Stranger. Old friend! why you seem bent on parish duty, Breaking the highway stones,—and ’tis a task Somewhat too hard methinks for age like yours. Old Man. Why yes! for one with such a weight of years Upon his back. I’ve lived here, man and boy, In this same parish, near the age of man For I am hard upon threescore and ten. I can remember sixty years ago The beautifying of this mansion here When my late Lady’s father, the old Squire Came to the estate. Stranger. Why then you have outlasted All his improvements, for you see they’re making Great alterations here. Old Man. Aye-great indeed! And if my poor old Lady could rise up— God rest her soul! ’twould grieve her to behold The wicked work is here. Stranger. They’ve set about it In right good earnest. All the front is gone, Here’s to be turf they tell me, and a road Round to the door. There were some yew trees too Stood in the court. Old Man. Aye Master! fine old trees! My grandfather could just remember back When they were planted there. It was my task To keep them trimm’d, and ’twas a pleasure to me! All strait and smooth, and like a great green wall! My poor old Lady many a time would come And tell me where to shear, for she had played In childhood under them, and ’twas her pride To keep them in their beauty. Plague I say On their new-fangled whimsies! we shall have A modern shrubbery here stuck full of firs And your pert poplar trees;—I could as soon Have plough’d my father’s grave as cut them down! Stranger. But ’twill be lighter and more chearful now, A fine smooth turf, and with a gravel road Round for the carriage,—now it suits my taste. I like a shrubbery too, it looks so fresh, And then there’s some variety about it. In spring the lilac and the gueldres rose, And the laburnum with its golden flowers Waving in the wind. And when the autumn comes The bright red berries of the mountain ash, With firs enough in winter to look green, And show that something lives. Sure this is better Than a great hedge of yew that makes it look All the year round like winter, and for ever Dropping its poisonous leaves from the under boughs So dry and bare! Old Man. Ah! so the new Squire thinks And pretty work he makes of it! what ’tis To have a stranger come to an old house! Stranger. It seems you know him not? Old Man. No Sir, not I. They tell me he’s expected daily now, But in my Lady’s time he never came But once, for they were very distant kin. If he had played about here when a child In that fore court, and eat the yew-berries, And sat in the porch threading the jessamine flowers, That fell so thick, he had not had the heart To mar all thus. Stranger. Come—come! all a not wrong. Those old dark windows—  Old Man. They’re demolish’d too— As if he could not see thro’ casement glass! The very 

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