The news of Sir Charles Lambert’s violence had reached his parsonage before him; and in the stone porch his old housekeeper met him as soon as he had dismounted, with as much anxiety as if he had narrowly escaped murder himself. The good old body, with that genuine philanthropy of feeling which is as natural as their breathing to kindly natures, learned the safety of Cuthbert, whom she had never seen or heard of before, with a lively expression of motherly joy; and Juxon was roused to remember how very narrowly the youth had missed an early and melancholy fate. Truth to say, so much of pleasure had grown up within these two days from the very circumstances arising out of the assault on Cuthbert, for her young master now to dwell on, and there seemed to open before him so pleasant a prospect in future intercourse with the family at Milverton, that, perhaps, he hardly felt enough for the present sufferings of the unfortunate patient. His thoughts, however, were soon diverted from Milverton, and from himself, by the entrance of his old gardener, to say the May-crown, which was kept in the summer-house, had been taken away, and that he had found a written paper on the shelf where it stood. This the old man handed to his master, saying he could not read it, but guessed it boded no good for the coming holyday, and that he had been gathering flowers to dress out the old May-pole to little purpose. George Juxon took the paper, upon which, in a stiff, quaint hand, were written these lines:-- “This head in a crown, and that without ears, Is the pleasure of prelates, of courtiers, and peers. Dance, revel, and sing, ye butterflies gay; The time is at hand you shall weep, fast, and pray. One holdeth the war-dogs, all ready to slip; Pleasure’s cup shall be spilled, and dashed from the lip. To me is committed this message of woe: The tears of the proud ones unpitied shall flow.” He no sooner read it, than, quitting his supper, he went out into the village to ascertain if any copy of it had been left at any other place; and found, to his vexation, that one had been fastened to the May-pole, and had been taken down and read to half the people. Determined, however, that the customary sports should be neither hindered nor damped, he took home with him the village carpenter, set fairly to work, and in two hours, by the aid of lath, and pasteboard, and Dutch gilding, they finished off a crown far more splendid than the one stolen; and he wrote underneath it, with prompt good humour,-- “The preacher hath said it--For all things a time-- For fasting, for feasting, for dancing, for rhyme:-- No rhymes without reason shall hinder our pleasure; We’ll crown the old May-pole, and tread the old measure.”