It was a lively scene, a general scrimmage, in which
everyone was trying to capture an elusive football with ears
and legs to it, which went darting and spinning about hither
and thither among the multitudinous legs, until earth
compassionately opened and swallowed poor distracted bunny up.
It was but little better inside the enclosure, where the big
fallen stones behind the altar-stone, in the middle, on which
the first rays of sun would fall, were taken possession of by
a crowd of young men who sat and stood packed together like
guillemots on a rock. These too, cheated by that rising cloud
of the spectacle they had come so far to see, wanted to have a
little fun, and began to be very obstreperous. By and by they
found out an amusement very much to their taste.
Motor-cars were now arriving every minute, bringing important-
looking persons who had timed their journeys so as to come
upon the scene a little before 3:45, when the sun would show
on the horizon; and whenever one of these big gentlemen
appeared within the circle of stones, especially if he was big
physically and grotesque-looking in his motorist get-up, he
was greeted with a tremendous shout. In most cases he would
start back and stand still, astonished at such an outburst,
and then, concluding that the only way to save his dignity was
to face the music, he would step hurriedly across the green
space to hide himself behind the crowd.
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