This mention of the May-pole struck my attention, and I inquired
whether the old customs connected with it were really kept up in this
part of the country. The Squire shook his head mournfully; and I found
I had touched on one of his tender points, for he grew quite
melancholy in bewailing the total decline of old May-day. Though it is
regularly celebrated in the neighbouring village, yet it has been
merely resuscitated by the worthy Squire, and is kept up in a forced
state of existence at his expense. He meets with continual
discouragements; and finds great difficulty in getting the country
bumpkins to play their parts tolerably. He manages to have every year
a "Queen of the May;" but as to Robin Hood, Friar Tuck, the Dragon,
the Hobby-Horse, and all the other motley crew that used to enliven
the day with their mummery, he has not ventured to introduce them.
Still I looked forward with some interest to the promised shadow of
old May-day, even though it be but a shadow; and I feel more and more
pleased with the whimsical yet harmless hobby of my host, which is
surrounding him with agreeable associations, and making a little world
of poetry about him. Brought up, as I have been, in a new country, I
may appreciate too highly the faint vestiges of ancient customs which
I now and then meet with, and the interest I express in them may
provoke a smile from those who are negligently suffering them to pass
away.
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