Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 3).djvu/481



E make bold to say that nowhere is May-Day kept with such real zeal, earnestness, and splendour, as at the quaint old Cheshire town of Knutsford. Though, owing to the extreme changeableness of our climate, the first of May is by no means a taste of the poet's "Gentle Spring," yet, never daunted, the plucky people have kept up this rural fête, despite all kinds of weather, with a resolution to be jolly worthy of Mark Tapley. Indeed, our usual English May-Day is but too often a shivering time, but fitfully cheered by occasional gleams of the sun. Yet the "Queen" and all the happy youngsters, some hundreds in number, who compose her Court, shrink not from the procession to the scene of the coronation, but enter heartily into the spirit of the entire affair. One year, the writer distinctly remembers how the slate-coloured sky threatened the pageant, and at three o'clock, as the Queen was crowned, a brief but terrific hail-storm burst over the ground.

At Knutsford, the people have a curious custom of "sanding" the flags before their doors with various interesting patterns, a custom said to belong to this place alone. It is done on occasions of weddings and other festivities, and, of course, at no time so carefully as on May-Day. On this—the great annual festival of the town—its streets are festooned and adorned with a profusion of flags; a triumphal arch of greens and flowers spans the chief street, and as the hour approaches for the "Children's Fête," the merry chimes from the church-tower welcome the thousands of eager visitors. As Knutsford is in the heart of Cheshire, it is easily approached from Manchester, Liverpool, and Stockport, and special trains and special vehicles of every possible description bring in a vast crowd before two o'clock, which is the hour the procession starts. Before describing the actual festivities which occur on the occasion, it may not be out of place to give our readers a brief account as to their origin in recent years.

The May of 1864 was the first year which witnessed a revival of this ancient