idea to her; now that she saw it lift its ugly head she was as appalled as if she had raised the Devil. In the half hour before the coaches were due to start, and while they were filling up, the Square was filling, too, and the pandemonium increased. The crowd had come to see the coaches off, the conductor said: it was the news that one of them would have an accident that had drawn so many people. But the fascination of the risk had taken such a hold that many of the spectators wanted to go, too; it wasn't fair, they declared, that only ticket holders should go: everyone should go in the name of Equality! When this word was heard some tried to perform the appropriate ritual dance; but there was no room for it, and lacking this outlet, tempers rose, fists were shaken, and eyes blazed through impassive faces. Some mounted the steps of the coaches and clung there; some perched themselves on the hoods, and when the moment came to start, the drivers dared not, for fear of mowing down the mob. It looked as though an impasse had been reached and the expeditions would have to be abandoned, when suddenly the first phrase of "Every Valley" soared slowly into the air. It was repeated twice and silence fell, then a voice thundered: "Patients and delinquents! "What is the meaning of this disgraceful disturbance? Are you even crazier than we have always thought you? Disperse to your homes quietly and in shame, and attend the Litany which until further notice will be the only form of entertainment permitted to you. Tomorrow at noon we shall have more to say and it may be our sad task to read the list of casualties which the Voluntary Principle has claimed from among you." The Voice ceased, the men put on their hats, the women curtsied. Its tension gone, the huge crowd sagged and flopped. People looked at their feet, at the horizon, anywhere but at each other. The drivers of the coaches sounded their horns imperiously, at which the crowd fell back and made lanes for them to pass through. As they lumbered off a feeble cheer was raised, but Jael scarcely heard it, she was thinking of the Dictator's closing words. "I don't mind if there are casualties," she told herself, "and I don't mind if I'm one!" The coach groaned, plunged, and shuddered over the potholes of the Ely road. On either side the land once reclaimed from the fen had gone back to marsh, featureless, malodorous, and unhealthy, differing little in aspect from the higher land, except that this was wet and that was dry. No trees, no vegetation, nothing to attract the eye; she might as well have been blind, Jael thought, for any visual stimulus the landscape gave her. She could have described it without seeing it; it was just like people said it was; they were right who declared that a guide book to England could be written on a single page. And yet there was something in being out among it all--something she wouldn't have got if she had stayed at home thinking about it--a kind of exhilaration. Where did it come from? Not from the movement of the coach which, when the novelty wore off, only brought discomfort, not from the conversation of her neighbors, not from the sour smell of the marsh, not from the taste of the Joyful Journey tablets with which she fortified herself, not from anything to which she could give a name. Yes, she could--it was expectancy, she was waiting for something. Before all this, before she had decided to reject Betafication, she never waited for anything--it was all laid on. Nothing tempted her spirit out of its retreat; her mood was one of passive and, it must be admitted, pleased acceptance. Everything was arranged for her; there were no surprises. She moved with the general movement; she was a part of it, like a drop of water in a river. That general movement was going on around her now. If anything disturbed the unbroken contour of the landscape, a hillock or a hollow, it might be, or a patch of darker or lighter colored earth--all eyes turned to it at once.
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