rested; ceorl and theowe had alike a holiday to dance, and tumble
round the May-pole; and thus, on the first of May--Youth, and Mirth,
and Music, "brought the summer home."

The next day you might still see where the buxom bands had been; you
might track their way by fallen flowers, and green leaves, and the
deep ruts made by oxen (yoked often in teams from twenty to forty, in
the wains that carried home the poles); and fair and frequent
throughout the land, from any eminence, you might behold the hamlet
swards still crowned with the May trees, and air still seemed fragrant
with their garlands.

It is on that second day of May, 1052, that my story opens, at the
House of Hilda, the reputed Morthwyrtha. It stood upon a gentle and
verdant height; and, even through all the barbarous mutilation it had
undergone from barbarian hands, enough was left strikingly to contrast
the ordinary abodes of the Saxon.

The remains of Roman art were indeed still numerous throughout
England, but it happened rarely that the Saxon had chosen his home
amidst the villas of those noble and primal conquerors. Our first
forefathers were more inclined to destroy than to adapt.

By what chance this building became an exception to the ordinary rule,
it is now impossible to conjecture, but from a very remote period it
had sheltered successive races of Teuton lords.

The changes wrought in the edifice were mournful and grotesque. What
was now the Hall, had evidently been the atrium; the round shield,
with its pointed boss, the spear, sword, and small curved saex of the