Crome Yellow

Chapter 26

A little canvas village of tents and booths had sprung up, just

beyond the boundaries of the garden, in the green expanse of the

park. A crowd thronged its streets, the men dressed mostly in

black--holiday best, funeral best--the women in pale muslins.

Here and there tricolour bunting hung inert. In the midst of the

canvas town, scarlet and gold and crystal, the merry-go-round

glittered in the sun. The balloon-man walked among the crowd,

and above his head, like a huge, inverted bunch of many-coloured

grapes, the balloons strained upwards. With a scythe-like motion

the boat-swings reaped the air, and from the funnel of the engine

which worked the roundabout rose a thin, scarcely wavering column

of black smoke.

Denis had climbed to the top of one of Sir Ferdinando's towers,

and