During these wintery months, accordingly, there had been all the free, open-hearted hospitality of the day, displayed throughout the wide manors of Hawkshead, Coniston, and Yewdale, and in the neighboring demesnes of Rydal, and something more even than the wonted merriment and joviality of that sacred yet joyous season.

Many of the grand baronial families of the vicinity, attracted as much, perhaps, by the singular and romantic interest attaching to the great events, which had filled all the north country with the rumor of their fame as with the blast of a martial trumpet, as by the ties of caste and kindred, had visited the castle palace of Sir Yvo de Taillebois, almost in the guise of bridal guests; for the approaching nuptials of the fair Guendolen with Aradas the Brave were openly announced, although the ceremonial was deferred until the balmy days of spring-time, and the genial month of May. The Cliffords of Barden, the Howards, from Naworth and Carlisle, the Percy, from his already famous strength of Alnwick, the Scropes, the Umfravilles, the Nevilles, from their almost royal principality of Middleham on the Ure, had all in turn tasted the Christmas cheer, and shared the older sports of Yule, in the wild recesses of Kendale; had congratulated the young and noble victor on his double conquest, scarce knowing which was most to be envied, that of the felon knight in the black lists of Lancaster, or that of the soft ladye in the sweetest valley of the lone lake country.

But now, the wintery days had passed away, the snipe was heard drumming every where on vibrated pinions, as he soared and dived in mid-air over the deep morasses, in which he annually bred unmolested; the swallows had returned from their unknown pilgrimage to the spicy isles of ocean, or the central waters of untrodden Africa, and might be seen skimming with rapid wing, the blue mirror of Winandermere, and dimpling its surface in pursuit of their insect prey; the cuckoo had been heard in the birch-woods among the ghylls, and in the huge sycamores around the village garths; the heathcocks blew their clarion call of amorous defiance from every heath-clad knoll of the wide moorlands; the cushat had donned the iris hues which paint his swelling neck in the spring days of love and courtship; the meadows were alive with crocuses, brown-streaked and purple, white and golden; the snow-drops had raised their silvery bells, almost before the earth was clear of its winter covering; the primroses gemmed all the banks with their pale saffron blossoms, the air was redolent with the delicious perfume of the violets.

It was the eve of May, and as the sun was setting over the misty hills that keep guard over high Yewdale, amid a long and joyous train, dragged slowly by ten yoke of milk-white oxen, with nosegays on their horns, and branches of the fragrant May canopying their harness, escorted by troops of village girls, and stout hill shepherds, dancing along and caroling to the cadence of the pipe, the tabor, and the rebeck, the mighty Maypole was brought in triumph up the weary winding road to the green esplanade before the castle gates of Hawkshead; and there, before midnight, was swung into its place, crowned with garlands, and fluttering with gay streamers, and glad with the leafy garniture of Spring, "shrouds and stays holding it fast," holding it erect toward heaven, an emblem of that which never can, whatever fanatics and bigots may declare, be unacceptable on High, the innocent and pure rejoicings of humble loving hearts, forgetting toil and care, and casting away sorrow for one happy day, at least, the merriest and the maddest of the three hundred and sixty-five, which sum the checkered score of man's annual vicissitudes of labor and repose, brief merriment and lasting sorrow.

During the night deep silence and deep slumber fell like a shadow over keep and cottage, and not a sound disturbed the stillness of the vernal night, unless it were the quavering cry of some night-bird among the tufted woods, or the shrill bark of the hill fox from the mountain side, or the deep harmonious call "All's well," from the warder on the lofty battlements.

But long before the paly dawn had begun to throw its faint yellow glimmer up the eastern sky, while the moon was yet riding lustrous in the cloudless azure, with the morning-star flashing like a diamond by her side, many a cottage door in the silent hamlet, many a one on the gentle slopes of the green hill sides, many a one in the broad pastoral valley, was unbolted, and revolved on noiseless hinges, to send forth the peasant maids, in shy yet merry bands to gather, with many a mystic rite and ceremonial borrowed, unknown to them, from the mythology of other lands, when Flora ruled the month of flowers, to gather the puissant dews of May.

When the sun rose fair above the eastern hills,

"With blessings on his broad and burnished face,"

his appearance was welcomed by such a burst of joyous and hilarious music from the battlements, as never before had waked the echoes of Scafell and Skiddaw. In that triumphant gush of music there were blended, not only the resounding clangor of the Norman kettle-drums and trumpets, with the clear notes of the mellow bugle, but the tones of a thousand instruments, scarce known on English soil, having been introduced only by the Crusaders from those Oriental climates, in which music is indigenous and native, and from which the retainers of Sir Yvo de Taillebois had imported, not the instruments only but the skill necessary to give them utterance and expression, and the very airs to which, in the cedar-vales, and among the haunted hills of Palestine, they had of old been vocal.

The musical chime of many bells attuned, the silver clash of the cymbals, the roll of the Syrian atabals, the soft tones of the lute, and shrill strains of the Eastern reed-pipes, were blended strangely, but most sonorously with the stirring war-notes of the west. And instantly, as if awakened from sleep by that rejoicing strain, the little chapel bells of Bowness began to tinkle with small merry chimes, across the bright blue lake; and answering, yet further in the distance, though still clearly audible, so apt to the conveyance of sounds is the tranquillity and the clear vibrating air of those mountain regions, the full carillon of the magnificent Abbey of Kendal the stately ruins of which are still extant, as if to teach us boastful men of modern days, the superiority of our semi-barbarous ancestors, as we have the vanity to term them, rang out, proclaiming to the sparse population of the dales,