Chris. I count ’twas a smartish long night, that!
Nat. ’Twas enough for to shew me how it do feel when anyone has got to bide sleeping with the walls all around of he.
Julia. And the ceiling above, Nat. And locked door. And other folk lying breathing in the house, hard by. All dark and close.
Chris. And where us may lie, the air do run swift over we. We has the smell of the earth and the leaves on us as we do sleep. There baint no darkness for we, for the stars do blink all night through up yonder.
Tansie. And no sound of other folk breathing but the crying of th’ owls and the foxes’ bark.
Julia. Ah, that must be a grand sound, the barking of a fox. I never did hear one. Never.
Chris. Ah, ’tis a powerful thin sound, that—but one to raise the hair on a man’s head and to clam the flesh of he, at dead of night.
Nat. You come and bide along of we one evening, and you shall hearken to the fox, and badger too, if you’ve the mind.
Julia. O that would please me more than anything in the world.
Tansie. And when ’twas got a little lighter, so that the bushes could be seen, and the fields, I’d shew you where the partridge has her nest beneath the hedge; where we have gotten eggs, and eaten them too.