300 ATTRACTIONS OF WINTER WEATHER 



in the pretty fancy that elderly gentlemen fresh from 

 town could hold out through the rustic hospitality of 

 the farm, and rise each successive morning all the 

 brisker and the brighter for it. We should surmise that 

 Mr. Pickwick must have been troubled by nightmares 

 after those late and heavy suppers ; while Mr. Tupman 

 was the very subject for flying twinges of the gout. 

 But there can be no question that, for keeping dys- 

 pepsia at bay, there is nothing like country life and 

 jovial company at a time when you feel bound to feast 

 and make merry ; and there are charmingly natural 

 touches in that scene on the ice which preceded Mr. 

 Pickwick's immersion in the pond. It is a rough 

 English translation of the hearty communion of a 

 Scottish curling-match. Old men become boys again 

 in the biting air, and take to frolicking like cart- 

 horses turned out in a meadow. " Ceremony doffs 

 her pride " at the Manor Farm as in the baronial 

 hall ; and there are old Wardle and the fat boy, Mr. 

 Pickwick and his faithful Sam, Messrs. Snodgrass, 

 Sawyer, Winkle, &c., all " keepin' the pot a-bilin'," 

 and following each other along the slide as if their 

 very lives depended on it. 



Such bright winter pictures have, ot course, their 

 sombre side. You tumble out of bed to see the coun- 

 try covered with a dazzling mantle. Every twig and 

 slender spray is enveloped in icy tracery. There are 

 festoons of icicles depending from the window-sashes, 

 and the panes are interlaced with a delicate fretwork 

 that may shame those masterpieces of Moorish art that 



