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 daughter
of the innkeeper; but he had been too strongly backed not to carry his
point, though it shows that these rural crowns, like all others, are
objects of great ambition and heart-burning.
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