"Well," said Coulter, "we shall talk further of it anon; meantime see the dancing is over, and the indoors diversions are beginning. I am for old Hathaway's orchard and the cider revel."
"And I am for goodman Thorne's," said another; and so the party separated.
The shadows of a January's evening were now beginning to descend over the surrounding scene, and the several parties to retire to their different homesteads, there to continue their twelfth-tide diversions, and to partake of such fare as the good wives had prepared for the swains accompanying their daughters home.
Young Shakespeare, who had made acquaintance with Ralph Coulter, accordingly accompanied him to the cottage of Master Hathaway, where he again met with the handsome Anne, and renewed his acquaintance with her.
The maiden indeed seemed nothing loth to receive his attention, for his handsome figure and gallant conduct had already made some impression upon her.
According to an ancient custom in this and other counties of "Merrie England," Master Hathaway assembled his guests in the principal apartment of his domicile, a good-sized and comfortable-looking room, and which (as was usual in those days) served the jolly yeoman for "parlour, and kitchen, and hall." There was the huge gaping chimney, with its comfortable bench on either hand, together with those stout timbered rafters and oaken beams at the roof, from which hung such store of bacon and other good things appertaining. There was the diamond-paned-window and its seat beneath, with the stout timbered doors, the high-backed chairs, and the one massive and cumbrous oaken table, and which seemed from its thick supporters to be fixed into the floor, or growing out of it; and there sat the grandsire in his old accustomed seat under the chimney, "sans eyes, sans taste, sans teeth, sans everything," yet looking with some sort of recognition upon the sports he had witnessed, man and boy, for near a century in that very room. In short, it was a perfect picture of rural comfort and old world contentment that kitchen and its appurtenances, filled as it was with those happy, smiling, and rosy maidens, and their stout-limbed ruddy village swains.
As soon as Master Hathaway had assembled his guests and family, he filled a huge pitcher with cider, and the whole party, young and old, male and female, filed out into the orchard in rear of the cottage. Here they immediately took hands around one of the best apple trees, and dancing round it, the whole company hailed the veteran in the following doggrel, in the gladsome feeling of their light hearts, flinging and capering, shouting and hallooing, like so many bacchanals.
"All hail to thee, thou old apple-tree,
Whence thou may'st bud, and whence thou may'st blow,
And whence thou may'st bear apples enow.
Bonnets-full! caps-full!
Bushel-bushel-sacks-full,
And our pockets-full eke also;
Here's for thee, thou old apple-tree, huzza! huzza!"
Whilst this was being sung, the females of the party, seizing the opportunity of the jug passing round, made their escape within doors; and then the joint intended for supper being clapped upon the spit, the doors were all immediately made fast. Meantime Master Hathaway, having finished his "all hail" to the patriarch of the apple family, bestowed a libation on its mossed stem from the remains of the cider, and then, at the head of his party, made the tour of his orchard, singing the same exquisite piece of doggrel over again.
This done, as the sharp and biting blast of a January night began to be apparent, and the snow to fall, the whole of the men assembled filed off to the house. Here (according to the custom of the time and the sport toward) the doors were found to have been secured by the female portions of the revellers; and they were put through the ceremony of a formal demand for admittance, and as formal a denial.