The crowd began to form into some kind of order with a great deal of pushing and laughter and noise. There were whistles and little flags and tin horns. It was considered to bring good luck in the succeeding year, and so every kind of person was struggling for a place. If you had not danced then your prospects for the next twelve months were poor indeed, and your neighbours marked you down as some one doomed to misfortune. Very old women were there, their skirts gathered tightly about them, their mouths firm set and their eyes on the drum. Old men were pushed aside by younger ones and took it quietly and with submission, contenting themselves with the thought of the years when they had done their share of the fighting and had had a place with the best. Towards the front most of the young men were gathered. The crowd wound round the market, serpent-wise, coiling round and over the booths and stalls, twisting past the grey tower, and down finally into grey depths where the pepper-pot houses bent and twisted under the red flare of the lights. Maradick and Tony were wedged tightly between flank and rear; as things were it was difficult enough to keep one’s feet. At Maradick’s side was an old woman, stout, with her bonnet whisked distractingly back from her forehead, her grey hairs waving behind her, her hands pressed tightly over a basket that she clasped to her waist. “Eh sirs . . . eh sirs!” pantingly, breathlessly she gasped forth, and then her hand was hurriedly pressed to her forehead; with that up flew the lid of the basket and the scraggy lean neck of a hen poked miserably into the air and screeched frantically. “Down, Janet; but the likes of this . . . never did I see.” But nevertheless something triumphant in it all; at least she kept her place. Already feet were beating to the tune of the drum; a measured stamp, stamp on the cobbles spoke of an itching to be off, a longing for the great moment. Waves of excitement surged through the crowd. For a moment it seemed as though everyone would be carried away, feet would lose their hold of the pavement and the multitude would tumble furiously down the hill; but no, the wave surged to the little red drum and then surged back again. The drum was not ready; everyone was not there. “Patience”—you could hear it speak, stolidly, resolutely, in its beats—“Patience, the time is coming if you will only be patient. You must trust me for the great moment.”