The roads outside Rye were dark with people. A procession was forming up at Rye Foreign, and another at the foot of Cadborough Hill. Outside the railway station a massed band played something rather like the Marseillaise, while the grass-grown, brine-smelling streets were spotted with stragglers, hurrying up from[Pg 308] all quarters, some carrying torches that flung shifting gleams on windows and gable-ends.

Immense barrels of tar had been loaded on four waggons, to which four of the most prosperous farmers of the district had harnessed teams. Odiam was of course not represented, nor was Grandturzel, but three bell-ringing sorrels had come all the way from Kitchenhour, while the marsh farms of Leasan, the Loose, and Becket\'s House, accounted for the rest.

The crowd surged round the waggons, cheered, joked, sang. The whole of Rye was there—prosperous tradesmen from the High Street or Station Road, innkeepers, farmers, shop-assistants, chains of fishermen in high boots, jerseys, and gold ear-rings, coast-guards from the Camber, and one or two scared-looking women clinging to stalwart arms.

Rose shrank close to Handshut, though she did not take his arm. Sometimes the crowd would fling them together, so that they were close as in an embrace, at others they would stand almost apart, linked only by sidelong glances. The flare of a torch would suddenly slide over Handshut\'s face, showing her its dark gipsy profile, and she would turn away her eyes as from something too bright to bear.

Every now and then the crowd would start singing inanely:
"Soles, plaice, and dabs,
Rate, skate, and crabs.
God save the Queen!"

It was like a muddled dream—people seemed to have no reason for what they did or shouted; they just ebbed and flowed, jostled and jambed, ran hither and thither, sang and laughed and swore. Rose looked round her to see if she could recognise anyone; now and then a face glowed on her in the torch-light, then died away, once she thought she saw the back of a tradesman\'s daughter whom she knew—but her chief feeling was of[Pg 309] an utter isolation with her loved one, as if he and she stood alone on some sea-pounded island against which the tides of the world roared in vain.

At last the crowd began to move. The band had crushed through to the front of it, and was braying Rule Britannia up Playden Hill; then came the waggons, then the stout champions of freedom, singing at the pitch of their lungs:
"Soles, plaice, and dabs,
Rate, skate, and crabs.
God save the Queen!"

The stars winked on the black zenith, while troubled winds sped and throbbed over the fields that huddled in mystery and silence on either side of the road—where noise and skirmish and darting lights, with the odours of warm human bodies, and the thudding and scrabbling of a thousand feet, proclaimed the People\'s holiday.

They flowed through Playden like a torrent through an open sluice, sweeping up and carrying on all sorts of flotsam—villagers from cottage doors, ploughboys from the farms down by the Military Canal, gipsies from Iden Wood ... a mixed multitude, which the central mass absorbed, till all was one steaming and shouting blackness.

The first gate was at Mockbeggar, where the road to Iden joins that which crosses the Marsh by Corkwood and Baron\'s Grange. In a minute it was off its hinges, and swealing in tar, while lusty arms pulled twigs, branches, even whole bushes out of the hedges to build its pyre.

Rose shrank close to Handshut, so close that the clover scents of her laces were drowned in the smell of the cowhouse that came from his clothes. She found herself liking it, drinking in that soft, mixed, milky odour ... till a cloud of stifling tar-smoke swept suddenly over them, and she reeled against him suffocating, while all round them people choked and gasped and sneezed.
 
The fire was lighted, a great crimson tongue screamed up in front of two motionless poplars, leaped as high as their tops, then spread fan-shaped, roaring. Men and women joined hands and danced round the blaze—in the distance, above the surging pack of heads, Rose could see them jumping and capering, with snatches of song that became screams every minute.

The fire roared like a storm, and the wood crackled with sudden yelping reports. The dancing girls\' hats flew off, their hair streamed wide, their skirts belled and swirled ... there was laughter and obscene remarks from the onlookers. Many from the rear pressed forward to join the dance, and those who were trampled on screamed or cursed, while one or two women fainted. Rose felt as if she would faint in the heat and reek of it all. She leaned heavily against Handshut and closed her eyes ... then she realised that his arm was round her. He held her against him, supporting her, while either she heard or thought she heard him say—"D?an\'t be scared, liddle Rose—I\'m wud you. I w?an\'t let you fall."

She opened her eyes. The people were moving. The Mockbeggar gate had been accounted for, and they rolled on towards Thornsdale. The jamb was not so alarming, for a good many revellers had been left behind, dancing round the remains of the bonfire, crowding into the public-house, or scattering in couples over the fields.

But though the jostling was no longer dangerous, Handshut still kept his arm about Rose, and held her close to his side. Now and then she made a feeble effort as if to free herself, but he held her fast, and she never put out her full strength. They walked as if in a dream, they two together, not speaking to anyone, not speaking to each other. Rose saw as if in a dream the Sign of Virgo hanging above Stone. The dipping of the lane showed the Kentish marshes down in the valley, with[Pg 311] the hills of Kent beyond them, twinkling with lights. The band lifted the strains of Hearts of Oak and Cheer, Boys, Cheer above the th............