"The very youngest of our brothers and sisters can join in this old English game: and it is selfish to select only such sports as they cannot become sharers of. Its ancient name is 'hoodman-blind'; and when hoods were worn by both men and women--centuries before hats and caps were so common as they are now--the hood was reversed, placed hind-before, and was, no doubt, a much surer way of blinding the player than that now adopted--for we have seen Charley try to catch his pretty cousin Caroline, by chasing her behind chairs and into all sorts of corners, to our strong conviction that he was not half so well blinded as he ought to have been. Some said he could see through the black silk handkerchief; others that it ought to have been tied clean over his nose, for that when he looked down he could see her feet, wherever she moved; and Charley had often been heard to say that she had the prettiest foot and ankle he had ever seen. But there he goes, head over heels across a chair, tearing off Caroline's gown skirt in his fall, as he clutches it in the hope of saving himself. Now, that is what I call retributive justice; for she threw down the chair for him to stumble over, and, if he has grazed his knees, she suffers under a torn dress, and must retire until one of the maids darn up the rent. But now the mirth and glee grow 'fast and furious,' for hoodman blind has imprisoned three or four of the youngest boys in a corner, and can place his hand on whichever he likes. Into what a small compass they have forced themselves! But the one behind has the wall at his back, and, taking advantage of so good a purchase, he sends his three laughing companions sprawling on the floor, and is himself caught through their having fallen, as his shoulder is the first that is grasped by Blindman-buff--so that he must now submit to be hooded." [Illustration: BLINDMAN'S BUFF. (_In the last century_.)] THE CHRISTMAS DANCE. "Again the ball-room is wide open thrown, The oak beams festooned with the garlands gay; The red dais where the fiddlers sit alone, Where, flushed with pride, the good old tunes they play. Strike, fiddlers, strike! we're ready for the set; The young folks' feet are eager for the dance; We'll trip Sir Roger and the minuet, And revel in the latest games from France."[83] "Man should be called a dancing animal," said _Old Florentine_; and Burton, in his "Anatomy of Melancholy," says, "Young lasses are never better pleased than when, upon a holiday, after _even-song_, they may meet their sweethearts and dance." And dancing is just as popular at Christmas in the present day, as it was in that mediaeval age when (according to William of Malmesbury) the priest Rathbertus, being disturbed at his Christmas mass by young men and women dancing outside the church, prayed God and St. Magnus that they might continue to dance for a whole year without cessation--a prayer which the old chronicler gravely assures us was answered.