_] Ah, you feel the weight of the darkness--
CHANTECLER
[_Coming forward again._] What?
THE PHEASANT-HEN
[_With an ironical curtsey._] Nothing! [_Carelessly._] Let us go to
roost! [CHANTECLER _goes to the back and is preparing to rise to a
branch. The_ PHEASANT-HEN _aside._] He does not know that when the
Nightingale sings one listens, supposing it to be a minute, and lo! the
whole night has been spent listening, even as happens in the enchanted
forest of a German legend.
CHANTECLER
[_As she does not join him, returns to her._] What are you saying?
THE PHEASANT-HEN
[_Laughing in his face._] Nothing!
A VOICE
[_Outside._] The illustrious Cock?
CHANTECLER
[_Looking around him._] I am wanted?
THE PHEASANT-HEN
[_Who has gone in the direction from whence came the voice._] There, in
the grass! [_Jumping back._] Mercy upon us! They are the--[_With a
movement of insuperable disgust._] They are the--[_With a spring she
conceals herself in the hollow tree, calling back to_ CHANTECLER.] Be
civil to them!
SCENE FIFTH
CHANTECLER, _the_ PHEASANT-HEN, _hidden in the tree, and the_ TOADS.
A BIG TOAD
[_Rearing himself in the grass._] We have come--[_Other_ TOADS _become
visible behind him._]
CHANTECLER
Ye gods, how ugly they are!
THE BIG TOAD
[_Obsequiously._]--in behalf of all the thinking contingency of the
Forest, to the author of so many songs--[_He places his hand on
his heart.
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