His thoughts, however, were soon diverted from Milverton, and from himself, by the entrance of his old gardener, to say the May-crown, which was kept in the summer-house, had been taken away, and that he had found a written paper on the shelf where it stood. This the old man handed to his master, saying he could not read it, but guessed it boded no good for the coming holyday, and that he had been gathering flowers to dress out the old May-pole to little purpose. George Juxon took the paper, upon which, in a stiff, quaint hand, were written these lines:--
"This head in a crown, and that without ears, Is the pleasure of prelates, of courtiers, and peers. Dance, revel, and sing, ye butterflies gay; The time is at hand you shall weep, fast, and pray. One holdeth the war-dogs, all ready to slip; Pleasure's cup shall be spilled, and dashed from the lip. To me is committed this message of woe: The tears of the proud ones unpitied shall flow."
He no sooner read it, than, quitting his supper, he went out into the village to ascertain if any copy of it had been left at any other place; and found, to his vexation, that one had been fastened to the May-pole, and had been taken down and read to half the people. Determined, however, that the customary sports should be neither hindered nor damped, he took home with him the village carpenter, set fairly to work, and in two hours, by the aid of lath, and pasteboard, and Dutch gilding, they finished off a crown far more splendid than the one stolen; and he wrote underneath it, with prompt good humour,--
"The preacher hath said it--For all things a time-- For fasting, for feasting, for dancing, for rhyme:-- No rhymes without reason shall hinder our pleasure; We'll crown the old May-pole, and tread the old measure."
This done, he again thought of Cuthbert's bed of suffering, and remembered him in his prayers. This little cross occurrence in his parish neither drove away his own sleep for a second nor delayed on the morrow the sports of his parishioners. Here, as in many other places, the popular and wise course of the minister preserved a good and happy understanding among the people. There is no social state more truly desirable than that of a well-ordered village population, where the miseries of the lane and the alley cannot reach; labour is performed in the open air; festivals are days of thanksgiving, danced through upon a green sward, to the nodding heads of merry musicians; and they see no crowns but such as are woven with roses for their May-queen, and know no sceptre but a white wand wreathed about with fragrant flowers.