" The tent where the beer was sold was slushy with black mud. Country people stood sturdily about, some bursting with glee like ripe, rosy apples, others grim, lined and dour like cadaverous cheeses, glistening in the lamplight. The soft greyness outside faintly pricked with stars and seemingly transparent to all eternity had suddenly turned to inky blackness enclosing them tightly in a little glittering cave. All seemed aware of each other's perspiring faces and eager to communicate either good cheer or gloom; or held proudly apart with shining eye-balls and a flashing ring displayed on brown fingers curved round the smooth column of a glass. A man in corduroy trousers and a thick jacket, tilted his battered felt to the back of his head and bravely began to sing above the hurdy-gurdy din. "

― Isobel Strachey