And early next day the long-parted twins set off homeward together.
CHAPTER XXX
A Village Festival
“Dickon, take that long body of thine out of the way, and let us pass! Think’st thou, Long-shanks, we have need of a Maypole in September?”
“Stint thy prate, Master Lack-beard. Think’st thou we need a new clapper to our church bell, that thou set’st thy twopenny clapper wagging so?”
“Ha, pretty Gillian! ever sweet and blooming as a rose!”
“As a tuft of marsh-grass, thou mean’st, Gaffer Thickset, else would not a fat goose admire me thus.”
“How now, Hal? What, man, thou art gay as a courtier whose tailor hath given him long credit! With all these bright ribbons and gauds on thee, thou’lt dazzle our eyes!”
“If thine be dazzled, Gaffer Green, it is with looking at thine own foolish face in a duck-pond, or mayhap with a pot of strong ale drained at another man’s cost.”
These and other scraps of rough wit flew thick and fast amid the crowd gathered on the village green of the little hamlet of Deerham, which, as usual, had grown up under the protection of the great feudal castle held by the lord of the manor himself.
A gay and goodly picture was that blithe crowd of merry-makers in the bright autumn sunshine—one of those pictures that half redeemed the gloom of that iron age, and made many who ought to have known better mistake the so-called “good old times” for an age of gold, instead of a riot of useless bloodshed, reckless waste, cruel oppression, brutal ignorance, and grinding misery.