In the level meadow, around a Maypole gay with garlands and with fluttering ribbons, the grass had been closely mown, for there were to be foot-races and wrestling bouts for the amusement of the guests.  Beneath a spreading tree a dozen fiddlers put their instruments in tune, while behind the open windows of a small, ruinous house, dwelt in by the sexton, a rustic choir was trying over “The Beggar’s Daughter of Bednall Green.”  Young men and maidens of the meaner sort, drawn from the surrounding country, from small plantation, store and ordinary, mill and ferry, clad in their holiday best and prone to laughter, strayed here and there, or, walking up and down the river bank, where it commanded a view of both the landing and the road, watched for the coming of the gentlefolk.  Children, too, were not lacking, but rolled amidst the buttercups or caught at the ribbons flying from the Maypole, while aged folk sat in the sun, and a procession of wide-lipped negroes, carrying benches and chairs, advanced to the shaven green and put the seats in order about the sylvan stage.  It was but nine of the clock, and the shadow of the Maypole was long upon the grass.  Along the slightly rising ground behind the meadow stretched an apple orchard in full bloom, and between that line of rose and snow and the lapping of the tide upon the yellow sands lay, for the length of a spring day, the kingdom of all content.

The shadow of the Maypole was not much shrunken when the guests of the house of Jaquelin began to arrive.  First to come, and from farthest away, was Mr. Richard Ambler, of Yorktown, who had ridden from that place to Williamsburgh the afternoon before, and had that morning used the planter’s pace to Jamestown,—­his industry being due to the fact that he was courting the May Queen’s elder sister.  Following him came five Lees in a chariot, then a delegation of Burwells, then two Digges in a chaise.  A Bland and a Bassett and a Randolph came on horseback, while a barge brought up river a bevy of blooming Carters, a white-sailed sloop from Warwick landed a dozen Carys, great and small, and two periaguas, filled with Harrisons, Aliens, and Cockes, shot over from the Surrey shore.

From a stand at one end of the grassy stage, trumpet and drum proclaimed that the company had gathered beneath the sycamores before the house, and was about to enter the meadow.  Shrill-voiced mothers warned their children from the Maypole, the fiddlers ceased their twanging, and Pretty Bessee, her name cut in twain, died upon the air.  The throng of humble folk—­largely made up of contestants for the prizes of the day, and of their friends and kindred—­scurried to its appointed place, and with the issuing from the house gates of the May Queen and her court the festivities commenced.

An hour later, in the midst of a bout at quarterstaff between the Jamestown blacksmith and the miller from Princess Creek, a coach and four, accompanied by a horseman, crossed the neck, rolled through the street, and, entering the meadow, drew up a hundred feet from the ring of spectators.