hundred yards distant--in a hut-circle--the Chagford
drum-and-fife band lent its throb and squeak to the hour, and struggled
amain to increase universal joy. So the fire flourished, and the
plutonian rock-mass of the tor arose, the centre of a scene itself
plutonian.

Removed by many yards from the ring of human spectators, and scattered
in wide order upon the flanks of the hill, stood tame beasts. Sheep
huddled there and bleated amazement, their fleeces touched by the
flicker of the distant fire; red heifers and steers also faced the flame
and chewed the cud upon a spectacle outside all former experience; while
inquisitive ponies drew up in a wide radius, snorted and sniffed with
delicate, dilated nostrils at the unfamiliar smell of the breeze, threw
up their little heads, fetched a compass at top speed and so returned;
then crowded flank to flank, shoulder to shoulder, and again blankly
gazed at the fire which reflected itself in the whites of their shifty
eyes.

Fitting the freakish antics of the red light, a carnival spirit, hard to
rouse in northern hearts, awakened within this crowd of Devon men and
women, old men and children. There was in their exhilaration some
inspiration from the joyous circumstance they celebrated; and something,
too, from the barrel. Dancing began and games, feeble by day but not
lacking devil when pursued under cover of darkness. There were hugging
and kissing, and yells of laughter when amorous couples who believed
themselves safe were suddenly revealed lip to lip and heart to heart by
an unkind flash of fire. Some, as their nature was, danced and screamed
that flaming hour away; some sat blankly and smoked and gazed with less
interest than the outer audience of dumb animals; some laboured amain to
keep the bonfire at blaze. These last worked from habit and forgot their
broadcloth. None bade them, but it was their life to be toiling; it came
naturally to mind and muscle, and they laughed while they laboured and
sweated. A dozen staid groups witnessed the scene from surrounding
eminences, but did not join the merrymakers. Mr. Shorto-Champernowne,
Doctor Parsons, and the ladies of their houses stood with their feet on
a tumulus apart; and elsewhere Mr. Chapple, Charles Coomstock, Mr. Blee,
and others, mostly ancient, sat on the granite, inspected the
pandemonium spread before them, and criticised as experts who had seen
bonfires lighted before the greater part of the present gathering was