of the violent agitation in his family.

When all this came to the ears of the squire, he was grievously
scandalised that his May-day fete should have been disgraced by such a
brawl. He ordered Phoebe to appear before him; but the girl was so
frightened and distressed, that she came sobbing and trembling, and, at
the first question he asked, fell again into hysterics. Lady Lillycraft,
who had understood that there was an affair of the heart at the bottom
of this distress, immediately took the girl into great favour and
protection, and made her peace with the squire. This was the only thing
that disturbed the harmony of the day, if we except the discomfiture of
Master Simon and the general by the radical. Upon the whole, therefore,
the squire had very fair reason to be satisfied that he had rode his
hobby throughout the day without any other molestation.

The reader, learned in these matters, will perceive that all this was
but a faint shadow of the once gay and fanciful rites of May. The
peasantry have lost the proper feeling for these rites, and have grown
almost as strange to them as the boors of La Mancha were to the customs
of chivalry in the days of the valorous Don Quixote. Indeed, I
considered it a proof of the discretion with which the squire rides his
hobby, that he had not pushed the thing any farther, nor attempted to
revive many obsolete usages of the day, which, in the present
matter-of-fact times, would appear affected and absurd. I must say,
though I do it under the rose, the general brawl in which this festival
had nearly terminated, has made me doubt whether these rural customs of
the good old times were always so very loving and innocent as we are apt
to fancy them; and whether the peasantry in those times were really so
Arcadian as they have been fondly represented. I begin to fear

--"Those days were never; airy dreams
Sat for the picture, and the poet's hand,
Imparting substance to an empty shade,
Imposed a gay delirium for a truth.
Grant it; I still must envy them an age
That favoured such a dream."

[Illustration: The Capture]

THE CULPRIT.

From fire, from water, and all things amiss,
Deliver the house of an honest justice.

THE WIDOW.

The serenity of the Hall has been suddenly interrupted by a very
important occurrence. In the course of this morning a posse of villagers
was seen trooping up the avenue, with boys shouting in advance.