SOME CHRISTMAS REFLECTIONS 299 



invariable habit when they "had a rattling day, 

 look'ee there," and probably such also was their 

 custom when they only " powdered up and down a 

 bit " just to cheer them for the want of a better run. 

 We know that these convivial gatherings were pro- 

 longed, but as they feasted in those days at an hour 

 we should consider the afternoon, I imagine that 

 their port-laden slumbers began correspondingly 

 early, and the small ale which was used instead of 

 Lord Byron's " hock and soda water " on the following 

 morning cooled their parched throats and cleared 

 away the cobwebs before "bright Phoebus cleared 

 away the dusky plumes of night." 



As time wore on and fox-hunting on the "system 

 of Meynell " took the place of the old-fashioned 

 peep-o'-day business, it became the favourite 

 recreation of the most cultivated men in the land, 

 and if the Hunt Club meetings, which became general 

 in many countries, were more decorous in their 

 conviviality than the orgies which celebrated a good 

 run in days of old, they were still full of hilarity. 

 No doubt much wine was drunk, but much wit 

 came out ; and songs which can never die so long as 

 the sport exists were written to be chanted at these 

 merry meetings. 



The rules that governed the social proceedings of 

 these Hunt Clubs make sufficiently amusing reading 

 in this age of lemon squash and barley water ; for 

 any infringement thereof was visited by a fine 

 which invariably took the form of a certain number 

 of bottles of wine ; we read in the chronicles of the 

 H.H. that even the great Mr. Villebois himself was 



