Tom is carried away by old Benjy, dog-tired
and surfeited with pleasure, as the evening comes on and the dancing
begins in the booths; and though Willum, and Rachel in her new ribbons,
and many another good lad and lass don't come away just yet, but have
a good step out, and enjoy it, and get no harm thereby, yet we, being
sober folk, will just stroll away up through the churchyard, and by the
old yew-tree, and get a quiet dish of tea and a parley with our gossips,
as the steady ones of our village do, and so to bed.
That's the fair, true sketch, as far as it goes, of one of the larger
village feasts in the Vale of Berks, when I was a little boy. They
are much altered for the worse, I am told. I haven't been at one these
twenty years, but I have been at the statute fairs in some west-country
towns, where servants are hired, and greater abominations cannot be
found. What village feasts have come to, I fear, in many cases, may
be read in the pages of "Yeast" (though I never saw one so bad--thank
God!).
Do you want to know why? It is because, as I said before, gentlefolk and
farmers have left off joining or taking an interest in them. They don't
either subscribe to the prizes, or go down and enjoy the fun.
Is this a good or a bad sign? I hardly know. Bad, sure enough, if it
only arises from the further separation of classes consequent on twenty
years of buying cheap and selling dear, and its accompanying overwork;
or because our sons and daughters have their hearts in London club-life,
or so-called "society," instead of in the old English home-duties;
because farmers' sons are apeing fine gentlemen, and farmers' daughters
caring more to make bad foreign music than good English cheeses.
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