o the village at an early hour, to enjoy the merrymaking.
The morning was pure and sunny, such as a May morning is always
described. The fields were white with daisies, the hawthorn was
covered with its fragrant blossoms, the bee hummed about every bank,
and the swallow played high in the air about the village steeple. It
was one of those genial days when we seem to draw in pleasure with the
very air we breathe, and to feel happy we know not why. Whoever has
felt the worth of worthy man, or has doted on lovely woman, will, on
such a day, call them tenderly to mind, and feel his heart all alive
with long-buried recollections. "For thenne," says the excellent
romance of King Arthur, "lovers call ageyne to their mynde old
gentilnes and old servyse, and many kind dedes that were forgotten by
neglygence."

Before reaching the village, I saw the May-pole towering above the
cottages with its gay garlands and streamers, and heard the sound of
music. I found that there had been booths set up near it, for the
reception of company; and a bower of green branches and flowers for
the Queen of May, a fresh, rosy-cheeked girl of the village.

A band of morris-dancers were capering on the green in their fantastic
dresses, jingling with hawks' bells, with a boy dressed up as Maid
Marian, and the attendant fool rattling his box to collect
contributions from the bystanders. The gipsy-women too were already
plying their mystery in by-corners of the village, reading the hands
of the simple country girls, and no doubt promising them all good
husbands and tribes of children.

The Squire made his appearance in the course of the morning, attended
by the parson, and was received with loud acclamations. He mingled
among the country people throughout the day, giving and receiving
pleasure wherever he went. The amusements of the day were under the
management of Slingsby, the schoolmaster, who is not merely lord of
misrule in his school, but master of the revels to the village. He was
bustling about, with the perplexed and anxious air of a man who has
the oppressive burthen of promoting other people's merriment upon his
mind. He had involved himself in a dozen scrapes, in consequence of a
politic intrigue, which, by-the-by, Master Simon and the Oxonian were
at the bottom of, which had for object the election of the Queen of
May. He had met with violent opposition from a faction of
ale-drinkers, who were in favour of a bouncing bar-maid, the daught