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It really was Melyukovka, and maids and footmen with merry faces came running, out to the porch carrying candles. "Who is it?" asked someone in the porch. "The mummers from the count's. I know by the horses," replied some voices.
The ladies and gentlemen of Drury Lane posted away from Oxford in a blaze of glory. They had actually behaved themselves, these despised mummers, and their contribution towards the repairing of a church was almost sufficient to bring them within the pale of holiness.
"He will bring the devil among us, I trow," cried Dick Taverner. "'Tis to be hoped he will not split the May-pole with a thunderbolt," said the miller. "Nor spoil our Whitsun-ales," cried old Greenford. "Nor lame our Hobby-horse," said one of the mummers. "Nor rob me of my wreath and garlands," said Gillian. "That he shall not, I promise you, fair May Queen!" Dick Tavernor rejoined, gallantly.
And just as I had watched the chorus girls and mummers, three years ago, at the Globe Theatre, now, excited by a nervous curiosity, I watched this world of Parisian adventurers and lights o' love.
May not he and she, as King and Queen of the Wood, have been serious counterparts of the merry mummers who play the King and Queen of May, the Whitsuntide Bridegroom and Bride in modern Europe? and may not their union have been yearly celebrated in a theogamy or divine marriage?
They were planning that Henry Sydney should be appointed Lord of Misrule, or ordained Abbot of Unreason at the least, so successful had been his revival of the Mummers, the Hobby-horse not forgotten.
The guests went in and sat down as they were bidden, and over the choice meats and good wine, drunk to the full, they parted from their weariness. Friends and strangers were entreated with equal honour. Albeit they ceased not from tilting all the day, the mummers and the minstrels took no rest, but sang for gold and got it; wherefore they praised the land of Siegmund.
One, when only four years old, was given to Sir Isaac Newton to make a stand for his telescope, and another seems to have had a narrow escape from being handed over to a less celebrated astronomer, some years later. The May-day morris-dancers, like the Christmas mummers, performed sword-dances and sang appropriate doggerels in costume.
The weeping blood in woman's breast Was never known to thee; Nor the balm that drops on wounds of woe From woman's pitying e'e. Burns. A large portion of the curious followed the disconcerted mummers from the square, while others hastened to break their fasts at the several places selected for this important feature in the business of the day.
It seemed to him a great pity that actors should be taught to read and write: they should learn their pieces from the lips of the poet. "Just as work is the curse of the drinking classes of this country," he said laughing, "so education is the curse of the acting classes." Yet even when making fun of the mummers there was a new tone in him of arrogance and disdain.
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