2O2 Winter 



cheap music-hall ; he is familiar with topical songs 

 and street catchwords ; his ideals are Cockney. Pre- 

 viously he had to depend on himself and his neigh- 

 bour for pastime, and instead of saving for an 

 annual excursion, he invented pastimes for home ; 

 and as these usually left him with a clear head and 

 easy conscience, they shed over his life a mild radiance 

 such as does not dwell with the memory of a town 

 spree, and its subsequent headaches and muddlement. 

 But the young rustic dressed in ready-made shoddy, 

 and feeling himself quite as ' modern ' and fin de siecle 

 as the sickliest decadent who flourishes the poor 

 phrase, looks with as superior a contempt upon ancient 

 customs as he does upon the outfit of hodden grey, 

 cut and sewn for his grandfather by the village tailor. 

 Thus nearly all the pleasant usages that edged the 

 dull circle of labour with brightness are becoming 

 obsolete. Youths are married, and no one ropes them ; 

 children are born and no labouring cake prepared ; 

 christenings and funerals occasion less and less feast- 

 ing. No one now goes a-mothering, or keeps cider 

 mass, or blesses the spring appletrees. A steadily 

 decreasing number keep the feast days of Lent, and 

 eat their pancakes and fry their carlins, pluck the 

 catkins duly from the willow to wave on Palm Sunday, 

 and beg their pace eggs on Easter Day. Where they 

 do the ancient observances are forgotten. Lincoln- 

 shire ploughmen still on Twelfth Day carry round the 

 bedizened coulter as the Pagans did, but without the 



