ACT II

SCENE I: Inside 'the Hollow Hill.'

A great, dim-lighted, cavernous place, which shows signs of masonry.
It is part cavern and part cellarage of a ruined, burned-down and
forgotten old monastery in the hills.--The only entrance (at the
centre rear), a ramshackle wooden door, closes against a flight
of rocky steps.--Light comes from an opening in the roof, and from
the right, where a faggot-fire glows under an iron pot.--The scene
reaches (right and left) into dim corners, where sleeping children
lie curled up together like kittens.

By the fire sits the PIPER, on a tree-stump seat, stitching at a bit
of red leather. At his feet is a row of bright-colored small shoes,
set two and two. He looks up now and then, to recount the children,
and goes back to work, with quizzical despair.

Left, sits a group of three forlorn Strollers. One nurses a lame
knee; one, evidently dumb, talks in signs to the others; one is
munching bread and cheese out of a wallet. All have the look of
hunted and hungry men. They speak only in whispers to each other
throughout the scene; but their hoarse laughter breaks out now and
then over the bird-like ignorance of the children.

A shaft of sunlight steals through the hole in the roof. JAN, who
lies nearest the PIPER, wakes up.