Up to then rush-strewing had been necessary. Burials in the earthen floor had continued up to 1823; and the forms, from the gradual sinking of the ground, had to be constantly lifted and re-set. Only in 1828 the townships had gone to considerable expense in re-seating and re-flagging their portions of the interior, and in the same year a stray visitor to Grasmere expressed himself as shocked at the primitive condition of the church. "I found the very seat floors all unpaved, unboarded, and the bare ground only strewed with rushes."[204] In the previous year T. Q. M. had found the villagers seriously working at their annual task of strewing. It seems to have been done informally, under the superintendence of the clerk; and later in the day--nine o'clock it is said--came the spectacle and the merry-making. A procession was formed, when the wild flowers--which the children had been busily engaged during the day in gathering and weaving into garlands--were carried to the church and laid there. An adjournment was then made to a hay-loft, where dancing was kept up till midnight, and where no doubt more than the parochial ale was drunk. Old James Dawson, the fiddler, boasted to the stranger that he had for forty-six years performed on the occasion. He complained of the outlandish tunes introduced by the "Union Band chaps," who had apparently superceded him in the honour of leading the procession. But James may be said to lead the music in spirit yet, for a certain march, used for an unknown period and handed down by his son Jimmy (who succeeded him as village fiddler), is still played. [204] Morrison Scatcherd, quoted in the Rushbearing pamphlet compiled by Miss E. Grace Fletcher. Clarke was present at the Festival at an earlier date,[205] and he gives a rather different account of it. His description, however, is of something he had seen in the past; and one is inclined to doubt that the Rushbearing was ever held at the end of September. According to him, the rushes were actually borne in the procession, which was headed by girls carrying nosegays, the chief of whom (called the Queen) had a large garland. When the work of strewing was done, and the flowers laid in the church, the concourse was met at the church door by the fiddler, who played them to the ale-house, there to spend an evening of jollity. [205] _Survey of the Lakes_, 1789.