Shooting parties in the week following Christmas have a festive air.
As at the hall, so in the keeper's cottage, the air is charged with
the Christmas spirit. Ten o'clock on any morning soon after Christmas
Day may find the keeper entertaining a crowd of beaters at the expense
of his own private cellar, and the good things from the cellar are
served hot and spiced. In hats and caps are seasonable tokens--sprigs
of mistletoe and holly. The keeper himself does not wear button-holes,
but should his children make a garland of holly for the collar of his
old retriever, he will leave it for the brambles to pull away. The guns
turn up late--they have been dancing through the night; when all are
met, in the brief greetings, in the distribution of cartridge-bags, and
in the inquiries about weather and the possible bag, there is a note of
unusual cheeriness.
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