CHAPTER XIV 



CHRISTMAS SPORT AT POLTALLOOH 



MANY years have passed since I described in 

 Autumns in Argyllshire twenty-five years of happy 

 holidays spent in my second home in the Western 

 Highlands. During that time familiar as the place 

 had become to me I had never visited it in the 

 winter. I was in the happy position of having two 

 ideal resorts, at each of which my whole family were 

 made welcome at the time when their attractions were 

 greatest, and Christmas used always to be dedicated 

 to Hemsted Park, the Kent residence of my dear 

 father, Lord Cranbrook, where a patriarchal tribe of 

 children and grandchildren, joined towards the end 

 by a fourth generation, gathered round their beloved 

 and venerated head. What memories are awakened by 

 the retrospect : those happy days in the woods where 

 the patriarch long after his eightieth year joined in 

 the sport with a zest exceeding that of the youngest 

 of the party ; the hour before dinner when the little 

 ones gathered round their grandfather's knees with 

 their picture-books ; the impromptu plays and charades 

 in which Henry Graham and his boys, as they then 

 were, showed their musical and dramatic talents 

 before the most appreciative of audiences ; the skat- 

 ing parties on the bay pond, the toboganning down 

 the park slopes on tea-trays, guitar-cases, and other 



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