(Fiddler in foreground, to the right; hobby-horse—­left, and
fool—­centre, beyond Dancers.)]

In the case of Mr. Kimber, leader of the Headington men (plate opp. p. 22), the dress, it will be noticed, was simpler.  A white sweater took the place of the pleated shirt; ribbons of red, white and blue were crossed upon the chest; the trousers were of white flannel.

Some notes on the bells and on the manner of fixing them will be found under the heading “Bells.”

The fool’s dress would seem to be designed to-day, as in the olden time, upon no particular plan, but to follow the fancy of the individual wearer.  The Bidford man, whom we saw at his really funny antics, had a fox’s mask for headgear, the muzzle lying on the man’s forehead, the brush hanging down his back.  His face was raddled like a clown’s; he had a vest of cowhide, with red sleeves; stockings and breeches much like the dancers’, and he wore his bells, not on a shin-pad like them, but in a row all round the boot-top.  He carried a bladder on the end of a stick, and with it he freely whacked the hobby-horse man and occasionally members of the audience.

The hobby-horse man of the same company was dressed like a jockey; and, while the dancers had a rest, he and the fool carried on innumerable capers, sometimes backing in amongst the audience, occasionally overturning a few, and now and then chasing any maid that could be started on the run.  If this pair be typical of the olden time, we can answer for it that their fun was uproarious and perfectly wholesome.

BELLS.

To the wearing of bells, stitched upon thongs and tied to the shin, there would seem to be no exception amongst the Morris-folk, even from the earliest times.  The celebrated Kemp, who danced the Morris all the way from London to Norwich in 1599, and whose picture we reproduce, wore his bells in the traditional manner.

The records show that, even in recent times, both treble and tenor bells were worn, each carried by the opposite files of dancers.  There are accounts also of bells with four different tones.  But nowadays certainly the rule is that bells all of a kind are worn by all the dancers—­latten bells, if that be still the correct name for the kind of bell to be found upon the harness that children use when they play at horses.  The shin-pad that carries the bells varies to some extent in the details of its construction; the number of bells also varies.  Sometimes the vertical strips and lateral ties of the pad are of ribbon or braid; maybe oftener of leather.  Sometimes the bells are stitched upon the lateral ties, top and bottom; it is more usual, however, to fasten them on the perpendicular strips.  The whole bell-pad is some seven inches square, and is worn midway between knee and ankle.  Kimber, as will be seen (plate opposite), wears twelve bells on each leg, in three perpendicular rows of four each.