Thus our yuletide festivities passed away, all enjoying themselves immensely, and thus was sealed the bond of fellowship and of goodwill 'twixt class and class for the coming year.
"A Cotswold Village"
J. Arthur Gibbs
We are apt to talk of the good old days that are no more, lamenting the customs and country sports that have passed away; but let us not forget that two hundred years hence, when we who are living now will have long passed "that bourne from which no traveller returns," our descendants, as they sit round their hearths at yuletide, may in the same way regret the grand old times when good Victoria-the greatest monarch of all ages-was Queen of England; those times when during the London season fair ladies and gallant men might be seen on Drawing-room days driving down St James's Street in grand carriages, drawn by magnificent horses, with servants in cocked hats and wigs and gold lace; when the rural villages of merrie England were cheered throughout the dreary winter months by the sound of horse and hound, and by the sight of beautiful ladies and red-coated sportsmen, mounted on blood horses, careering over the country, clearing hedges and ditches of fabulous height and width; when every man, woman, and child in the village turned out to see the "meet," and the peer and the peasant were for the day on an equal footing, bound together by an extraordinary devotion to the chase of "that little red rover" which men called the fox-now, alas!
"A Cotswold Village"
J. Arthur Gibbs
"Sire, your loyal knights have gathered round you to keep the holy yuletide in your court," replied Sir Lancelot; and Sir Gawayne said: "Fair uncle, we are not cowards, but few evildoers dare to show themselves under your rule; hence it is that we seem idle.
"Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race"
Maud Isabel Ebbutt
