` Do you mean this ? ' said Puck . He threw his big head back and began at the second line : ` Good housewives now may say , For now foul sluts in dairies Do fare as well as they ; And though they sweep their hearths no less -LRB- ` Join in , Una ! ' -RRB- Than maids were wont to do , Yet who of late for cleanliness Finds sixpence in her shoe ? ' The echoes flapped all along the flat meadow . ` Of course I know it , ' he said . ` And then there 's the verse about the rings , ' said Dan . ` When I was little it always made me feel unhappy in my inside . ' ' `` 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 are n't you most awfully old ? ' said Una .
` Not old -- fairly long-lived , as folk XXXXX hereabouts .
's Witness boomed come flapped go looked saw say scratched