He shaded his forehead as though he were watching
Quince, Snout, Bottom, and the others rehearsing
Pyramus and Thisbe, and, in a voice as deep as Three Cows
asking to be milked, he began:
'What hempen homespuns have we swaggering here,
So near the cradle of the fairy Queen?'
He stopped, hollowed one hand round his ear, and,
with a wicked twinkle in his eye, went on:
'What, a play toward? I'll be an auditor;
An actor, too, perhaps, if I see cause.'
The children looked and gasped. The small thing - he was
no taller than Dan's shoulder - stepped quietly into the Ring.
'I'm rather out of practice,' said he; 'but that's the way
my part ought to be played.'
Still the children stared at him - from his dark-blue cap, like
a big columbine flower, to his bare, hairy feet. At last he laughed.
'Please don't look like that. It isn't my fault. What else
could you expect?' he said.
'We didn't expect any one,' Dan answered slowly.
'This is our field.'
'Is it?' said their visitor, sitting down. 'Then what on
Human Earth made you act Midsummer Night's Dream
three times over, on Midsummer Eve, in the middle of a
Ring, and under - right under one of my oldest hills in Old
England? Pook's Hill - Puck's Hill - Puck's Hill - Pook's
Hill! It's as plain as the nose on my face.
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