A grinding of chair legs over the flags proclaimed the end of the feast, and the Parson, who, rather to Ishmael’s resentment, was smiling as though nothing had been the matter, caught hold of him with one hand and of Phoebe with the other and led the way to the barn.

Out-of-doors the air struck exquisitely cool and fresh to heated faces; the courtyard was lapped in shadow, but once through and in the farmyard the moon was visible, still near the horizon and swimming up inflated, globulous, like a vast aureate bubble.  Save for that one glow everything looked as chill as underseas; the whitewashed walls of the out-buildings glimmered faintly, the heaped corn had paled to a greyish silver, the shadows were blue as quiet pools.  The whole world seemed to have been washed clean by the moonlight.

The sense of calm only lasted as far as the door of the barn—­not as far to the ear, for the sounds of merry-making came gustily out before the opening of the door showed an oblong of glowing orange that sent a shaft into the night, to fade into the darkness that it deepened.  It was not quite as hot in the barn as it had been in the kitchen, for the building was much loftier and boasted no fire.  Lanterns swung from the beams, throwing upwards bars of shadow that criss-crossed with the rafters and trembled slightly as the flames flickered, so that the whole roof seemed spun over by some gigantic spider’s web, while the shadow-patterns thrown by the lanterns on to the floor below looked like great spiders dropped from the meshes.  In this impalpable tangle sat the men and women—­tenants of cottages, labourers, farm servants and their children, all who had been helping with the harvest.  Jenifer Keast was there, flushed now instead of with that mysterious pallor of the dusk, and to her Archelaus made his way with a sort of bashful openness, followed by glances and sly smiles.  People felt disposed to condone whatever was in the way of nature, for the meal of hoggans—­pasties with chunks of bacon in them, superior to the fuggans of everyday life, which only harboured raisins—­of pilchards steeped in vinegar and spices, all washed down by strong cider, had combined to give that feeling of physical well-being which causes the soul also to relax.

Archelaus, suddenly irked by proximity to the girl or fired by the thought of an excuse to clasp her more fully, sprang up and called for helpers to clear the floor.  The long trestle tables were pushed to one side and everything that lay upon the dusty boards swept away, even to the form of old Melchisedec Baragwaneth, the high-priest of an earlier hour, who was found with his head under a bench and his stiff old legs sprawled helplessly.

The Parson did not mean Ishmael to stay for more than a dance or two, if that, so he determined to get the thing on which he had set his mind done at once.  Picking the boy up, he stood him on the table, just where a lantern, hitched to the wall, threw its beam of light, for the Parson was nothing if not a stage manager by instinct.  An awkward silence fell upon the assembly; men scraped their feet uneasily through its hush.