What to do now?-- My brain has stopt: it's like a clock that's fallen Out of a window and broke all its cogs.--Where's That old cider, Vine would have us pay Twopence a glass for? Let's try how it smells: Old Foxwhelp, and a humming stingo it is! (To the pot dog) Hullo, you! What are you grinning at?-- I know! There'll be no score against me for this drink! O that score! I've drunk it down for a week With every gulp of cider, and every gulp Was half the beauty it should have been, the score So scratcht my swallowing throat, like a wasp in the drink! And I need never have heeded it!-- Old grinning dog! You've seen me happy here; And now, all's done! But do you know this too, That I can break you now, and never called To pay for you? [Throwing the dog on the floor] I shall be savage soon! We're leaving all this!--O, and it was so pleasant Here, in here, of an evening.----Smash! [He sweeps a lot of crockery on to the floor.] It's all no good! Let's make a wreck of it all! [Picking up a chair and swinging it.] Damn me! Now I'm forgetting to drink, and soon 'Twill be too late. Where's there a mug not shivered? [He goes to draw himself cider. MERRICK rushes in.] Merrick: You at the barrels too? Out of the road! [He pushes SOLLERS away and spills his mug.] Sollers: Go and kick out of doors, you black donkey. Merrick: Let me come at the vessel, will you? [They wrestle savagely.] Sollers: Keep off; I'm the first here. Lap what you've spilt of mine. Merrick: You with your chiselling and screw-driving, Your wooden work, you bidding me, the man Who hammers a meaning into red hot iron? [VINE comes in slowly. He is weeping; the two wrestlers stop and stare at him, as he sits down, and holds his head in his hands, sobbing.] Vine: O this is a cruel affair! Sollers: Here's Vine crying! Vine: I've seen the moon. Merrick: The moon? 'Tisn't the moon That's tumbling on us, but yon raging star. What notion now is clotted in your head? Vine: I've seen the moon; it has nigh broke my heart. Sollers: Not the moon too jumping out of her ways? Vine: No, no;--but going quietly and shining, Pushing away a flimsy gentle cloud That would drift smoky round her, fending it off With steady rounds of blue and yellow light. It was not much to see. She was no more Than a curved bit of silver rind. But I Never before so noted her-- Sollers: What he said, The dowser! Merrick: Ay, about his yellowhammers. Sollers: And there's a kind of stifle in the air Already! Merrick: It seems to me, my breathing goes All hot down my windpipe, hot as cider Mulled and steaming travels down my swallow. Sollers: And a queer racing through my ears of blood. Merrick: