g was done conformably to
ancient usage. Here were kept up the old games of hoodman blind, shoe
the wild mare, hot cockles, steal the white loaf, bob apple, and
snapdragon: the Yule log and Christmas candle were regularly burnt, and
the mistletoe, with its white berries, hung up, to the imminent peril of
all the pretty housemaids.[C]

[Illustration]

So intent were the servants upon their sports, that we had to ring
repeatedly before we could make ourselves heard. On our arrival being
announced, the Squire came out to receive us, accompanied by his two
other sons; one a young officer in the army, home on leave of absence;
the other an Oxonian, just from the university. The Squire was a fine,
healthy-looking old gentleman, with silver hair curling lightly round an
open florid countenance; in which a physiognomist, with the advantage,
like myself, of a previous hint or two, might discover a singular
mixture of whim and benevolence.

[Illustration: "The company, which was assembled in a large
old-fashioned hall."--PAGE 54.]

The family meeting was warm and affectionate; as the evening was far
advanced, the Squire would not permit us to change our travelling
dresses, but ushered us at once to the company, which was assembled in a
large old-fashioned hall. It was composed of different branches of a
numerous family connection, where there were the usual proportion of old
uncles and aunts, comfortably married dames, superannuated spinsters,
blooming country cousins, half-fledged striplings, and bright-eyed
boarding-school hoydens. They were variously occupied; some at a
round game of cards; others conversing around the fireplace; at one end
of the hall was a group of the young folks, some nearly grown up, others
of a more tender and budding age, fully engrossed by a merry game; and a
profusion of wooden horses, penny trumpets, and tattered dolls, about
the floor, showed traces of a troop of little fairy beings, who having
frolicked through a happy day, had been carried off to slumber through a
peaceful night.

[Illustration]

While the mutual greetings were going on between Bracebridge and his
relatives, I had time to scan the apartment. I have called it a hall,
for so it had certainly been in old times, and the Squire had evidently
endeavoured to restore it to something of its primitive state. Over the
heavy projecting fireplace was suspended a picture of a warrior in
armour, standing by a white horse, and on the oppo