CHAPTER I.


Merry was the month of May in the year of our Lord 1052. Few were the
boys, and few the lasses, who overslept themselves on the first of
that buxom month. Long ere the dawn, the crowds had sought mead and
woodland, to cut poles and wreathe flowers. Many a mead then lay fair
and green beyond the village of Charing, and behind the isle of
Thorney, (amidst the brakes and briars of which were then rising fast
and fair the Hall and Abbey of Westminster;) many a wood lay dark in
the starlight, along the higher ground that sloped from the dank
Strand, with its numerous canals or dykes;--and on either side of the
great road into Kent:--flutes and horns sounded far and near through
the green places, and laughter and song, and the crash of breaking
boughs.

As the dawn came grey up the east, arch and blooming faces bowed down
to bathe in the May dew. Patient oxen stood dozing by the hedge-rows,
all fragrant with blossoms, till the gay spoilers of the May came
forth from the woods with lusty poles, followed by girls with laps
full of flowers, which they had caught asleep. The poles were pranked
with nosegays, and a chaplet was hung round the horns of every ox.
Then towards daybreak, the processions streamed back into the city,
through all its gates; boys with their May-gads (peeled willow wands
twined with cowslips) going before; and clear through the lively din
of the horns and flutes, and amidst the moving grove of branches,