46 " MY KINGDOM FOR A HORSE ! " 



" plough stots," who used to come into the house in an 

 evening and go through the old-world play of St George 

 of which the following lines remain in memory : 



Here comes I who never came yet, 

 With my great head and my little wit ; 

 Though my head be great and my wit be small, 

 I'll do my best to please you all ! 



I saw mummers at Rugby in the early sixties who went 

 through the same performance with almost the same 

 words. 



Sword-dancers invariably turned up at Christmas and 

 it was probably far more satisfactory to administer 

 largess to people who were really doing something to 

 amuse than in a modern Christmas week, when Christmas 

 presents are expected by all sorts and conditions of men 

 as a matter of course. At the time under notice, trades- 

 men used to send presents to their customers : all manner 

 of things boxes of raisins, yule candles, and I know not 

 what but Christmas bills were really Christmas bills then, 

 and in the case of approved customers covered the whole 

 year. I have often thought that Christmas bills were 

 brought into special odium by this custom, for under 

 present conditions a Christmas bill is really no more 

 urgent or alarming than any other. 



I must not dwell unduly on these old memories, and will 

 pass now to 1862, when I was taken on my first visit to 

 London, Sir William Gallwey having lent us his house 

 in Buckingham Gate, together with the servants there. 



It was the Great Exhibition year, but to me the idea 

 of a journey to London seemed something awful. Up 

 to that time I had been accustomed to a life in which 

 York, though not twenty miles away, seemed a very 

 remote place, and if York had to be visited, plans had to 

 be fully discussed for days in advance. 



To go to London was a really appalling adventure, and 

 I wept in sheer nervousness at the prospect. 



