. . .the happy children rolling and tumbling and racing down the steep bank, from which they now scrambled away, to make room for the franklin’s party, and for the elders of the village, who, from this grassy knoll, were wont to preside over the pastimes of this holyday. We give not this scene in detail:—the dances of the young, as, with light and elastic steps, they bounded to lively measures round the May-pole, and the nodding heads of the[Pg 51] musicians keeping time with the dancers, and the races and gambols of the ruddy children, each reader may figure forth to his own fancy. Neither tell we of the pretty ceremonies with which the milk maids brought their cows, with horns all garlanded, into the adjoining close, and prepared and offered the delicious syllabub: our aim is only to give an outline of a village May-day of the times of which we write, and to show the good parson of the best school of that period mingling in mirth among his people. Leaving, theref. . . Read More