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Mr. Geard now cast his eyes upon a long, low tent, one of the biggest tents that he himself had ever seen, which he had caused to be set up under the hedge, to the northwest of where the audience was seated, and on the opposite side of the entrance from where stood the line of caravans. Inside this bij t^nt, which was really five or six tents thrown into one, Mr Geard had prepared a substantial tea—and not only a tea. He had used as his caterer the landlord of a Glastonbury Inn that overlooked the cattle-market and had many historic associations, and this man had brought over from his cellar an enormous amount of liquour of every kind. This man. whose name was Dickery Cantle, had the peculiarity of being the weakest and most helpless human creature that Mr. Geard had ever seen. The Cantles had handed down this inn from father to son for no less than four generations. Rumour says that the recruiters for Mon-mouth's rebellion used to meet here, and that John Locke, uncle of the first Recorder of Glastonbury, used to sit, of a summer evening, on the wooden bench outside, drinking gin and cider, while he meditated upon the pragmatic limitations of the human spirit.

Dickery Cantle wTould never have suceeded in avoiding ruin if it had not been that his stomach was so weak that the least touch of alcohol made him vomit. His wife was not a woman of much more energy than her husband and it was notorious in the town that while their cellar was celebrated for the rare and high quality of its wines their personal table often lacked meat and they could not afford to buy new shoes for their only child, Elphin. Mr. Geard would never have undertaken to provide such extensive preparations for his audience if he had not been struck one day by the wasted consumptive look of Elphin Cantle. This chance encounter, when he was drinking in their bar, had remained in his mind. “I'll give those Cantles some business,” he had told Megan; and this big tent was the result.

But the eyes of Mr. Geard now turned westward, and in turning in that direction they caught sight of the mob surrounding the green-wheeled dog-cart; a scene that was visible to him from the Tor's summit, although quite invisible to the spectators of the Pageant.

“They be pulling they chaps out of thik cart, Mister,” Steve Lew remarked; and Mr. Geard very quickly realised to whom the green dog-cart and the big black horse must belong. Seldom has an elderly man raced down a hill more quickly than Bloody Johnny ran now. “He was only just in xime,” Steve said to Elphin Cantle afterwards as he was helping him open bottles and hand round beer-mugs. “Yon Mayor be a good 'un for a fast sprint, looksee, spite o' his girt belly! 'Twas all I could do to keep pace wi' he!”

It is always difficult to disentangle the element of pure chance from the other forces that bring about any startling event, from the pressure, for instance, of that mysterious undertide that we call Destiny, or from the creative energy spontaneously generated, from the central point of its absolute freedom, in the will of a living organism. What happened now seemed to submerge Mr. Geard's personal prestige among that crowd, his official position as Mayor of the Town, as well as the extraordinary magnetic power that always burned at any dangerous crisis in his unholy eyes. Certainly his advance towards the swaying dog-cart and the plunging horse, when once he approached the scene, was not an easy one. One ruffian from the slums of Street, down by the banks of the Brue, struck him in the face with a stick leaving a bleeding mark across his white, moist, flabby cheek. A woman from Butts Close—she was a sister of Tom Barter's landlady, but a more reckless sort of character—dragged at his clothes and tore his waistcoat open, so that the grey flannel shirt (that he never would let Megan send to the wash more than once a fortnight and that he insisted on wearing summer and winter alike) hung out almost indecently over the front part of his trousers. It must be remembered that between this surging mob around Lord P. and the original crowd of invaders of the field, who had now subsided into quiescence about their banners, there was a protuberant rib of the hillside which prevented both the Dye-Works strikers and the seated audience from seeing what was going on. Red Robinson, whose seething and fermenting “ 'ate” had, it almost seemed, been paralysed by the mere waving of Miss Drew's green parasol, was now drifting with baffled fury from one to another of the banner-bearers, cajoling, commanding, imploring, entreating them, like a distracted leader in a lost battle, to rush forward and invade the grassy eminence where the coronation of King Arthur was now triumphantly proceeding, teasing him, mocking him, a veritable charade of Tantalus, with its glittering and fantastical fooling.

Lord P/s fate depended, therefore, as in most physical struggles between bewildered human antagonists, upon the configuration of the ground. If Mr. Geard had not been playing, quite unconsciously, the primeval role of Gwyn-ap-Nud, the old Welsh Prince of Darkness, and enjoying the spectacle he had wrought from the summit of Tor, Lord P. would certainly have come to grief and there would have doubtless appeared some modern Judge Jeffreys holding grim inquisition into a popular uprising. As it was, Mr. Geard's desperate struggle to reach the besieged dog-cart created such a hurly-burly of shouts and counter-shouts, of imprecations and protestations, that the Taunton police guarding the hedge caught the clamour on the wind and came rushing across the grassy hillocks to intervene.

It was the sight of these officers5 helmets above the heads of the rioters that, when he recalled his sensations later, remained with Mr. Geard as the most sinister of his impressions. His other impressions, the dazzling sunshine, the blue sky, the trodden grass, the stink of human sweat and foul garments, the taste of his own blood from his bleeding cheek, the sight of the green wheels tipped up on one side and spinning round, the hoofs of the black horse pawing the air, the unmoved countenance of Sergeant Blimp, the panic in the eyes of the Marquis, the confusion of human arms and legs and contorted faces through which he struggled and sweated and fought and tore his way, left upon his mind rather a sense of exhilaration than anything else. Mr. Geard was one of those men whose physical phlegm is so thick and deep that it requires a series of material shocks to rouse the full awareness in them of the taste and tang of life. Something in him—some savage atavistic reversion to his heathen ancestors—had tasted blood in this tossing melee of sweating, dragging, resisting human bodies. The moments when infuriated women—their bodies forced into contact with his body by pressure from behind—clung to his plump figure, tearing, scratching, clinging, striking, shrieking, were moments of a wild physical exultation. Mr. Geard panted like a dog. The spittle from his thick sensual lips mingling with the blood from his hurt cheek trickled down his chin. With heaving chest, straining limbs, and .bare head—for he had now lost his hat—he struggled blindly forward, those spinning green wheels, those almost vertical green shafts, the scared eyes of the Marquis, drawing him forward, like the jutting out of a wharf with a swinging lamp in a turbulent sea. His big mouth was wide open now as he fought his way on, the black fire in his eyes burned with a terrible glee, his pantings became like the pantings of that beast called the Questing Beast in the legends. Guttural noises, different from mere human breathings, rose from his tormented lungs.

The curious thing was, however, that Mr. Geard's mind had never been calmer or clearer in its working than at that moment. “This is Life!” he thought to himself; and something like a sobbed-out chuckle rose up from the pit of his labouring belly. His old refrain—“Blood of Christ—Blood of Christ—Blood oi Christ”—drummed in his throat and blent itself with his bestial groanings and with his Hengist-and-Horsa chucklings. As he beat his way on, reeling, staggering, stumbling, his queer battle-frenzy increased rather than diminished. “This is Life!” he said to himself, with exactly the same clear awareness of the enjoyment he was getting, as if he had been a sturdy swimmer in huge wave-bursts of tossing surf. And there gradually arose in his consciousness a very queer notion, the feeling, namely, that what he was doing now was not rescuing a frightened aristocrat from a mob, but rescuing the Blood of Christ from loss, from destruction, from annihilation. The fancy lodged itself in his brain—quite cool and clear above his pantings—that if he could only touch one of those upheaved green shafts with his hand, if he could only get his fingers on the bridle of that rearing black horse, he would prevent the Blood of Christ from sinking into the deep earth and being lost forever! “Yes, yes, yes,” he thought, “I'll build a Saxon arch about the Chalice Well—a round Saxon arch!” And then it was that he caught sight of the helmets of Philip Crow's policemen.

The sight of these officials completely broke up his mood. It was a policeman's hand—not his hand—that dragged down those green shafts. It was a policeman's arm—not his arm—that brought to earth the rearing front hoofs of the black horse. It was between a couple of Philip's policemen, too, that Lady Rachel's father was now standing, angrily stroking his beard and gazing round vindictively in order to point out to the officials the worst offenders and ring-leaders of the crowd. Not as yet had the officers of the law laid hands upon anyone, but it was clear to the exhausted and disconcerted Mayor that this was what they were now thinking of doing. Many of the crowd were evidently of the same opinion, for they wTere beginning to sneak off with extraordinary celerity, each of the retreating ones assuming an absent-minded air with regard to immediate phenomena and an intensely interested air with regard to pressing events which demanded their presence upon the far horizon.

Mr. Geard, disappointed though he was, and with no fire left in his eyes, now pulled himself together. He tucked his shirt back into its proper place. He took out his handkerchief and wiped the blood from his cheek. He buttoned his coat tightly under his chin. Then he advanced, although with tottering steps and heaving lungs, and presented himself before Lord P. His Lordship welcomed him warmly. Luckily he took it at once for granted that it was by his anxiety for the safety of the patron of his Pageant that he had caused these officials—like the warriors of Cadmus—to spring out of the earth. “Well, Mr. Mayor,'”

he began, “this is indeed------” Philip's policemen, hearing the

word “Mayor” and seeing Lord P. shake hands so warmly with this perspiring, panting, hatless member of the crowd, became convinced that they were in the presence of another distinguished victim of this breaking of His Majesty's peace.

Mr. Geard's brain now moved very actively as he shook hands with Sergeant Blimp, a thing which he did quite as warmly as the Sergeant's master had done with himself. He spoke in an authoritative voice, conveying the impression to both the nobleman and the policemen that he was accustomed to order officials about. “One or two of you take his Lordship to his seat. It's the front row. Lady Rachel is keeping it for him. The performance has begun.”

“Won't you yourself------” began Lord P.

“No,” said Mr. Geard abruptly; and he surprised the owner of the dog-cart by clambering up into the high seat along with Blimp who was already once more in possession of horse and reins. “I presume he's going to put up at the Pilgrims', eh?” he said.

“You're not deserting your own show, Geard?”

“Seen enough of it for a while,” replied Mr. Geard. “I may come back before it's finished though. I want to hear how you've enjoyed it.”

Blimp's hands were on the reins to pull the vehicle round.

"You won't mind if I use your cart for a minute before he takes it back to town?*'

“Not at all, Geard, not at all,” Lord P. rejoined, “as long as you don't ask me to get up again!” He uttered these last words with a grimace that was clearly intended to make a jest of his recent attack of nerves. Not a soul had seen the fear in his eyes except Mr. Geard and possibly Sergeant Blimp, but it was characteristic of the man to make a point of honour of this humorous confession.

“Yes, the front row, officer,” the Mayor added, in answer to one of the policemen. “Lady Rachel is keeping a seat for him.” He laid his bare hand on Blimp's neatly gloved one. “Wait a little,” he murmured. “I want him to get well ahead.”

“Right you are, your Worship,” said the sergeant.

“You two had a near shave,” said Mr. Geard.

“Tut, tut! 'Twere nothing to the dust I've seen kicked up in my time,” replied the sergeant. “His Lordship ain't as young a man as he was ten years ago.”

“A mob's a nasty thing,” said Mr. Geard, giving the man such an understanding glance that Blimp answered with a wink.

“His nerves ain't what they were,” he said. The Mayor looked round. It was extraordinary how quickly the crowd had scattered.

“I don't want any arrests made, nor does Lord P.,” he remarked emphatically to a policeman who was holding their horse's head. The animal was still trembling a little.

The man touched his helmet. “As your Worship wishes.”

“Drive after your master, Sergeant,” Mr. Geard directed, “but not fast. I want to see him safely in his seat.”

The policeman let go of the bridle and the green-wheeled dogcart set off at a walking pace towards the scene of the Pageant. They soon reached a spot from which it was possible to get a clear view of both audience and performers. “Pull her up a second, Sergeant.” The man obeyed, and they waited till they could observe the figure of Lord P., with the two policemen close behind him, threading their way through the crowd of strikers. When they had disappeared, “Drive over to that tent if you don't mind,” commanded the Mayor.

Arrived at the entrance to his huge refreshment pavilion, Mr. Geard Lold Steve Lew, who had now resumed his fascinated attendance, to run in and ask Mr. Cantle to come out. It was now the destiny of Sergeant Blimp to set eyes on the feeblest, weakest, most worried and most bewildered caterer he had ever seen, or ever desired to see. “I'm going to send you some guests of my own straight away, Dickery,” said the Mayor. “Treat 'em well. Don't let 'em get drunk. And turn 'em out without fail before five o'clock. All out before five o'clock!”