204 Winter 



clayey bottoms and along sheep-tracks that wind 

 amid whin and thorn-bushes, which they would in 

 nowise face save in company and with a candle, for 

 steam-engine and schoolmaster have not yet quite 

 banished the bogle from the mire, the wraith from the 

 stream, the ghost from wood and ruin ; yet one would 

 think they are more likely to inspire fear than to feel 

 it, so hobgoblin-like are they in their strange habili- 

 ments. The lanterns form the least important part of 

 the outfit ; wooden swords must be made, pasteboard 

 helmets manufactured, fierce moustachios twined from 

 horsehair, old shirts begged as surplices, and distinc- 

 tive ornaments invented for each character ; and there 

 is on a minor scale as much quarrelling over the parts 

 as there is over the cast for a new piece in a fashion- 

 able theatre. 



The words form a strange conglomeration, for in 

 ages of decay all the elements of yule-tide laughter 

 have been blent into one confused story, but perhaps 

 the record of a single representation without comment 

 on the bald, fragmentary and corrupted text will best 

 show how minstrelsy and mummery, the miracle-play 

 and the carol engrafted on a Pagan custom have each 

 lent something to the guisarding. Fancy, then, the 

 big kitchen of a homely Northumbrian farmhouse a 

 few days before Christmas, a bunch of mistletoe 

 already above the door ; sprays of holly with red 

 berries on the wall ; in the great arm-chair a jolly 

 farmer past middle-life and grown a trifle too corpu- 



