"Such a night was a preparation for a 'happy Christmas.' The Cross of Stratford was garnished with the holly, the ivy, and the bay. Hospitality was in every house; but the hall of the great landlord of the parish was a scene of rare conviviality. The frost or the snow will not deter the principal tenants and friends from the welcome of Clopton. There is the old house, nestled in the woods, looking down upon the little town. Its chimneys are reeking; there is bustle in the offices; the sound of the trumpeters and the pipers is heard through the open door of the great entrance; the steward marshals the guests; the tables are fast filling. Then advance, courteously, the master and the mistress of the feast. The Boar's head is brought in with due solemnity; the wine-cup goes round; and perhaps the Saxon shout of Waes-hael and Drink-hael may still be shouted. The boy-guest who came with his father, the tenant of Ingon, has slid away from the rout; for the steward, who loves the boy, has a sight to make him merry. The Lord of Misrule and his jovial attendants are rehearsing their speeches; and the mummers from Stratford are at the porch. Very sparing are the cues required for the enactment of this short drama. A speech to the esquire, closed with a merry jest; something about ancestry and good Sir Hugh; the loud laugh; the song and the chorus; and the Lord of Misrule is now master of the feast. The Hall is cleared.... There is dancing till curfew; and then a walk in the moonlight to Stratford, the pale beam shining equally upon the dark resting-place in the lonely aisle of the Clopton who is gone, and upon the festal hall of the Clopton who remains, where some loiterers of the old and young still desire 'to burn this night with torches.'" This is a fancy picture, but it is in keeping with the life of the time. Whether the boy Shakespeare spent a Christmas in just this manner or not, we may be sure that he enjoyed the merriment of the season to the full. There are a few allusions to Christmas in the plays, besides the beautiful one in _Hamlet_ already quoted (page 138) in another connection. In _Love's Labour's Lost_ (v. 2. 462) "a Christmas comedy" is alluded to; and in _The Taming of the Shrew_ (ind. 2. 140), when Sly the tinker learns that a comedy is to be played for his entertainment, he asks whether a "comonty" is "like a Christmas gambold or a tumbling-trick." SHEEP-SHEARING. Our English ancestors had other holidays than those associated with the ecclesiastical year, but only one or two of them can be mentioned here. The time of sheep-shearing was celebrated by a rural feast such as Shakespeare has introduced in _The Winter's Tale_. The shearing took place in the spring as soon as the weather became warm enough for the sheep to lay aside their winter clothing without danger. John Dyer, in his poem entitled _The Fleece_ (1757), fixes the proper time thus:--