At any rate the Reverend John found it difficult to begin. The round forget-me-not eyes of Baby Hippolyta stared into his face with relentless persistency,--the velvet pansy-coloured ones of Susie Prescott smiled confidingly up at him with a bewildering youthfulness and unconsciousness of charm; and the mischief-loving small boys and village yokels who stood grouped against the Maypole like rough fairy foresters guarding magic timber, were, with all the rest of the children, hushed into a breathless expectancy, waiting eagerly for 'Passon' to speak. And 'Passon' thereupon began,--in the lamest, feeblest, most paternally orthodox manner: "My dear children--"
"Hooray! Hooray! Three cheers for 'Passon'! Hooray!"
Wild whooping followed, and the Maypole rocked uneasily, and began to slant downward in a drunken fashion, like a convivial giant whom strong wine has made doubtful of his footing.
"Take care, you young rascals!" cried Walden, letting sentiment, orthodoxy and eloquence go to the winds,--"You will have the whole thing down!"
Peals of gay laughter responded, and the nodding mass of bloom was swiftly pulled up and assisted to support its necessary horizontal dignity. But here Baby Hippolyta suddenly created a diversion. Moved perhaps by the consciousness of her own beauty, or by the general excitement around her, she suddenly waved a miniature branch of hawthorn and emitted a piercing yell.
"Passon! Tum 'ere! Passon! Tum 'ere!"
There was no possibility of 'holding forth' after this. A. short address on the brevity of life, as being co-equal with the evanescent joys of a Maypole, would hardly serve,--and a fatherly ambition as to the unbecoming attitude of mendi-cancy assumed by independent young villagers carrying a great crown of flowers round to every house in the neighbourhood, and demanding pence for the show, would scarcely be popular. Because what did the 'Mayers' Song say: "The Heavenly gates are opened wide, Our paths are beaten plain; And if a man be not too far gone, He may return again."
And the 'Heavenly gates' of Spring being wide open, the Reverend John, thought his special path was 'beaten plain' for the occasion; and not being 'too far gone' either in bigotry or lack of heart, John did what he reverently imagined the Divine Master might have done when He 'took a little child and set it in the midst." He obeyed Baby Hippolyta's imperious command, and to her again loudly reiterated "Passon! Tum 'ere!" he sprang forward and caught her up in his arms, kissing her rosy cheeks heartily as he did so. Seated in 'high exalted state' upon his shoulder. 'Ipsie' became Hippolyta in good earnest, so thoroughly aware was she of her dignity, while, holding her as lightly and buoyantly as he would have held a bird, the Reverend John turned his smiling face on his young parishioners.