he crown of the tumulus, which was
known as Rainbarrow for many miles round. Some made themselves busy
with matches, and in selecting the driest tufts of furze, others in
loosening the bramble bonds which held the faggots together. Others,
again, while this was in progress, lifted their eyes and swept the
vast expanse of country commanded by their position, now lying nearly
obliterated by shade. In the valleys of the heath nothing save its
own wild face was visible at any time of day; but this spot commanded
a horizon enclosing a tract of far extent, and in many cases lying
beyond the heath country. None of its features could be seen now, but
the whole made itself felt as a vague stretch of remoteness.

While the men and lads were building the pile, a change took place in
the mass of shade which denoted the distant landscape. Red suns and
tufts of fire one by one began to arise, flecking the whole country
round. They were the bonfires of other parishes and hamlets that were
engaged in the same sort of commemoration. Some were distant, and
stood in a dense atmosphere, so that bundles of pale strawlike beams
radiated around them in the shape of a fan. Some were large and near,
glowing scarlet-red from the shade, like wounds in a black hide. Some
were Maenades, with winy faces and blown hair. These tinctured the
silent bosom of the clouds above them and lit up their ephemeral
caves, which seemed thenceforth to become scalding caldrons. Perhaps
as many as thirty bonfires could be counted within the whole bounds
of the district; and as the hour may be told on a clock-face when
the figures themselves are invisible, so did the men recognize the
locality of each fire by its angle and direction, though nothing of
the scenery could be viewed.

The first tall flame from Rainbarrow sprang into the sky, attracting
all eyes that had been fixed on the distant conflagrations back to
their own attempt in the same kind. The cheerful blaze streaked the
inner surface of the human circle--now increased by other stragglers,
male and female--with its own gold livery, and even overlaid the
dark turf around with a lively luminousness, which softened off into
obscurity where the barrow rounded downwards out of sight. It showed
the barrow to be the segment of a globe, as perfect as on the day when
it was thrown up, even the little ditch remaining from which the earth
was dug. Not a plough had ever disturbed a grain of that stubborn
soil. In the