which each bonfire was situate. The clear, kingly effulgence that had
characterized the majority expressed a heath and furze country like
their own, which in one direction extended an unlimited number of miles;
the rapid flares and extinctions at other points of the compass showed
the lightest of fuel--straw, beanstalks, and the usual waste from
arable land. The most enduring of all--steady unaltering eyes like
Planets--signified wood, such as hazel-branches, thorn-faggots, and
stout billets. Fires of the last-mentioned materials were rare, and
though comparatively small in magnitude beside the transient blazes, now
began to get the best of them by mere long continuance. The great ones
had perished, but these remained. They occupied the remotest visible
positions--sky-backed summits rising out of rich coppice and plantation
districts to the north, where the soil was different, and heath foreign
and strange.

Save one; and this was the nearest of any, the moon of the whole shining
throng. It lay in a direction precisely opposite to that of the little
window in the vale below. Its nearness was such that, notwithstanding
its actual smallness, its glow infinitely transcended theirs.

This quiet eye had attracted attention from time to time; and when their
own fire had become sunken and dim it attracted more; some even of
the wood fires more recently lighted had reached their decline, but no
change was perceptible here.

"To be sure, how near that fire is!" said Fairway. "Seemingly. I can see
a fellow of some sort walking round it. Little and good must be said of
that fire, surely."

"I can throw a stone there," said the boy.