or festival of the patron saint, and have been held on the same day in
every year since that time.

There was no longer any remembrance of why the "veast" had been
instituted, but nevertheless it had a pleasant and almost sacred
character of its own; for it was then that all the children of the
village, wherever they were scattered, tried to get home for a holiday
to visit their fathers and mothers and friends, bringing with them their
wages or some little gift from up the country for the old folk. Perhaps
for a day or two before, but at any rate on "veast day" and the day
after, in our village, you might see strapping, healthy young men and
women from all parts of the country going round from house to house in
their best clothes, and finishing up with a call on Madam Brown,
whom they would consult as to putting out their earnings to the best
advantage, or how best to expend the same for the benefit of the old
folk. Every household, however poor, managed to raise a "feast-cake"
and a bottle of ginger or raisin wine, which stood on the cottage table
ready for all comers, and not unlikely to make them remember feast-time,
for feast-cake is very solid, and full of huge raisins. Moreover,
feast-time was the day of reconciliation for the parish. If Job Higgins
and Noah Freeman hadn't spoken for the last six months, their "old
women" would be sure to get it patched up by that day. And though there
was a good deal of drinking and low vice in the booths of an evening,
it was pretty well confined to those who would have been doing the like,
"veast or no veast;" and on the whole, the effect was humanising and
Christian. In fact, the only reason why this is not the case still is
that gentlefolk and farmers have taken to other amusements, and have, as
usual, forgotten the poor. They don't attend the feasts themselves, and
call them disreputable; whereupon the steadiest of the poor leave them
also, and they become what they are called. Class amusements, be