the private
instigation of mine host, whose joviality seemed always tempered with a
proper love of decorum.

[Illustration]

After the dinner-table was removed, the hall was given up to the younger
members of the family, who, prompted to all kind of noisy mirth by the
Oxonian and Master Simon, made its old walls ring with their merriment,
as they played at romping games. I delight in witnessing the gambols of
children, and particularly at this happy holiday-season, and could not
help stealing out of the drawing-room on hearing one of their peals of
laughter. I found them at the game of blind-man's buff. Master Simon,
who was the leader of their revels, and seemed on all occasions to
fulfil the office of that ancient potentate, the Lord of Misrule,[N] was
blinded in the midst of the hall. The little beings were as busy about
him as the mock fairies about Falstaff; pinching him, plucking at the
skirts of his coat, and tickling him with straws. One fine blue-eyed
girl of about thirteen, with her flaxen hair all in beautiful confusion,
her frolic face in a glow, her frock half torn off her shoulders, a
complete picture of a romp, was the chief tormentor; and from the
slyness with which Master Simon avoided the smaller game, and hemmed
this wild little nymph in corners, and obliged her to jump shrieking
over chairs, I suspected the rogue of being not a whit more blinded
than was convenient.

[Illustration]

When I returned to the drawing-room, I found the company seated round
the fire, listening to the parson, who was deeply ensconced in a
high-backed oaken chair, the work of some cunning artificer of yore,
which had been brought from the library for his particular
accommodation. From this venerable piece of furniture, with which his
shadowy figure and dark weazen face so admirably accorded, he was
dealing forth strange accounts of the popular superstitions and legends
of the surrounding country, with which he had become acquainted in the
course of his antiquarian researches. I am half inclined to think that
the old gentleman was himself somewhat tinctured with superstition, as
men are very apt to be who live a recluse and studious life in a
sequestered part of the country, and pore over black-letter tracts, so
often filled with the marvellous and supernatural. He gave us several
anecdotes of the fancies of the neighbouring peasantry, concerning the
effigy of the crusader which lay on the tomb by the church altar. As it