YULE-TIME. 125 



Almost the only out-of-door game known, or at least 

 practised, was football, in which boys and lads, and 

 once in the year — on Yule-day — many middle-aged 

 men who had boys and lads of their own, engaged with 

 splendid vigour and spirit. But of that more anon. 

 It will thus be evident that in our remote and isolated 

 home the routine life of each day was uneventful and 

 monotonous in the extreme, except when perchance 

 word would come, after a wild night of tempest, that 

 some ship had been dashed to pieces on the rock-bound 

 coasts and many lives lost or saved as the case might 

 be. Little wonder, then, that Yule-time with its 

 festivities, its feasting and its fun, was looked forward 

 to by us youngsters with eager anticipation, and when 

 it came round, was enjoyed with a zest, which it is not 

 easy for dwellers in more favoured climes and more 

 stirring localities to understand. 



We formed a little family society amongst ourselves. 

 First and foremost, there was my uncle the Laird, or, 

 as he was invariably called, "the Mester," a staunch 

 Conservative in Church and State politics and social 

 customs — a kindly, genial, hospitable soul — in a word, 

 a fine specimen of "a gentleman of the old school." 

 Then there was an elderly maiden aunt, who lived in a 

 cottage by herself with an old female servant, who had 

 been an institution in the family for at least half a 

 century, one of those faithful and attached domestics 

 now unfortunately becoming so rare. And lastly, 

 there was my father the Doctor, with a big family of 

 boys and girls, of whom I was neither the eldest nor 



