'"Witness those rings and roundelays", do you mean?' boomed Puck, with a
voice like a great church organ.

'Of theirs which yet remain,
Were footed in Queen Mary's days
On many a grassy plain,
But since of late Elizabeth,
And, later, James came in,
Are never seen on any heath
As when the time hath been.'

'It's some time since I heard that sung, but there's no good beating
about the bush: it's true. The People of the Hills have all left. I saw
them come into Old England and I saw them go. Giants, trolls, kelpies,
brownies, goblins, imps; wood, tree, mound, and water spirits;
heath-people, hill-watchers, treasure-guards, good people, little
people, pishogues, leprechauns, night-riders, pixies, nixies, gnomes,
and the rest--gone, all gone! I came into England with Oak, Ash and
Thorn, and when Oak, Ash and Thorn are gone I shall go too.'

Dan looked round the meadow--at Una's Oak by the lower gate; at the line
of ash trees that overhang Otter Pool where the mill-stream spills over
when the Mill does not need it, and at the gnarled old white-thorn where
Three Cows scratched their necks.

'It's all right,' he said; and added, 'I'm planting a lot of acorns this
autumn too.'

'Then aren't you most awfully old?' said Una.