Presently came the noise of a tin-kettle band, and down the High Street marched a procession carrying "Jack o' Lent", a grotesque figure on the lines of a Guy Fawkes, stuffed with straw and wearing a mask and an old top hat. The Nicky Nans flew to join their fellows, showing their lanterns like the wise virgins in the parable, and the Guy was escorted by quite a crowd of leaping dancing will-o'-the-wisps, who added squeals and whistling to the din made on the old tea-trays and pans. They crossed the bridge to a field on the farther side of the river, where a bonfire had been built. Upon this Jack o' Lent was carefully hoisted, and a match was put to the straw. The Ramsays, hurried indoors by Jessop lest Mavis should catch cold, watched the scene from Aunt Nellie's bedroom window, and had a fine view of the flames blazing up, and the Nicky Nans prancing round in a circle, waving their weird turnip lights. On this one night in the year the town's children were veritable Devonshire pixies. By immemorial custom they were licensed to carry away brooms, pails, or any objects which people were so foolish as to leave unguarded outside their houses. These they pounced upon and bore off as booty, exhibiting them the next morning in the pound, whence they might be redeemed by their owners for a fee varying from a penny to sixpence, according to their value. As the proceeds went to their football club, the Nicky Nans were naturally anxious to pick up every trifle which they could possibly find lying about, and every house and garden in the town was visited for that purpose. The matron, who missed her scrubbing-brush or her bucket, knew what Pucks and Robin Goodfellows had been flitting round in the darkness, and made a visit to the pound to recover her lost property, paying the price with a good-natured remembrance of the fun of her own young days. Mavis and Merle, on their way to school on the morning following the saturnalia, peeped into the pound, a walled enclosure intended for the detention of lost cows or strayed sheep, and saw half a dozen of the boys, still wearing masks, guarding quite a collection of treasures and chaffing some of the owners over the gate. Evidently they had had a most successful evening, and the funds of their football club would be replenished. "Little wretches. They're as light-fingered as elves," remarked Merle. "They've even taken the pots of geraniums off people's window-sills." "I shall never forget them dancing in a mad circle round the bonfire," laughed Mavis, as the pair passed on.