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Page 41
[Footnote 1: A corf is a large basket used for carrying coals or other
minerals in a mine.]
MAY-DAY,
OLD STYLE AND NEW STYLE.
"Now the bright morning star, day's harbinger,
Comes dancing from the East, and leads with her
The flow'ry May, who from her green lap throws
The yellow cowslip and the pale primrose."--Milton.
On the whole, perhaps, May is the most beautiful of the English months,
especially the latter half of it; and yet I suppose very few May-days
come round on which we are not disposed to wonder why our ancestors did
not choose a warmer, and indeed a more flowery season for Maypoles and
garlands and out-door festivities.
Children who live in the north of England especially must have a
painfully large proportion of disappointments out of the few May-days of
childhood.
Books and pictures, old stories told by Papa or Mamma of clattering
chimney-sweeps and dancing May Queens, such as they saw in their young
days, or heard of from their elders, have perhaps roused in us two of
the strongest passions of childhood--the love of imitation and the love
of flowers. We are determined to have a May-bush round the
nursery-window, duly gathered before sunrise. "Pretty Bessy," our
nursemaid, can do anything with flowers, from a cowslip ball to a
growing forget-me-not garland. The girls are apt pupils, and pride
themselves on their birthday wreaths. The boys are admirably adapted for
May sweeps. Clatter is melodious in their ears. They would rather be
black than white. Burnt cork will disguise them effectually; but they
would prefer soot. A pole is forthcoming; ribbons are not wanting; the
poodle will dance with the best of us. We have a whole holiday on
Saints' Days, and the 1st of May is SS. Philip and James'.
What then hinders our enjoyment, and makes it impossible to keep May-day
according to our hopes?
Too often this. It is "too cold to dawdle about." Flowers are by no
means plentiful; they are pinched by the east wind. The May Queen would
have to dance in her winter clothes, and would probably catch cold even
then. It is not improbable that it will rain, and it is possible that it
may snow. Worse than all, the hawthorn-trees are behind time, and are as
obstinate as the head-nurse in not thinking the weather fit for coming
out. The May is not in blossom on May-day.
And yet May-day used to be kept in the north of England as well as in
warmer nooks and corners. The truth is that one reason why we find the
weather less pleasant, and the flowers fewer than our forefathers did,
is that we keep May-day eleven days earlier in the year than they used
to do.
To explain how this is, I must try and explain what Old Style and New
Style--in reckoning the days of the year--mean.
First let me ask you how you can count the days. Supposing you wish to
remain just one day and night in a certain place, how will you know when
you have stayed the proper time? In one of two ways. Either you will
count twenty-four hours on the clock, or you will stay through all the
light of one day, and all the darkness of one night. That is, you will
count time either by the Clock or by the Sun.
Now we say that there are 365 days in the year. But there are really a
few odd hours and minutes and seconds into the bargain. The reason of
this is that the Sun does not go by the Clock in making the days and
nights. Sometimes he spends rather more than twenty-four hours by the
Clock over a day and night; sometimes he takes less. On the whole,
during the year, he uses up more time than the Clock does.
The Clock makes exactly 365 days of 24 hours each. The Sun makes 365
days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 49 seconds, and a tiny bit besides.
Now in time these odd hours added together would come to days, and the
days to years. About fifteen hundred years of this little difference
between the Sun and the Clock would bring it up to a year. So that if
you went by the Clock you would say, "It is fifteen hundred years since
such a thing happened." And if you went by the Sun you would say, "It is
fifteen hundred and one years since it happened."
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