"'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 millstream 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.'