the green. The fair Julia made her appearance, leaning on her lover's
arm, and looking extremely pale and interesting. As she is a great
favourite in the village, where she has been known from childhood, and
as her late accident had been much talked about, the sight of her caused
very manifest delight, and some of the old women of the village blessed
her sweet face as she passed.
While they were walking about, I noticed the schoolmaster in earnest
conversation with the young girl that represented the Queen of May,
evidently endeavouring to spirit her up to some formidable undertaking.
At length, as the party from the Hall approached her bower, she came
forth, faltering at every step, until she reached the spot where the
fair Julia stood between her lover and Lady Lillycraft. The little Queen
then took the chaplet of flowers from her head, and attempted to put it
on that of the bride elect; but the confusion of both was so great, that
the wreath would have fallen to the ground had not the officer caught
it, and, laughing, placed it upon the blushing brows of his mistress.
There was something charming in the very embarrassment of these two
young creatures, both so beautiful, yet so different in their kinds of
beauty. Master Simon told me, afterwards, that the Queen of May was to
have spoken a few verses which the schoolmaster had written for her; but
that she had neither wit to understand, nor memory to recollect them.
"Besides," added he, "between you and I, she murders the king's English
abominably; so she has acted the part of a wise woman in holding her
tongue, and trusting to her pretty face."
[Illustration: May Queen and Bride-Elect]
Among the other characters from the Hall was Mrs. Hannah, my Lady
Lillycraft's gentlewoman: to my surprise she was escorted by old Christy
the huntsman, and followed by his ghost of a greyhound; but I find they
are very old acquaintances, being drawn together from some sympathy of
disposition. Mrs. Hannah moved about with starched dignity among the
rustics, who drew back from her with more awe than they did from her
mistress. Her mouth seemed shut as with a clasp; excepting that I now
and then heard the word "fellows!" escape from between her lips, as she
got accidentally jostled in the crowd.
But there was one other heart present that did not enter into the
merriment of the scene, which was that of the simple Phoebe Wilkins, the
housekeeper's niece. The poor girl has continued to pine and whine for
some time past, in consequence of the obstinate coldness of her lover;
never was a little flirtation more severely punished. She appeared this
day on the green, gallanted by a smart servant out of livery, and had
evidently resolved to try the hazardous experiment of awakening the
jealousy of her lover. She was dressed in her very best; affected an air
of great gaiety: talked loud and girlishly, and laughed when there was
nothing to laugh at. There was, however, an aching, heavy heart, in the
poor baggage's bosom, in spite of all her levity. Her eye turned every
now and then in quest of her reckless lover, and her cheek grew pale,
and her fictitious gaiety vanished, on seeing him paying his rustic
homage to the little May-day Queen.
My attention was now diverted by a fresh stir and bustle. Music was
heard from a distance; a banner was seen advancing up the road, preceded
by a rustic band playing something like a march, and followed by a
sturdy throng of country lads, the chivalry of a neighbouring and
rival village.
[Illustration: May-Day Melée]
No sooner had they reached the green than they challenged the heroes of
the day to new trials of strength and activity. Several gymnastic
contests ensued for the honour of the respective villages. In the course
of these exercises, young Tibbets and the champion of the adverse party
had an obstinate match at wrestling. They tugged, and strained, and
panted, without either getting the mastery, until both came to the
ground, and rolled upon the green. Just then the disconsolate Phoebe
came by. She saw her recreant lover in fierce contest, as she thought,
and in danger. In a moment pride, pique, and coquetry were forgotten;
she rushed into the ring, seized upon the rival champion by the hair,
and was on the point of wreaking on him her puny vengeance, when a
buxom, strapping, country lass, the sweetheart of the prostrate swain,
pounced upon her like a hawk, and would have stripped her of her fine
plumage in a twinkling, had she also not been seized in her turn.
A complete tumult ensued. The chivalry of the two villages became
embroiled. Blows began to be dealt, and sticks to be flourished. Phoebe
was carried off from the field in hysterics. In vain did the sages of
the village interfere. The sententious apothecary endeavoured to pour
the soothing oil of his philosophy upon this tempestuous sea of passion,
but was tumbled into the dust. Slingsby, the pedagogue, who is a great
lover of peace, went into the middle of the throng, as marshal of the
day, to put an end to the commotion, but was rent in twain, and came out
with his garment hanging in two strips from his shoulders; upon which
the prodigal son dashed in with fury to revenge the insult which his
patron had sustained. The tumult thickened; I caught glimpses of the
jockey-cap of old Christy, like the helmet of a chieftain, bobbing about
in the midst of the scuffle; while Mrs. Hannah, separated from her
doughty protector, was squalling and striking at right and left with a
faded parasol; being tossed and tousled about by the crowd in such wise
as never happened to maiden gentlewoman before.
At length I beheld old Ready-Money Jack making his way into the very
thickest of the throng; tearing it, as it were, apart, and enforcing
peace _vi et armis_. It was surprising to see the sudden quiet that
ensued. The storm settled down at once into tranquillity. The parties,
having no real grounds of hostility, were readily pacified, and in fact
were a little at a loss to know why and how they had got by the ears.
Slingsby was speedily stitched together again by his friend the tailor,
and resumed his usual good humour. Mrs. Hannah drew on one side to plume
her rumpled feathers; and old Christy, having repaired his damages, took
her under his arm, and they swept back again to the Hall, ten times
more bitter against mankind than ever.
[Illustration: Rumpled Feathers]
The Tibbets family alone seemed slow in recovering from the agitation of
the scene. Young Jack was evidently very much moved by the heroism of
the unlucky Phoebe. His mother, who had been summoned to the field of
action by news of the affray, was in a sad panic, and had need of all
her management to keep him from following his mistress, and coming to a
perfect reconciliation.
What heightened the alarm and perplexity of the good managing dame was,
that the matter had roused the slow apprehension of old Ready-Money
himself; who was very much struck by the intrepid interference of so
pretty and delicate a girl, and was sadly puzzled to understand the
meaning 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 fête 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. As it
drew near, we perceived Ready-Money Jack Tibbets striding along,
wielding his cudgel in one hand, and with the other grasping the collar
of a tall fellow, whom, on still nearer approach, we recognised for the
redoubtable gipsy hero, Starlight Tom. He was now, however, completely
cowed and crestfallen, and his courage seemed to have quailed in the
iron gripe of the lion-hearted Jack.
The whole gang of gipsy women and children came draggling in the rear;
some in tears, others making a violent clamour about the ears of old
Ready-Money, who, however, trudged on in silence with his prey, heeding
their abuse as little as a hawk that has pounced upon a barn-door hero
regards the outcries and cacklings of his whole feathered seraglio.
He had passed through the village on his way to the Hall, and of course
had made a great sensation in that most excitable place, where every
event is a matter of gaze and gossip. The report flew like wildfire that
Starlight Tom was in custody. The ale-drinkers forthwith abandoned the
tap-room; Slingsby's school broke loose, and master and boys swelled the
tide that came rolling at the heels of old Ready-Money and his captive.
The uproar increased as they approached the Hall; it aroused the whole
garrison of dogs, and the crew of hangers-on. The great mastiff barked
from the dog-house; the staghound, and the greyhound, and the spaniel,
issued barking from the Hall door, and my Lady Lillycraft's little dogs
ramped and barked from the parlour window. I remarked, however, that the
gipsy dogs made no reply to all these menaces and insults, but crept
close to the gang, looking round with a guilty, poaching air, and now
and then glancing up a dubious eye to their owners; which shows that the
moral dignity, even of dogs, may be ruined by bad company!
[Illustration: Conscience Makes Cowards of the Dogs]
When the throng reached the front of the house, they were brought to a
halt by a kind of advanced guard, composed of old Christy, the
gamekeeper, and two or three servants of the house, who had been brought
out by the noise. The common herd of the village fell back with
respect; the boys were driven back by Christy and his compeers; while
Ready-Money Jack maintained his ground and his hold of the prisoner, and
was surrounded by the tailor, the schoolmaster, and several other
dignitaries of the village, and by the clamorous brood of gipsies, who
were neither to be silenced nor intimidated.
By this time the whole household were brought to the doors and windows,
and the squire to the portal. An audience was demanded by Ready-Money
Jack, who had detected the prisoner in the very act of sheep-stealing on
his domains, and had borne him off to be examined before the squire, who
is in the commission of the peace.
A kind of tribunal was immediately held in the servants' hall, a large
chamber with a stone floor and a long table in the centre, at one end of
which, just under an enormous clock, was placed the squire's chair of
justice, while Master Simon took his place at the table as clerk of the
court. An attempt had been made by old Christy to keep out the gipsy
gang, but in vain; and they, with the village worthies, and the
household, half filled the hall. The old housekeeper and the butler were
in a panic at this dangerous irruption. They hurried away all the
valuable things and portable articles that were at hand, and even kept a
dragon watch on the gipsies, lest they should carry off the house clock
or the deal table.
[Illustration: The Tribunal]
Old Christy, and his faithful coadjutor, the gamekeeper, acted as
constables to guard the prisoner, triumphing in having at last got this
terrible offender in their clutches. Indeed I am inclined to think the
old man bore some peevish recollection of having been handled rather
roughly by the gipsy in the chance-medley affair of May-day.
Silence was now commanded by Master Simon; but it was difficult to be
enforced in such a motley assemblage. There was a continued snarling and
yelping of dogs, and, as fast as it was quelled in one corner, it broke
out in another. The poor gipsy curs, who, like errant thieves, could not
hold up their heads in an honest house, were worried and insulted by the
gentleman dogs of the establishment, without offering to make
resistance; the very curs of my Lady Lillycraft bullied them with
impunity.
The examination was conducted with great mildness and indulgence by the
squire, partly from the kindness of his nature, and partly, I suspect,
because his heart yearned towards the culprit, who had found great
favour in his eyes, as I have already observed, from the skill he had at
various times displayed in archery, morris-dancing, and other obsolete
accomplishments. Proofs, however, were too strong. Ready-Money Jack told
his story in a straightforward independent way, nothing daunted by the
presence in which he found himself. He had suffered from various
depredations on his sheep-fold and poultry-yard, and had at length kept
watch, and caught the delinquent in the very act of making off with a
sheep on his shoulders.
Tibbets was repeatedly interrupted, in the course of his testimony, by
the culprit's mother, a furious old beldame, with an insufferable
tongue, and who, in fact, was several times kept, with some difficulty,
from flying at him tooth and nail. The wife, too, of the prisoner, whom
I am told he does not beat above half a dozen times a week, completely
interested Lady Lillycraft in her husband's behalf, by her tears and
supplications; and several of the other gipsy women were awakening
strong sympathy among the young girls and maid-servants in the
background. The pretty, black-eyed gipsy girl, whom I have mentioned on
a former occasion as the sibyl that read the fortunes of the general,
endeavoured to wheedle that doughty warrior into their interests, and
even made some approaches to her old acquaintance, Master Simon; but was
repelled by the latter with all the dignity of office, having assumed a
look of gravity and importance suitable to the occasion.
I was a little surprised, at first, to find honest Slingsby, the
schoolmaster, rather opposed to his old crony Tibbets, and coming
forwards as a kind of advocate for the accused. It seems that he had
taken compassion on the forlorn fortunes of Starlight Tom, and had been
trying his eloquence in his favour the whole way from the village, but
without effect. During the examination of Ready-Money Jack, Slingsby had
stood like "dejected Pity at his side," seeking every now and then, by a
soft word, to soothe any exacerbation of his ire, or to qualify any
harsh expression. He now ventured to make a few observations to the
squire in palliation of the delinquent's offence; but poor Slingsby
spoke more from the heart than the head, and was evidently actuated
merely by a general sympathy for every poor devil in trouble, and a
liberal toleration for all kinds of vagabond existence.
The ladies, too, large and small, with the kindheartedness of their sex,
were zealous on the side of mercy, and interceded strenuously with the
squire; insomuch that the prisoner, finding himself unexpectedly
surrounded by active friends, once more reared his crest, and seemed
disposed for a time to put on the air of injured innocence. The squire,
however, with all his benevolence of heart, and his lurking weakness
towards the prisoner, was too conscientious to swerve from the strict
path of justice. There was abundant concurrent testimony that made the
proof of guilt incontrovertible, and Starlight Tom's mittimus was made
out accordingly.
The sympathy of the ladies was now greater than ever; they even made
some attempts to mollify the ire of Ready-Money Jack; but that sturdy
potentate had been too much incensed by the repeated incursions that had
been made into his territories by the predatory band of Starlight Tom,
and he was resolved, he said, to drive the "varmint reptiles" out of the
neighbourhood. To avoid all further importunities, as soon as the
mittimus was made out, he girded up his loins, and strode back to his
seat of empire, accompanied by his interceding friend, Slingsby, and
followed by a detachment of the gipsy gang, who hung on his rear,
assailing him with mingled prayers and execrations.
The question now was, how to dispose of the prisoner; a matter of great
moment in this peaceful establishment, where so formidable a character
as Starlight Tom was like a hawk entrapped in a dovecot. As the hubbub
and examination had occupied a considerable time, it was too late in the
day to send him to the county prison, and that of the village was sadly
out of repair from long want of occupation. Old Christy, who took great
interest in the affair, proposed that the culprit should be committed
for the night to an upper loft of a kind of tower in one of the
out-houses, where he and the gamekeeper would mount guard. After much
deliberation this measure was adopted; the premises in question were
examined and made secure, and Christy and his trusty ally, the one armed
with a fowling-piece, the other with an ancient blunderbuss, turned out
as sentries to keep watch over this donjon-keep.
[Illustration: The Guard]
Such is the momentous affair that has just taken place, and it is an
event of too great moment in this quiet little world not to turn it
completely topsy-turvy. Labour is at a stand. The house has been a
scene of confusion the whole evening. It has been beleaguered by gipsy
women, with their children on their backs, wailing and lamenting; while
the old virago of a mother has cruised up and down the lawn in front,
shaking her head and muttering to herself, or now and then breaking out
into a paroxysm of rage, brandishing her fist at the Hall, and
denouncing ill-luck upon Ready-Money Jack, and even upon the squire
himself.
Lady Lillycraft has given repeated audiences to the culprit's weeping
wife, at the Hall door; and the servant-maids have stolen out to confer
with the gipsy women under the trees. As to the little ladies of the
family, they are all outrageous at Ready-Money Jack, whom they look upon
in the light of a tyrannical giant of fairy tale. Phoebe Wilkins,
contrary to her usual nature, is the only one that is pitiless in the
affair. She thinks Mr. Tibbets quite in the right; and thinks the
gipsies deserve to be punished severely for meddling with the sheep of
the Tibbetses.
In the meantime the females of the family have evinced all the
provident kindness of the sex, ever ready to soothe and succour the
distressed, right or wrong. Lady Lillycraft has had a mattress taken to
the out-house, and comforts and delicacies of all kinds have been taken
to the prisoner; even the little girls have sent their cakes and
sweet-meats; so that, I'll warrant, the vagabond has never fared so well
in his life before. Old Christy, it is true, looks upon everything with
a wary eye; struts about with his blunderbuss with the air of a veteran
campaigner, and will hardly allow himself to be spoken to. The gipsy
women dare not come within gunshot, and every tatterdemallion of a boy
has been frightened from the park. The old fellow is determined to lodge
Starlight Tom in prison with his own hands; and hopes, he says, to see
one of the poaching crew made an example of.
I doubt, after all, whether the worthy squire is not the greatest
sufferer in the whole affair. His honourable sense of duty obliges him
to be rigid, but the overflowing kindness of his nature makes this a
grievous trial to him.
He is not accustomed to have such demands upon his justice in his truly
patriarchal domain; and it wounds his benevolent spirit, that, while
prosperity and happiness are flowing in thus bounteously upon him, he
should have to inflict misery upon a fellow-being.
He has been troubled and cast down the whole evening: took leave of the
family, on going to bed, with a sigh, instead of his usual hearty and
affectionate tone, and will, in all probability, have a far more
sleepless night than his prisoner. Indeed this unlucky affair has cast a
damp upon the whole household, as there appears to be an universal
opinion that the unlucky culprit will come to the gallows.
Morning.--The clouds of last evening are all blown over. A load has been
taken from the squire's heart, and every face is once more in smiles.
The gamekeeper made his appearance at an early hour, completely
shamefaced and crestfallen. Starlight Tom had made his escape in the
night; how he had got out of the loft no one could tell; the devil, they
think, must have assisted him. Old Christy was so mortified that he
would not show his face, but had shut himself up in his stronghold at
the dog-kennel, and would not be spoken with. What has particularly
relieved the squire is, that there is very little likelihood of the
culprit's being retaken, having gone off on one of the old gentleman's
best hunters.
[Illustration: Tailpiece]
[Illustration: A Solemn Consultation]
LOVERS' TROUBLES.
The poor soul sat singing by a sycamore tree,
Sing all a green willow;
Her hand on her bosom, her head on her knee,
Sing willow, willow, willow;
Sing all a green willow must be my garland.
OLD SONG.
The fair Julia having nearly recovered from the effects of her hawking
disaster, it begins to be thought high time to appoint a day for the
wedding. As every domestic event in a venerable and aristocratic family
connection like this is a matter of moment, the fixing upon this
important day has, of course, given rise to much conference and debate.
Some slight difficulties and demurs have lately sprung up, originating
in the peculiar humours that are prevalent at the Hall. Thus, I have
overheard a very solemn consultation between Lady Lillycraft, the
parson, and Master Simon, as to whether the marriage ought not to be
postponed until the coming month.
With all the charms of the flowery month of May, there is, I find, an
ancient prejudice against it as a marrying month. An old proverb says,
"To wed in May, is to wed poverty." Now, as Lady Lillycraft is very much
given to believe in lucky and unlucky times and seasons, and indeed is
very superstitious on all points relating to the tender passion, this
old proverb seems to have taken great hold upon her mind. She recollects
two or three instances in her own knowledge of matches that took place
in this month, and proved very unfortunate. Indeed, an own cousin of
hers, who married on a May-day, lost her husband by a fall from his
horse, after they had lived happily together for twenty years.