In fact, the only reason why this is not the case still is that gentlefolk and farmers have taken to other amusements, and have, as usual, forgotten the poor.

They don't attend the feasts themselves, and call them disreputable; whereupon the steadiest of the poor leave them also, and they become what they are called.

Class amusements, be they for dukes or ploughboys, always become nuisances and curses to a country.

The true charm of cricket and hunting is that they are still more or less sociable and universal; there's a place for every man who will come and take his part.
No one in the village enjoyed the approach of "veast day" more than Tom, in the year in which he was taken under old Benjy's tutelage.

The feast was held in a large green field at the lower end of the village.