After the dinner there were sports and games, then dancing in the home paddock until twilight, and when, at the end of the day, the farmer, carving indoors for the family supper, paused with knife poised to listen to the last distant “Hooray!” and exclaimed, “A lot of good chaps! A lot of good chaps, God bless ‘em!” both he and the cheering men were sincere, however mistaken.

But these modest festivals which had figured every year in everybody’s life for generations were eclipsed in 1887 by Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee.

Up to the middle of the ‘eighties the hamlet had taken little interest in the Royal House. The Queen and the Prince and Princess of Wales were sometimes mentioned, but with little respect and no affection. “The old Queen,” as she was called, was supposed to have shut herself up in Balmoral Castle with a favourite servant named John Brown and to have refused to open Parliament when Mr. Gladstone begged her to. The Prince was said to be leading a gay life, and the dear, beautiful Princess, afterwards Queen Alexandra, was celebrated only for her supposed make-up.

By the middle of the decade a new spirit was abroad and had percolated to the hamlet. The Queen, it appeared, had reigned fifty years. She had been a good queen, a wonderful queen, she was soon to celebrate her jubilee, and, still more exciting, they were going to celebrate it, too, for there was going to be a big “do” in which three villages would join for tea and sports and dancing and fireworks in the park of a local magnate. Nothing like it had ever been known before.

As the time drew nearer, the Queen and her jubilee became the chief topic of conversation. The tradesmen gave lovely coloured portraits of her in her crown and garter ribbon on their almanacks, most of which were framed at home and hung up in the cottages. Jam could be bought in glass jugs adorned with her profile in hobnails and inscribed “1837 to 1887. Victoria the Good,” and, underneath, the national catchword of the moment: “Peace and Plenty.” The newspapers were full of the great achievements of her reign: railway travel, the telegraph, Free Trade, exports, progress, prosperity, Peace: all these blessings, it appeared, were due to her inspiration.

Of most of these advantages the hamlet enjoyed but Esau’s share; but, as no one reflected upon this, it did not damp the general enthusiasm. “Fancy her reigning fifty years, the old dear, her!” they said, and bought paper banners inscribed “Fifty Years, Mother, Wife, and Queen” to put inside their window panes. “God Bless Her. Victoria the Good. The Mother of Her People.”