trating the
ancient though simple annals of their village.

I persuaded the head of our mummer troop to write out their play as it
was handed down to him by his predecessors. This he did in a fine bold
hand on four sides of foolscap. Unfortunately the literary quality of
the lines is so poor that they are hardly worth reproducing, except as a
specimen of the poetry of very early times handed down by oral
tradition. Suffice it to say that the _dramatis personae_ are five in
number--viz., Father Christmas, Saint George, a Turkish Knight, the
Doctor, and an Old Woman. All are dressed in paper flimsies of various
shapes and colours. First of all enters Father Christmas.

"In comes I old Father Christmas,
Welcome in or welcome not,
Sometimes cold and sometimes hot.
I hope Father Christmas will never be forgot," etc.

Then Saint George comes in, and after a great deal of bragging he fights
the "most dreadful battle that ever was known," his adversary being the
knight "just come from Turkey-land," with the inevitable result that the
Turkish knight falls. This brings in the Doctor, who suggests the
following remedies:--

"Give him a bucket of dry hot ashes to eat,
Groom him down with a bezom stick,
And give him a yard and a half of pump water to drink."

For these offices he mentions that his fee is fifty guineas, but he
will take ten pounds, adding:

"I can cure the itchy pitchy,
Palsy, and the gout;
Pains within or pains without;
A broken leg or a broken arm,
Or a broken limb of any sort.
I cured old Mother Roundabout," etc.

He declares that he is not one of those "quack doctors who go about from
house to house telling you more lies in one half-hour than what you can
find true in seven years."

So the knight just come from Turkey-land is resuscitated and sent back
to his own country.

Last of all the old woman speaks:

"In comes I old Betsy Bub;
On my shoulder I carry my tub,
And in my hand a dripping-pan.
Don't you think I'm a jolly old man?

Now last Christmas my father killed a fat hog,
And my mother made black-puddings enough to choke a dog,
And they hung them up with a pudden string
Till the fat dropped out and the maggots crawled in," etc.

The mummers' play, of which the above is a very brief _resume_, lasts
about half an hour, and includes many songs of a topical nature.

Ye