CHAPTER V

_MAY_

The May-pole--The dances--Bess's dress--Burbidge's fears for his garden--Old Master Theobalds is taken ill--He revives, thanks to Auguste's broth--A talk of old days--Wakes and Wishing Wells--Grinning through a horse-collar, a rustic accomplishment in the past--A walk to the Wrekin to drink out of the bird-bowls--Susie Langford--Cock-fighting at Wenlock and elsewhere--Old customs and sinful practices--Traditions about winners of the ring--Tom Moody--His pet horse "Old Soul"--Tom's wild drives and leaps--How Tom was once found in a bog--Tom and the Squire--Tom's funeral--View-holloa over the grave--An afternoon in the ruined church--The story of St. Milburgha as told by William of Malmesbury--Words about the monasteries from many sources--The pity of the wreckage and destruction of so much that was beautiful in the Reformation--Thady brings me a "Jack Squealer"--I am taken off bird-nesting--I am shown the nest of a redstart, that of a black ouzel, and one of a Jack Smut (black cap) on a bramble--A beautiful night in the ruins--Narcissi in blossom like a mist of stars at my feet--I think of all who have passed through the cloisters--The end of the Abbey Church, a quarry for road-mending and for the building of pigsties and cottages--My late tulips--A long walk in the early morning--Beauty of the early hours of the day--The country in full splendour--Oak Apple Day--Little boys going to school with the badge of Stuart loyalty in their caps--The chevy--I pluck a bunch of anemones--Poor Bess in disgrace--High words between Célestine and Mrs. Langdale--How pleasant life would be without its worries--Silence in dogs one of their chief charms and merits 189