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In fact, in crossing the Trent one seems to step back into old times; and in the villages of Sherwood Forest we are in a black-letter region. The moss-green cottages, the lowly mansions of gray stone, the Gothic crosses at each end of the villages, and the tall Maypole in the centre, transport us in imagination to foregone centuries; everything has a quaint and antiquated air.
For the fortieth time that afternoon, it seemed to Ethel Brown Morton and her cousin, Ethel Blue, they untangled the hopelessly mixed garlands of the maypole and started the weavers once more to lacing and interlacing them properly. "Under, over; under, over," they directed, each girl escorting a small child in and out among the gay bands of pink and white which streamed from the top of the pole.
You went out with them, of course?" "No, I did not." "You appeared to be dressed on purpose." "Yes, but I could not go out alone; so many people were there. One is there now." Yeobright strained his eyes across the dark-green patch beyond the paling, and near the black form of the Maypole he discerned a shadowy figure, sauntering idly up and down. "Who is it?" he said. "Mr. Venn," said Thomasin.
Then having twined me round with wreaths of flowers till I thought of the maypole on Bungay Common, they rested from their labours, filled with admiration at their handiwork. Now the music sounded again and they gave me two lutes, one of which I must hold in either hand, and conducted me to the great hall of the palace.
These stories are like the simple but well-devised theme which a musician prepares as the basis of a whole composition: they show the several tendencies which underlie all the subsequent works. First, there are the scenes from New England history, "Endicott and the Red Cross," "The Maypole of Merry Mount," "The Gray Champion," the "Tales of the Province House."
And the old custom was for the young men to deck themselves out as Indian bucks and sweep down on the festivities around the Maypole on the town green, or at night to surprise the guests at a ball and force the gentlemen to pay down a shilling, and sometimes a crown apiece, and the host to give them a bowl of punch. Then came June.
The reader knows Lieutenant-General Schulenburg; stiff little military gentleman of grave years, nephew of the maypole EMERITA who is called Duchess of Kendal in England. "Had a horse shot under him at Malplaquet;" battlings and experiences enough, before and since. Has real sense, abundant real pedantry; a Prussian soldier every inch.
They looked up on my entrance, but refrained from saluting me, which, as I was plainly dressed, and much travel-stained, was excusable. By the fire, partaking of a coarse meal, sat a fourth man of so singular an appearance that I must needs describe him. He was of great height and extreme leanness, resembling a maypole rather than a man.
Since, therefore, I love you as my own life and desire to please you, tell me, I pray, what sort of a husband you would like, what kind of a man would suit your fancy? Will you have him a scholar or a dunce? a boy, or man in years? brown or fair or ruddy? tall as a maypole or short as a peg? small in the waist or round as an ox? Do you choose, and I am satisfied."
Varden chatted as an old friend with Barnaby's mother. He knew the Maypole story of the widow Rudge how her husband, employed at Chigwell, and his master had been murdered; and how her son, born upon the very day the deed was known, bore upon his wrist a smear of blood but half washed out. "Why, what's that?" said the locksmith suddenly. "Is that Barnaby tapping at the door?"
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