A branch of May we have brought you,
And at your door it stands;
It is but a sprout,
But it’s well budded out,
By the work of our Lord’s hands.
The hedges and trees they are so green,
As green as any leek;
Our heavenly Father he watereth them,
With his heavenly dew so sweet.
_From the Mayer’s Song._
The morning star glittered brightly above the fine old tower of
Cheddar church, and the low parsonage lay still and asleep amid the
flowers and the dewy grass plots of its pleasant garden, as advancing,
from beneath the ancient yew in the churchyard, to the wicket opposite
the good vicar’s porch, a party of hale young rustics with coloured
ribands in their hats and on their loose white sleeves, planted, on
either side the entrance, a fine branch of white thorn in full
blossom, and struck up, with full and cheerful voices, the very
ancient medley from which the stanzas at the head of our present
chapter are taken. They had not sung two verses before the door of the
parsonage was opened by a merry looking old serving man--two lasses’
heads were thrust from a window over the kitchen--the mistress’s good
humoured eyes were seen over a white chamber blind,--and the parson
himself, with a face as expressive of joy as a child’s, though marked
with the furrows of seven-and-sixty years, came forth to the wicket in
a loose morning gown, with a black scull-cap on his silvery hairs, and
listened, with a motion of the lips, that showed his voice, though not
audible, and his kind heart were attuned to theirs, and to the coming
holyday. When their song was done, he dismissed them with his
blessing, with the customary gift of silver, and with a caution to
keep their festival with gladness and innocence, and with the love of
brothers; letting the poor and aged fare the better for it.
“And let us have no brawls on the ale bench,” said the old
parson,--“let our May-pole be the rod of peace; so that none may rail
at our sports and dances, but rather take note of us as merry folk and
honest neighbours.”
With loud thanks, and lively promises, and rude invocations of
Heaven’s best gifts on him, and his lady, and his absent sons, the
party now faced about, and with the accompaniment of pipe and tabor,
and a couple of fiddles, moved off at a dancing pace to pay the like
honours at the door of the chief franklin, and to deck the village
street as they passed along.
Parson Noble now passed round to his favourite terrace walk, that
overlooked a rich and extensive level, and taking up his lute, which
lay in a little alcove at one end of it, he breathed out his morning
hymn of thanksgiving, as was his wont, and thus composed, went into
his study, and secluded himself for an hour from all interruption. At
the close he again came into his garden, where he commonly laboured
both for pleasure and health, every day of his life, in company with
the attached old servant, who, for his quaint words and ways, had
been long known to the village by the name of plain Peter,--an
epithet, which, as it gave him credit for blunt honesty, as well as
for a cast in his eye, he readily pardoned,--nay, some said he was
proud of it;--for what manner of man is it that hath not a pride in
something?
“Master,” said Peter, putting down his rake as the parson came up the
walk, “I have won a silver groat on your words this day.”
“How so? what dost thou mean, Peter?”
“Why, last market day, when I was in the kitchen at the old Pack Horse
at Axbridge, that vinegar-faced old hypocrite, Master Pynche, the
staymaker, comes in, and asks me to bring out Betsy Blount’s new
stays.
“Says I, ‘That I’ll do for Betsy’s sake,--a lass that hasn’t her
better for a good heart, or a pretty face, in all Somersetshire.’
“‘Verily, Master Peter, I think,’ said he, ‘thy speech might have more
respect to me, and more decency to the damsel, but thou savourest not
of the things that be from above:--thou art of the earth, earthy.’
“‘Why, for the matter of things above,’ said I, ‘Master Pynche, I
don’t pretend to any skill in moonshine; and as to being of the earth,
that I don’t deny, and thirsty earth too; with that I put to my lips
the cup of ale that I had in hand, and drank it down.’
“‘Is it not written,’ he replied in a snuffling tone, ‘that favour is
deceitful, and beauty is vain?--but thou art a servant of Beelzebub,
and thou speakest the words of thy master, and his works wilt thou
do.’
“‘In the name of plain Peter,’ I added, ‘herewith I proclaim you
Prince of Fools, and I will send you a coloured coat, and a hood and
bells, and thou shalt have a bauble, and a bladder of pease, and a
licence to preach next April.’
“With that he lifted up his eyes and hands, and muttering something
about pearls and swine, glided off like a ghost at cock crow.”
“Peter,” interrupted Noble, “thou shouldst not have said such things.”
“Marry, did he not call me a servant of Beelzebub? the peevish old
puritan!--Well, but to go on with my story. The folk in Dame Wattle’s
kitchen fell a discoursing after Pynche was gone; and some spake up
after a fashion that made my hair stand up. Says a sturdy pedlar in
the corner,--‘Ay, they’ll soon be uppermost, and the sooner the
better; rot ’em, I don’t like ’em, the godly rogues; but they are
better than parsons, any way.’
“So with that I felt my blood come up, and I was going to speak, when
old Hardy, the cobbler, took up his words, and says he, ‘That’s true
of some, and it’s true of our old Tosspot; but there’s Peter’s master,
of Cheddar,--you may search the country far and near before you will
find his like. I remember when my niece Sally lay dying, night and
day, fair weather and foul, he would trudge through mire or snow to
give her medicine for body as well as soul, and that’s what I call a
good parson.’”
“‘A good puritan,’ said Dame Wattle. ‘I have heard of his sayings and
doings, and trust me, he’ll go with your parliament men, your
down-church men: you’ll never have any more May-games and Christmas
gambols at Cheddar.’
“‘There you’re out, Dame,’ said I, ‘and don’t know any more about
Master Noble than a child unborn.’
“‘A silver crown to a silver groat he’ll give a long preachment
against the May-pole next May-morning.’
“‘Done with you, Dame,’ said I.
“‘You may lay a golden angel to a penny there will be no May-poles at
all, if you make it May twelvemonth,’ said the pedlar, ‘without,
indeed, there be such as have pikes at the end of them;’ and with that
he pulled out a printed paper, that he brought from London, and read
out a long matter about the king and the bishops, and about church
organs, and tithes, and play actors, and ship money, and Master
Hampden; and made out, as plain as a pike staff, that there would be
many a good buff coat and iron head piece taken down from the wall
before long. ‘We shall have a civil war soon, and God defend the
right,’ said he, as he folded up the paper and took up his pack.
“Civil,” thought I, “that’s a queer word. I have heard talk of civil
people and civil speeches, but a civil blow from a battle-axe is a
new thing. I’ll tell master all about it when I get home, and axe what
it means;--but as I was on the path in Nine Acres, whom should I meet
but Master Blount, the young one, and he made me promise not to say a
word to you before May-day was come, for fear the old sports might be
hindered; and he told me that civil war meant war at home; for which I
didn’t think him much of a conjuror, as my guess had reached that far:
and now, Master, prithee tell me what civil means.”
“Peter, thou art an honest fellow, and as good a citizen as if thou
knewest what it was called in Latin, and that a civil war was a war of
citizens, but of a truth this is no matter for smiles; however,
‘sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.’ This is no morning for
a cloudy face.”
“Well, then, here comes one, and the worst that darkens our doors. For
my part, I can’t bide the sight of it, ’t would turn all the milk in
the dairy.”
The vicar looked over his hedge, and saw the curate of a parish with
whom he was but slightly acquainted, walking across the last close,
which led by a footway into his orchard. The apple-trees concealed
Noble from his approaching visiter, who, just as he reached the gate
of the orchard, overtook a little boy, about nine years of age,
carrying in his hand a cluster of cowslips half as big as himself, and
having a thick crown of field flowers round his straw hat.
With a severe scowl, he snatched the cowslips from the frightened
child, and threw them away, and then made a gripe at his little hat;
but, the boy drawing back with a blubbering cry, the zealous and tall
curate, who had a little over-reached himself, slipped and fell prone
upon the grass. This, however, was the lightest part of his
misfortune; for it so chanced that his face came in full contact with
a new-made rain-puddle, and he arose with his eyes half blinded, and
his face covered and besmeared with mud. With the tears yet rolling
down his red cheeks, the little fellow, as he saw himself avenged in
a measure so contenting, and a manner so ridiculous, ran out of his
reach, literally shrieking with laughter; and a hearty roar from old
Peter at once completed his mortification, and determined his retreat.
This soon became a maddened flight: for a sleeping dog roused by the
noise of the laughter pursued him with angry barkings, from which, as
he had no staff, and the grassy close could furnish no stone, there
was no escape till the wearied animal paused and turned.
The whole of this scene was so very swiftly enacted, that Noble had no
opportunity to say or do any thing in the matter; and charity itself
could not suppress a smile at a punishment so well suited to the
morosity which had led to it. Neither was he at all sorry to be
relieved upon this festal day from the intrusive visit of a sour,
ill-instructed fanatic, whose opinions he could not value, and for
whose character he felt no respect. He looked, therefore, with unmixed
satisfaction at the laughing urchin, as he gathered up his scattered
wealth, and departed.
Now merrily rang out the lively bells of Cheddar Tower; and already
was every street a green alley, freshened by thick boughs, and made
fragrant by small branches of white thorn neatly interwoven.
The house of the chief franklin, Mr. Blount, was more especially
honoured. Before his door was planted the largest and fairest branch
of May that could be found in a circuit of five good miles, and his
hospitable porch was made a rich bower of shrubs and flowers. Beneath
the tall trees in front of it was a little crowd of youths and
maidens, in holyday trim, wearing garlands, with green rushes and
strewing herbs in their arms, or aprons: full they were of smiles and
glee; and, out on the road, all the village was assembled, save the
infirm old and the cradled young; though, of these last, not a few
were borne in their mothers’ arms, or lifted up with honest pride in
those of their brown fathers, whose burning toils a field were, for
this joyous day, forgotten.
From the words passing in these expectant groups, a stranger might
soon have gathered that something more than the common sport of
May-day was engaging the honest and buzzing mob of men, women, and
children, that blocked the street opposite this goodly mansion, and
what that something was. “Better day better luck.”--“A bonny bride is
soon dressed.”--“Honest men marry soon,” said a black-eyed, nut-brown
wife, with a lively babe in her arms, and two curly-headed little ones
holding her apron,--and “Wise men not at all,” added a gruff old
blacksmith, with a seamed visage.--“Ah, it’s no good kicking in
fetters, Roger,” rejoined the laughing wife, at the same time giving
her infant into the horny hands of a stout young woodman, with a green
doublet and a clean white collar, who held it up, kicking and
shrieking with delight, as though it would spring out of his arms, and
chimed in with “Ah, Master Roger, it’s an ill house where the hen
crows loudest.”--“Ah, thou’lt find that some day, Stephen;” for this
he got a heavy slap on his shoulder from the young wife, whose coming
words were checked by the sound of fiddles, as the bridal procession
came forth. “Dear heart,” said she, “how pretty Bessy does look in
that lilac gown with brave red guardings and the golden cawl on her
fair hair, and what a beautiful lace rochet she has.”--“Ah, fine
feathers make fine birds,” said a spinster standing near.--“He’s a
proper man is young Hargood, and should have known better than choose
a wife by the eye.”--“She had rather kiss than spin, I’ll
warrant.”--“Better be half hanged than ill wed.”--“You may know a fool
by her finery.”--“A precious stone should be well set,” said the young
wife, sharply, “and Bessy’s blue eyes and her blushing cheeks are
small matters to her ways and words.” But envy and ill will were
low-voiced, and confined to few, for old Blount and all his house were
well loved by the people; and with many a word of cheerful greeting
they made way for the party, and the most of them followed it to the
church.
The procession was led by a few youths and maidens, with whom were all
the musicians of the village; while others, walking immediately before
the bride and her two bride maidens, strewed the ground, as they went,
with rushes and herbs. The bridegroom, in a suit of violet-coloured
cloth, guarded with velvet of the deepest crimson, and with a falling
collar of worked linen, followed, supported by his bridesmen, in fit
bravery of apparel; next came a group of relations, male and female,
led by the old franklin himself, with his grave and comely wife, and
the men and maids of his household brought up the rear of the
procession. It was met at the churchyard gate by Parson Noble and his
wife,--she joining old Mrs. Blount, and the good vicar, in his snowy
surplice, taking place at the head of it, immediately between the
herb-strewers and the bridal party; and now a gravity and silence
succeeded, and in decency and order all entered the church, and
proceeded with quiet steps to the altar. There, the sweet and solemn
service, which binds together for “better for worse, for richer for
poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do part,” was reverently
and impressively performed by Noble, his own deep and mellow tones
being only interrupted by the manly voice of the bridegroom, and the
faltering accents of the shy and trembling bride, as they gave
utterance to their heart’s true and hallowed responses. No sooner was
the ceremony ended than the bells, which had, for a while, been
silent, struck out with the wedding peal; and as the new married
couple came forth into the churchyard the air was rent with the joyous
acclamations of the crowd without; and the procession returned in
nearly the same order as it had left the house of the worthy franklin,
only, according to the good custom of the time, the parson made one of
the wedding party, and partook of the marriage feast.
Such of the old as could not walk abroad, stood leaning on staves, or
sat dim-eyed on the stones before their doors, to see or hear the
bridal train pass down; for each of these Parson Noble and the
franklin had a kind word as they went by, returned by the benison and
good wishes for the bride, who had herself no voice for any one, and,
supported on her husband’s arm, scarce saw her path through eyes that
were filling from a happy bosom’s overflow.
We shall not detain our reader by describing the dinner at Master
Blount’s; right plentiful was the cheer. Parson Noble said a grace in
rhyme, out of old Tom Tusser’s book of Husbandry, to the great
contentment of his hospitable host, that being the one book by which,
after his Bible, Blount squared his honest life.
“God sendeth and giveth both mouth and the meat,
And blesseth us all with his benefits great;
Then serve we the God, who so richly doth give,
Show love to our neighbours, and lay for to live.”
This being the franklin’s rule,--while his guests were feasted in the
old oak parlour, at the back of the house; in the pleasant orchard,
all his labourers were regaled with a hearty meal of meat and
plum-porridge; and huge jacks of ale were emptied and replenished, to
the health of bride and bridegroom and good master.
After due carvings of veal and bacon, unlacing of fat capons, and
untrussing of great pies of fruit and other dainties, in the parlour,
and after some mantling cups of wine drank to the happy pair, the old
people yielded to the impatience of the young, and all adjourned to
Robin’s Meadow, not, however, before they had sung, as the grace after
meat, a short psalm of praise.
The meadow, in which from generations before the May-pole was raised,
had a fine level sward, which Blount kept smooth as a bowling-ground
for the dancers, while a part of it rose in swelling banks, shaded by
trees. These, though, as yet, but in early leaf, were gaily green, and
contrasted well with the many-coloured and blushing wreaths of
field-flowers that wound about the May-pole, at the top of which
glittered a small crown, newly gilded in honour of the wedding, and
further adorned with a few of the rarest plants which the gardens of
Cheddar could produce.
A pleasure it was, as they passed into the meadow, to see the happy
children rolling and tumbling and racing down the steep bank, from
which they now scrambled away, to make room for the franklin’s party,
and for the elders of the village, who, from this grassy knoll, were
wont to preside over the pastimes of this holyday. We give not this
scene in detail:--the dances of the young, as, with light and elastic
steps, they bounded to lively measures round the May-pole, and the
nodding heads of the musicians keeping time with the dancers, and the
races and gambols of the ruddy children, each reader may figure forth
to his own fancy. Neither tell we of the pretty ceremonies with which
the milk maids brought their cows, with horns all garlanded, into the
adjoining close, and prepared and offered the delicious syllabub: our
aim is only to give an outline of a village May-day of the times of
which we write, and to show the good parson of the best school of that
period mingling in mirth among his people. Leaving, therefore, the
happy villagers to continue their sports till set of sun, we shall
confine ourselves to the steps of the pastor, and complete the journal
of his day.
As the chimes struck six o’clock, he quietly withdrew, and passed from
the scenes of pleasure and feasting to those of sickness and of
mourning. If he had regarded the former with complacent joy, he was
not the less willing, nor the less prepared, to cheer the latter with
those high contemplations and those tender sympathies to which, by
faith, as a Christian, he could point, and which, in charity, as a
man, he truly felt. Of the old, who were confined to their own
thresholds, he found two or three cross and short, but most of them
garrulous, and in good humour. They had got pleasant portions from the
franklin, and they could tell of old May-days, and heard, with
thankful nods and ready “ayes,” and strong fetchings of the breath,
that were not sighs of grief, the grave good words with which he
taught them how only they could die in peace.
Of his flock only one lay at the point of death, and her he visited
last.
She was the miller’s daughter, and had been the May-queen of the
bygone year. Sacred be such visit, in its most solemn communings! but
we may paint the scene of it, and the trifles which belong to those
sympathies of our humanity, that often survive the resigned hope of
life.
In a tall chair, against the back of which she leaned her head, sate a
pale maiden, warmly wrapped in a robe of white woollen, close to the
small window of an upper chamber, on which the evening sun shone warm:
curling honey-suckles did make a frame to it; and one rose, with an
opening bud, peeped from the trained bush beneath. Upon a little table
near her stood a fragrant branch of May in a cup of water. There were
faint flushes in her transparent cheeks, and there was an unearthly
brightness in her eyes--not fitful--but a calm, steady, serene ray,
that, as the declining sun poured over the damsel its yellow glories,
presented her to the thoughtful gazer such as she might be when
treading the celestial courts above.
“And have you any other wish, my child?” said Noble, as he rose to go.
“Yes, if it be not too foolish.”
“Tell it, my dear.”
“I would like some flowers from the May-pole strewn on my
winding-sheet, and a bit of rosemary from your own garden put in my
hands.”
“And you shall have them,” said Noble, pressing her wan hand in his,
and turning quick away.