min' . . . it's rotten bein', mixed up with such muck . . . anyhow I'm
goin' to have a dash at it----" and he had suddenly plunged forward into
space.

Olva was alone. A breeze blew across the Common, the stars twinkled and
jumped as though they were suffering from a nervous attack, and with
every moment restraint was flung a farther distance, more voices called
aloud and shouted, more men poured out of the little side streets. It
had the elements of a great mystery. It was as though Mother Earth had,
with a heave of her breast, tossed these shadowy forms into the air and
was herself stirring with the emotion of their movement.

There was an instant's breathless silence; to the roar of a shouting
multitude a bright hard flame shot like steel into the air--the bonfire
was alight.

Now with every moment it mounted higher. Black pigmy figures were
now dancing round it and across the Common other figures were always
passing, dragging wood with them. The row of palings towards the river
had gone and soon those little cottages that lined the grass must
suffer. Surely now the whole of the University was gathered there!
The crowd was close now, dense--men shoved past one another crying out
excited cries, waving their arms with strange meaningless gestures. They
were arriving rapidly at that condition when they had neither names nor
addresses but merely impulses.

Most dangerous element of all threatened that ring of loafers on the
outskirts--loafers from the town. Here in this "mob of excited boys" was
opportunity for them of getting something back on that authority that
had so often treated them with ignominy. . . . Their duty to shout
approval, to insult at a distance, to run for their lives were their
dirty bodies in any danger . . . but always to fan the flame---"Good
old--Varsity--Let them have it, the dirty--" "Pull their shirts off--"

Screams, laughter, shouting, wild dancing--let the Dons come now and see
what they can make of it!

"Bulldogs!" sounded a voice in Olva's ear, and turning round he beheld
a breathless, dishevelled Bunning. "I've been pulling wood off the
palings. Ha! hoch! he! (such noises to recover his breath). _Such_ a
rag!"--and then more apprehensively, "Bulldogs! There they are, with
Metcher!" They stood, two big men in top-hats, plainly to be seen behind
a Don in cap and gown, upon a little hill to the right of the bonfire.
The flames lit their figures. Metcher, the Don, was reading something