And at first this made them happy. But soon the
one with the spear began to whimper. "It used to be men," he
lamented. "It used to be men."
And the twenty men began looking uneasily at each other, and the
plaint of the one-eyed man went on in that tearful voice, and all of
a sudden they all looked at me. I do not know who the two old men
were or what any of them were doing, but there are moments when
it is clearly time to go, and I left them there and then. And just as I
got up on to my bicycle I heard the plaintive voice of the one with the
hammer apologizing for the liberty he had taken in coming back to
Stonehenge.
"But after all these years," I heard him crying, "After all these
years...."
And the one with the spear said: "Yes, after three thousand years...."
NATURE AND TIME
Through the streets of Coventry one winter's night strode a
triumphant spirit. Behind him stooping, unkempt, utterly ragged,
wearing the clothes and look that outcasts have, whining, weeping,
reproaching, an ill-used spirit tried to keep pace with him. Continually
she plucked him by the sleeve and cried out to him as she panted
after and he strode resolute on.
It was a bitter night, yet it did not seem to be the cold that she feared,
ill-clad though she was, but the trams and the ugly shops and the glare
of the factories, from which she continually winced as she hobbled on,
and the pavement hurt her feet.
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