Sollers:

Why, but the fire that's eating the whole earth; The breath of it is scarlet in the sky! You must have seen that?

Warp:

But what's taken you? You are like boys that go to hunt for ghosts, And turn the scuttle of rats to a roused demon Crawling to shut the door of the barn they search. Fire? Yes, fire is playing a pretty game Yonder, and has its golden fun to itself, Seemingly.

Sollers:

You don't know what 'tis that burns?

Warp:

Call me a mole and not a molecatcher If I do not. It is a rick that burns; And a strange thing I'll count it if the rick Be not old Huff's.

Sollers:

That flare a fired stack?

Huff:

Only one of my ricks alight? O Glory! There may be chance for me yet.

Merrick:

Best take the train To Droitwich, Huff.

Vine (at the door):

It would be like a stack, But for the star.

Sollers (to WARP):

Yes, as you're so clever, You can talk down maybe yon brandishing star!

Warp:

O, 'tis the star has flickt your brains? Indeed, The tail swings long enough to-night for that. Well, look your best at it; 'tis off again To go its rounds, they tell me, from now on; And the next time it swaggers in our sky, The moles a long while will have tired themselves Of having their easy joke with me.

[A pause.]

Merrick:

You mean The flight of the star is from us?

Sollers:

But the world, The whole world reckons on it battering us!

Warp:

Who told you that?

Sollers:

A dowser.

Merrick:

Where's he gone?

Warp:

A dowser! say a tramping conjurer. You'll believe aught, if you believe a dowser.

Sollers:

I had it in me to be doubting him.

Merrick:

The noise you made was like that! But I knew You'ld laugh at me, so sure you were the world Would shiver like a bursting grindlestone: Else I'ld have said out loud, 'twas a fool's whimsy.

Vine:

Where are you now? What am I now to think? Your minds run round in puzzles, like chased hares. I cannot sight them.

Merrick:

Think of going to bed.

Sollers:

And dreaming prices for your pigs.

Merrick:

O Warp, You should have seen Vine crying! The moon, he said, The silver moon! Just like an onion 'twas To stir the water in his eyes.

Sollers:

He's left A puddle of his tears where he was droopt Over the table.

Vine:

There's to be no ruin?— But what's the word of a molecatcher, to crow So ringing over a dowser's word?

Warp:

I'll tell you. These dowsers live on lies: my trade's the truth. I can read moles, and the way they've dug their journeys, Where you'ld not see a wrinkle.

Vine:

And he knows The buried water.

Warp:

There's always buried water, If you prod deep enough. A dowser finds Because the whole earth's floating, like a raft. What does he know? A twitching in his thews; A dog asleep knows that much. What I know I've learnt, and if I'd learnt it wrong, I'ld starve. And if I'm right about the grubbing moles, Won't I be right for news of walking men?

Merrick:

Of course you're right. Let's put the whole thing by, And have a pleasant drink.

Shale (to Mrs HUFF):

You must be tired With all this story. Shall we be off for home?

Huff:

You brass! You don't go now with her! She's mine: You gave her up.

Shale:

And you made nothing of her.

(To Mrs Huff)

Come on.

Mrs Huff:

Warp, will you do a thing for me?

Warp:

A hundred things.

Mrs Huff:

Then slap me these cur-dogs.

Warp:

I will. Where will I slap them, and which first?

Mrs Huff:

Maybe 'twill do if you but laugh at them.

Warp:

I'll try for that; but they are not good jokes; Though there's a kind of monkey-look about them.

Mrs Huff:

They thinking I'ld be near one or the other After this night! Will I be made no more Than clay that children puddle to their minds, Moulding it what they fancy?—Shale was brave: He made a bogy and defied it, till He frightened of his work and ran away. But Huff!—Huff was for modelling wickedly.

Huff:

Who told you that?

Mrs Huff:

I need no one's telling. I was your wife once. Don't I know your goodness? A stupid heart gone sour with jealousy, To feel its blood too dull and thick for sinning.— Yes, Huff would figure a wicked thought, but had No notion how, and flung the clay aside.— O they were gaudy colours both! But now Fear has bleacht their swagger and left them blank, Fear of a loon that cried, End of the World!

Huff:

Shale, do you know what we're to do?

Shale:

I'ld like To have the handling of that dowser-man.

Huff:

Just that, my lad, just that!

Warp:

And your fired rick.

Huff:

Let it be blazes! Quick, Shale, after him! I'll tramp the night out, but I'll take the rogue.

Shale (to the others):

You wait, and see us haul him by the ears, And swim the blatherer in Huff's farm-yard pond.

[As HUFF and SHALE go out, they see the comet before them.]

Huff:

The devil's own star is that!

Shale:

And floats as calm As a pike basking.

Huff:

There shouldn't be such stars!

Shale:

Neither such dowsers, and we'll learn him that.

[They go off together.]

Sollers:

Why, the star's dwindling now, surely!

Merrick:

O, small And dull now to the glowing size it was.

Vine:

But is it certain there'll be nothing smasht? Not even a house knockt roaring down in crumbles? —And I did think, I'ld open my wife's mouth With envy of the dreadful things I'd seen!



CURTAIN.

THE END