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He, like the others, wore a white smock decked with sundry ribands, and a top-hat that must have belonged to his grandfather. Its antiquity of form and texture contrasted strangely with the freshness of the garland of paper roses that wreathed it. I was told that the wife or sweetheart of every Morris-dancer takes special pains to deck her man out more gaily than his fellows.
I would thou hadst known one Phil Hazeldine of these parts He was the best morris-dancer betwixt Oxford and Burford." "Well," replied the keeper, "you are out of breath in time; for here we stand before the famous Maypole of Woodstock."
On this the Homerists set up a shout, and a young boiled heifer with an helmet on her head, was handed in upon a mighty charger: Ajax followed, and with a drawn sword, as if he were mad, made at it, now in one place, then in another, still acting a Morris-dancer; till having cut it into joints, he took them upon the point of his sword, and distributed them.
"What profane mummery is this?" said the Prior. "Friend, if thou be'st indeed of the church, it were a better deed to show me how I may escape from these men's hands, than to stand ducking and grinning here like a morris-dancer." "Truly, reverend father," said the Friar, "I know but one mode in which thou mayst escape. This is Saint Andrew's day with us, we are taking our tithes."
It is said that the Squire winks hard at his misdeeds, having an indulgent feeling towards the vagabond, because of his being very expert at all kinds of games, a great shot with the cross-bow, and the best morris-dancer in the country. The Squire also suffers the gang to lurk unmolested about the skirts of his estate, on condition that they do not come about the house.
After the hobby-horse came the May-pole, not the tall pole so called and which was already planted in the green, but a stout staff elevated some six feet above the head of the bearer, with a coronal of flowers atop, and four long garlands hanging down, each held by a morris-dancer.
John Thorndrake, another professional Morris-dancer, was not so brilliant a personage as poor Kemp; but was of tougher fibre, it would seem. He died in his native town, Canterbury, at the age of seventy-eight; and had danced never less than a mile, seldom less than five miles every day, except Sunday, for sixty years.
"Make a face, Phil," cried the knight; "I would rather see a grin than hear your ballad." "Jump, Phil," said Hasket of Norland, applying his fork to Phil's leg as he passed, "you are a better morris-dancer than a poet." Phil, who was imperturbably good-natured, did as he was told.
"Cross-patch, draw the latch, Sit by the fire and spin yarns!" chanted Alicia. "Go away, you pink-and-white delusion!" said The Author, severely. "You have made Scholarship and Wisdom put on cap and bells and prance like a morris-dancer. Isn't that mischief enough for one day?" Alicia has a round, snow-white chin, and when she tilts it the curve of her throat is distracting.
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