Before reaching the village, I saw the May-pole towering above the cottages, with its gay garlands and streamers, and heard the sound of music.  I found that there had been booths set up near it, for the reception of company; and a bower of green branches and flowers for the Queen of May, a fresh, rosy-cheeked girl of the village.

A band of morris-dancers were capering on the green in their fantastic dresses, jingling with hawks’ bells, with a boy dressed up as Maid Marian, and the attendant fool rattling his box to collect contributions from the bystanders.  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 barmaid, 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.  I am told that Master Simon takes great interest, though in an underhand way, in the election of these May-Day Queens, and that the chaplet is generally secured for some rustic beauty that has found favour in his eyes.  In the course of the day there were various games of strength and agility on the green, at which a knot of village veterans presided, as judges of the lists.  Among those I perceived that Ready-Money Jack took the lead, looking with a learned and critical eye on the merits of the different candidates; and though he was very laconic, and sometimes merely expressed himself by a nod, yet it was evident that his opinions far outweighed those of the most loquacious.

[Illustration:  May-Day Queen]

Young Jack Tibbets was the hero of the day, and carried off most of the prizes, though in some of the feats of agility he was rivalled by the “prodigal son,” who appeared much in his element on this occasion; but his most formidable competitor was the notorious gipsy, the redoubtable “Starlight Tom.”  I was rejoiced at having an opportunity of seeing this “minion of the moon” in broad daylight.  I found him a tall, swarthy, good-looking fellow, with a lofty air, something like what I have seen in an Indian chieftain; and with a certain lounging, easy, and almost graceful carriage, which I have often remarked in beings of the lazzaroni order, that lead an idle, loitering life, and have a gentleman-like contempt of labour.