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Dickery Cantle, whose eyes were a pale, light, moist blue, and whose beard was straggly and thin and like bleached tow. was so surprised at the sight of the green cart and black horse that he could only open his mouth and blink.

“Is Elphin inside?” enquired Mr. Geard. Steve Lew heard this, if Elphin's parent didn't, and the young Cantle with his thin legs in black Sunday stockings soon made his appearance. “Tell your mother and her people that I'm going to send her some guests fox refreshments in a minute. Tell her 'beer and wine and sandwiches' and tell her all out before five, will you, Elphin? All out by five! I don't want 'em to clash with the other people.”

Elphin Cantle's blue eyes—not pale blue like his father's, who was now muttering something quite incoherent about “brands” and “vintages”—but deep blue like the broad sky above them, gleamed with intelligent understanding. “Am I to tell Mother any . . . any sum . . . that your Worship wants . . . would wish . . . her . . . to------” he began.

“Tell her—'all that's reasonable,'” pronounced Mr. Geard emphatically.

Elphin's blue eyes deepened in colour till they grew nearly black. Then brushing some dust from his legs, thin as matches, —those poor emaciated legs that were the fons et origo of this big tent—he lifted up his face. “Mother will understand. Mother thanks you from her heart, your Worship! Come, Father!” he added.

Dickery Cantle followed Elphin into the tent, as did also Steve Lew, bestowing on the Mayor before he departed a final glance of fanatical devotion.

The green-wheeled dog-cart drove off now. It encircled the seated audience from whose throats excited and vociferous applause was now arising as the King and Queen with their great golden crowns upon their heads rose from their thrones and moved to the side of the Lady of Shalott.

The movement of the Dye-Works factory-hands, with their protest ant allies and their secular banners, had not been missed by Mr. Geard. All the way down that hillside—as he was racing to the rescue of the Marquis—he was thinking desperately how to cope with this menacing invasion. He could catch, as Blimp trotted his horse along the edge of the vast concourse of people, the constant murmurs of “Order! Order! Hush! Hush!” addressed to these men, who continued to talk loudly among themselves, even though the poles of their banners were now planted in the earth. When they came level with the row of seats at the end of which sat Mother Legge, Mr. Geard called upon Blimp to pull up. Here they waited, watching for the close of the scene on the grassy stage above. It was near the end. After a second or two of waiting, it ended, and the play-actors, well contented with the ovations they had just received, marched off to their respective pavilions.

A general buzz of excited talk ran through the whole mass of people. The dog-cart had drawn up close to where Mrs. Legge and Blackie Morgan were sitting. Between their horse's head and the ends of the first five rows of seats was the back of a banner, the poles of which Tested on the grass, carrying the words, “Down with Mummery!” These words Mr. Geard now contemplated, as he acknowledged the salutations of the people near enough to recognise him. Mother Legge herself made an airy gesture with her black-gloved hand, that was almost as if she kissed the tips of her fingers to the Mayor of Glastonbury, and many of the seated crowd looked towards him and nodded towards him as they continued their boisterous clapping, &sv*i| directing their applause to the organiser of the performance air much as to the players.

The crowd of Dye-Works strikers was obviously ill at ease at this juncture. The big audience behind them had time now to concentrate their attention on these men, whose banners, “Down with Religion!” “Down with Capital!” “Down with Mummery!” flapped beside them in the warm summer wind. Several of Philip's policemen were now standing about, surveying these revolutionary scrolls with humorous detachment, but Mr. Geard observed one of these officers edge himself in front of the knees of the people in the second row, till he came behind Lord P., into whose ear he whispered something, something that made the Marquis turn round and glance at the strikers.

The applause had been prolonged by the foreigners long after it had ceased among the native-born, but it died down now and a general murmur of conversation all over the big audience took its place in the midst of which some very curious and surprising preparations were going on on the stage in front of them all. A big wooden cross was brought out, from which were hanging thick ropes, like those used on shipboard, twisted loosely round its cross-beams, and this object was laid on the ground, where the thrones of Arthur and Gwenevere had formerly been, beside a capacious hole that had been dug to receive it. Across the faces of the audience was blown at intervals the warm sun-sweet smell of trodden grass and mingled with this the pungent smell of nicotine from the short clay pipes which many of the strikers— quiet, patient family-men—had lit to cheer their suspense.

It was at this moment that the voice of Red Robinson was heard in shrill penetrating tones. Red got hold of a chair and had jumped up upon it. From this elevation he began to scream forth a hurried torrent of abuse, raising his hands high into the air and making them tremble there, using in fact that particular gesture which has become almost a convention with street-orators, but which still retains a power that has its own peculiar quality.

Mr. Geard saw two or three policemen pushing their way towards this shouting man. “Give him five minutes, officers, if you please!” This command from the green dog-cart was flung out in those stentorian tones which used to be the delight of the slums in Bloody Johnny's revivalistic meetings.

The officers stopped, turned, and remained motionless, glancing alternatively at Lord P., seated by his daughter's side, and at the bare-headed Mayor in Lord P.'s cart.

“You Wessex people who 'ave come 'ere to 'ear this folly, listen to me! And you, foreign people, who have come from hover the seas to see this folly, listen to me! And you, Glastonbury comrades, who know what this folly is, listen to me! High 'ave only one thing to say this harfternoon! The capitalistic system of society is doomed. In a 'undred years from now, private property in Glastonbury will be hun-known! This 'ere new Mayor of hours is no better than the light one and has for Crow hup there with ”is blasted airpline------" He jumped down hurriedly

from his chair and took refuge within the close-packed ranks of his friends, for the enraged figure of Lord P. standing erect now and calling furiously upon the policemen to stop him had counteracted the command from the green cart and the officers had moved towards him. It was then that Dave Spear jumped up from his seat and lifted up his voice.

“This man,” shouted Spear, “may have been too angry to choose his words as he ought. But what he says is true! Humanity will soon------” At the scholarly intonation of the young philosopher all the Germans in the audience—who were the ones who knew English best—leaned forward, listening gravely and intently. Indeed they cried out in guttural protest against some nasal French voices lifted up in derision of Spear's words, and for a moment it looked as if the old hostility between Gothic blood and Mediterranean blood would burst out that day in Urbs Vitrea under Gwyn-ap-Nud's mischievous rogueries! The particular tone Spear plunged into at once, so earnest and so academic, and his introduction of the word “humanity,” beguiled the Russians who were present—all except the monks from the Caucasus who took him for a devilish heretic—and brought them over to his side. The Spanish contingent, which was unusually large, agreed on the contrary very strongly with the French and joined the French in calling angrily upon the young man to sit down.

Bui Dave Spear, in spite of cries of “Order!”, “Silence!”, “Turn him out!” refused to sit down. “Humanity will soon,” he shouted, “be no longer Germans, Englishmen, Frenchmen, Russians! We shall all be men and women—working for ourselves —not for the rich—in one great community of Comrades!” The clamour round him got now so confused that it became impossible to out-shout it, and after calmly surveying the whole crowd with his eyes and watching them as if he were a shepherd counting his sheep, Dave Spear sat down.

The group of strikers from the Crow Works were now thrown into a most awkward and uncomfortable position. The bulk of them had no sympathy with the communistic opinions of their leaders. They were unable to enjoy “thik open air theayter” as they regarded it, because of their near neighbourhood to the gentry. At the same time, being honest Somerset workingmen, they were reluctant to desert their flags. One of the most dignified among them, a certain Josh Witcombe from Queen's Camel, articulated the thoughts of the majority among them when he said to himself—“What in the name of crikey be I doing here? A danged fool I be, when I might be digging talies, in me bit o' garden, this fine holiday! This ere Crow be a bloody blighter. There ain't two opinions about that, but what be all this high-falutin' palaver got to do wi' I? Crikey! I wish I were sittin' peaceful-like in me back-garden, watching me sweet peas how girt they be grown! This here Glaslon will never be a place for quiet folk to enjoy theyselves in, till both this blighter Crow and this blighter Geard be drove out o' town.”

Mr. Geard was not oblivious of the growing discomfort of this body of worthy men. Left to themselves now by both agitators and police they were being subjected to the animosity of an increasing number of the audience, who had come to regard their presence at the field at all as a lugubrious spoil-sport. Mr. Geard now made Blimp drive my Lord's cart forward, about twice its own length, till it was in the very centre of this sulky and disconcerted crowd. Then he stood up in the cart with his hand on the sergeant's shoulder. “Gentlemen,” he began.

All eyes were turned towards him. He managed to temper his voice so that it was only audible to the men he was addressing..

It was an immense relief to him to observe that Elphin Cantle had joined his young adherent Steve Lew, and that both the boys were standing now close up to one of the green wheels of his cart. “Gentlemen,” he repeated. “I'm sorry that you should have come out today only to find things unsatisfactory. I am the Mayor of this town and I wish all Glastonbury people to enjoy themselves today. I have told Mr. Cantle down there in that tent/'—he wTaved one of his plump hands in the direction of the hedge—”that I wish him to give all you men of the Crow Dye-Works something to eat and drink at my expense. Elphin Cantle I see is here. He'll show you where to go. Take them with you, Elphin!“ Then, as an after thought, he added, ”Twill be a shame on ye all, and a disgrace to your Mayor, if the good liquour that's in yon tent be taken back to cellar!"

There was a moment's hesitation, and then Mr. Burt of Stoke-sub-Ham spoke up. “Three cheers for the Mayor of Glastonbury!” he cried. At once another voice in the crowd was raised, but it was impossible for Mr. Geard to identify him—“Three cheers for Bloody Johnny!” The cheers were somewhat nervously and somewhat shamefacedly given, and the big audience of seated people extending now as far down almost as the hedge craned their necks to see what new thing now was toward.

Suddenly Mat Dekker rose from where he sat by his son's side. “Three cheers for the Mayor of Glastonbury who has given us this------” His voice was drowned in a terrific volley of applause.

In every great audience there is a certain accumulation of magnetic emotion which seems to store itself up, as if in great invisible tanks, above the people's heads. Mat Dekker's words had turned the tap of these psychic reservoirs. The crowd lost its head altogether in its excitement. It had been stirred already by the romance of the Arthurian scene and by the rich, poignant fooling, in amazing dumb-show, of the inspired French clown. Dave Spear's revolutionary speech had increased this tension, and it now broke loose in a whirlwind of excitement. Women waved their handkerchiefs and kissed their hands; men jumped upon their chairs and shouted; children yelled and screamed. The vague rumours that had hovered about the figure of Mr. Geard helped to intensify this demonstration. Those in the front seats who had heard his speech to the striking dye workers and had been hopelessly shocked were swept along on the current. Lady Rachel clapped long and desperately, her cheeks white with excitement, her eyes flashing with girlish ecstasy. The Marquis wore the expression of a far-sighted statesman who has had recourse to some irresponsible prophet. Old Mother Legges spacious and maternal bosom—the bosom of an immoral earth-mother—was heaving with unsuppressed sobs. Mrs. Geard too was crying uncontrollably. But Cordelia sat straight up in her chair. Her eyes were fixed in miserable fascination upon that great wooden cross lying upon the grass. When the noise died down a little, Mr. Geard got up upon his feet for the second time that day in Lord P.'s high dog-cart.

“What will he say?” thought Lady Rachel. “What the deuce will old Johnny do now?” thought the Marquis. “I would not be in Geard's shoes for something,9' whispered Mat Dekker to Sam-Mr. Geard cleared his throat. Then he bent down over his impassive driver upon whose shoulder he was pressing heavily. ”The moment I sit down, you drive off, Sergeant,“ he whispered, ”and make her go too!“ Then rising to his full height and throwing back his head he lifted his free arm high into the air. And there fell upon that enormous mass of people one of those tremendous and awe-inspiring silences that seem as if they were supported, like dim catafalques of expectation, by unseen spiritual hands. ”Not unto us,“ he shouted in slow reverberating tones, ”not unto us be the Glory for this great Day but unto . . • unto—“ he was enough of a Cagliostro, enough of the charlatan they accused him of being, deliberately to pretend to hesitate at this point. It was a subtle oratorical trick and was not defrauded of its effect—”unto . . . unto the Christ of Glastonbury!"t He sank back in his seat by the side of Sergeant Blimp, who, since there was no question of encountering Merlin's ghost was as cool as he would have been at a Royal garden-party. In a second the green-painted wheels were revolving at a dizzy pace and tne dog-cart was whirling off westwards, over the grassy slopes o the great field, as if it had entered a desperate race with some fairy chariot of Gwyn-ap-Nud.