It became at once evident that the dance was proceeding immediately within the surface of the door, no apartment intervening.  The brushing of skirts and elbows, sometimes the bumping of shoulders, could be heard against the very panels.  Eustacia, though living within two miles of the place, had never seen the interior of this quaint old habitation.  Between Captain Vye and the Yeobrights there had never existed much acquaintance, the former having come as a stranger and purchased the long-empty house at Mistover Knap not long before the death of Mrs. Yeobright’s husband; and with that event and the departure of her son such friendship as had grown up became quite broken off.

“Is there no passage inside the door, then?” asked Eustacia as they stood within the porch.

“No,” said the lad who played the Saracen.  “The door opens right upon the front sitting-room, where the spree’s going on.”

“So that we cannot open the door without stopping the dance.”

“That’s it.  Here we must bide till they have done, for they always bolt the back door after dark.”

“They won’t be much longer,” said Father Christmas.

This assertion, however, was hardly borne out by the event.  Again the instruments ended the tune; again they recommenced with as much fire and pathos as if it were the first strain.  The air was now that one without any particular beginning, middle, or end, which perhaps, among all the dances which throng an inspired fiddler’s fancy, best conveys the idea of the interminable—­the celebrated “Devil’s Dream.”  The fury of personal movement that was kindled by the fury of the notes could be approximately imagined by these outsiders under the moon, from the occasional kicks of toes and heels against the door, whenever the whirl round had been of more than customary velocity.

The first five minutes of listening was interesting enough to the mummers.  The five minutes extended to ten minutes, and these to a quarter of an hour; but no signs of ceasing were audible in the lively Dream.  The bumping against the door, the laughter, the stamping, were all as vigorous as ever, and the pleasure in being outside lessened considerably.

“Why does Mrs. Yeobright give parties of this sort?” Eustacia asked, a little surprised to hear merriment so pronounced.

“It is not one of her bettermost parlour-parties.  She’s asked the plain neighbours and workpeople without drawing any lines, just to give ’em a good supper and such like.  Her son and she wait upon the folks.”

“I see,” said Eustacia.

“’Tis the last strain, I think,” said Saint George, with his ear to the panel.  “A young man and woman have just swung into this corner, and he’s saying to her, ’Ah, the pity; ’tis over for us this time, my own.’”

“Thank God!” said the Turkish Knight, stamping, and taking from the wall the conventional lance that each of the mummers carried.  Her boots being thinner than those of the young men, the hoar had damped her feet and made them cold.