A sound as of some monster breathing guided him, till, from a steep empty street he came in sight of a surging crowd, spread over the town square, like a dark carpet patterned by splashes of lamplight.

High up above that crowd, on the little peaked tower of the Grammar School, a brightly lighted clock face presided; and over the passionate hopes in those thousands of hearts knit together by suspense the sky had lifted; and showed no cloud between them and the purple fields of air.

To Courtier descending towards the square, the swaying white faces, turned all one way, seemed like the heads of giant wild flowers in a dark field, shivered by wind.

The night had charmed away the blue and yellow facts, and breathed down into that throng the spirit of emotion.

And he realized all at once the beauty and meaning of this scene--expression of the quivering forces, whose perpetual flux, controlled by the Spirit of Balance, was the soul of the world.
Thousands of hearts with the thought of self lost in one over-mastering excitement! An old man with a long grey beard, standing close to his elbow, murmured: "'Tis anxious work--I wouldn't ha' missed this for anything in the world." "Fine, eh ?" answered Courtier.
"Aye," said the old man, "'tis fine.