Cynics might say that it was because the Archdeacon, no longer so young as he had been, was blown by his climb of the High Street and stood, breathing hard for a moment before he passed into the Precincts, lights dancing before his eyes as they will when one is out of breath, the ground swaying a little under the pressure of the heart, the noise of the town rocking in the ears. That is for the cynics to say. Brandon knew; his experiences had been in the past too frequent for him, even now, to make a mistake. Running down the hill went the High Street, decorated now with flags and banners in honour of the great event; cutting the sky, stretching from Brent's the haberdasher's across to Adams' the hairdresser's, was a vast banner of bright yellow silk stamped in red letters with "Sixty Years Our Queen. God Bless Her!" Just beside the Archdeacon, above the door of the bookshop where he had once so ignominiously taken refuge, was a flag of red, white and blue, and opposite the bookseller's, at Gummridge's the stationer's, was a little festoon of flags and a blue message stamped on a white ground: "God Bless Our Queen: Long May She Reign!" All down the street flags and streamers were fluttering in the little summer breeze that stole about the houses and windows and doors as though anxiously enquiring whether people were not finding the evening just a little too warm. People were not finding it at all too warm. Every one was out and strolling up and down, laughing and whistling and chattering, dressed, although it was only Friday, in nearly their Sunday best. The shops were closing, one by one, and the throng was growing thicker and thicker. So little traffic was passing that young men and women were already marching four abreast, arm-in-arm, along the middle of the street. It was a long time--ten years, in fact--since Polchester had seen such gaiety. This was behind the Archdeacon; in front of him was the dark archway in which the grass of the Cathedral square was framed like the mirrored reflection of evening light where the pale blue and pearl white are shadowed with slanting green. The peace was profound--nothing stirred. There in the archway God stood, smiling upon His faithful servant, only as Brandon approached Him passing into shadow and sunlight and the intense blue of the overhanging sky. Brandon tried then, as he had often tried before, to keep that contact close to himself, but the ecstatic moment had passed; it had lasted, it seemed, on this occasion a shorter time than ever before. He bowed his head, stood for a moment under the arch offering a prayer as simple and innocent as a child offers at its mother's knee, then with an instantaneous change that in a more complex nature could have meant only hypocrisy, but that with him was perfectly sincere, he was in a moment the hot, angry, mundane priest again, doing battle with his enemies and defying them to destroy him.