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+The Project Gutenberg Etext Old Christmas, by Washington Irving
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+Old Christmas
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+by Washington Irving
+
+August, 1999  [Etext #1850]
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+The Project Gutenberg Etext Old Christmas, by Washington Irving
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+
+OLD CHRISTMAS
+
+by Washington Irving
+
+
+
+
+But is old, old, good old Christmas gone?  Nothing but the hair of
+his good, gray, old head and beard left?  Well, I will have that,
+seeing that I cannot have more of him.
+
+Hue and Cry after Christmas.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHRISTMAS
+
+THE STAGE-COACH
+
+CHRISTMAS EVE
+
+CHRISTMAS DAY
+
+THE CHRISTMAS DINNER
+
+
+
+A man might then behold
+  At Christmas, in each hall
+Good fires to curb the cold,
+  And meat for great and small.
+The neighbours were friendly bidden,
+  And all had welcome true,
+The poor from the gates were not chidden,
+  When this old cap was new.
+
+Old Song
+
+
+
+
+Christmas
+
+
+There is nothing in England that exercises a more delightful spell
+over my imagination than the lingerings of the holiday customs and
+rural games of former times.  They recall the pictures my fancy
+used to draw in the May morning of life, when as yet I only knew
+the world through books, and believed it to be all that poets had
+painted it; and they bring with them the flavour of those honest
+days of yore, in which, perhaps with equal fallacy, I am apt to
+think the world was more home-bred, social, and joyous than at
+present.  I regret to say that they are daily growing more and more
+faint, being gradually worn away by time, but still more
+obliterated by modern fashion.  They resemble those picturesque
+morsels of Gothic architecture which we see crumbling in various
+parts of the country, partly dilapidated by the waste of ages, and
+partly lost in the additions and alterations of latter days.
+Poetry, however, clings with cherishing fondness about the rural
+game and holiday revel, from which it has derived so many of its
+themes,--as the ivy winds its rich foliage about the Gothic arch
+and mouldering tower, gratefully repaying their support by clasping
+together their tottering remains, and, as it were, embalming them
+in verdure.
+
+Of all the old festivals, however, that of Christmas awakens the
+strongest and most heartfelt associations.  There is a tone of
+solemn and sacred feeling that blends with our conviviality, and
+lifts the spirit to a state of hallowed and elevated enjoyment.
+The services of the church about this season are extremely tender
+and inspiring.  They dwell on the beautiful story of the origin of
+our faith, and the pastoral scenes that accompanied its
+announcement.  They gradually increase in fervour and pathos during
+the season of Advent, until they break forth in full jubilee on the
+morning that brought peace and good-will to men.  I do not know a
+grander effect of music on the moral feelings than to hear the full
+choir and the pealing organ performing a Christmas anthem in a
+cathedral, and filling every part of the vast pile with triumphant
+harmony.
+
+It is a beautiful arrangement, also derived from days of yore, that
+this festival, which commemorates the announcement of the religion
+of peace and love, has been made the season for gathering together
+of family connections, and drawing closer again those bands of
+kindred hearts which the cares and pleasures and sorrows of the
+world are continually operating to cast loose; of calling back the
+children of a family who have launched forth in life, and wandered
+widely asunder, once more to assemble about the paternal hearth,
+that rallying-place of the affections, there to grow young and
+loving again among the endearing mementoes of childhood.
+
+There is something in the very season of the year that gives a
+charm to the festivity of Christmas.  At other times we derive a
+great portion of our pleasures from the mere beauties of nature.
+Our feelings sally forth and dissipate themselves over the sunny
+landscape, and we "live abroad and everywhere."  The song of the
+bird, the murmur of the stream, the breathing fragrance of spring,
+the soft voluptuousness of summer, the golden pomp of autumn; earth
+with its mantle of refreshing green, and heaven with its deep
+delicious blue and its cloudy magnificence, all fill us with mute
+but exquisite delight, and we revel in the luxury of mere
+sensation.  But in the depth of winter, when nature lies despoiled
+of every charm, and wrapped in her shroud of sheeted snow, we turn
+for our gratifications to moral sources.  The dreariness and
+desolation of the landscape, the short gloomy days and darksome
+nights, while they circumscribe our wanderings, shut in our
+feelings also from rambling abroad, and make us more keenly
+disposed for the pleasures of the social circle.  Our thoughts are
+more concentrated; our friendly sympathies more aroused.  we feel
+more sensibly the charm of each other's society, and are brought
+more closely together by dependence on each other for enjoyment.
+Heart calleth unto heart; and we draw our pleasures from the deep
+wells of living kindness, which lie in the quiet recesses of our
+bosoms: and which when resorted to, furnish forth the pure element
+of domestic felicity.
+
+The pitchy gloom without makes the heart dilate on entering the
+room filled with the glow and warmth of the evening fire.  The
+ruddy blaze diffuses an artificial summer and sunshine through the
+room, and lights up each countenance into a kindlier welcome.
+Where does the honest face of hospitality expand into a broader and
+more cordial smile--where is the shy glance of love more sweetly
+eloquent--than by the winter fireside? and as the hollow blast of
+wintry wind rushes through the hall, claps the distant door,
+whistles about the casement, and rumbles down the chimney, what can
+be more grateful than that feeling of sober and sheltered security
+with which we look around upon the comfortable chamber and the
+scene of domestic hilarity?
+
+The English, from the great prevalence of rural habits throughout
+every class of society, have always been fond of those festivals
+and holidays which agreeably interrupt the stillness of country
+life; and they were, in former days, particularly observant of the
+religious and social rites of Christmas.  It is inspiring to read
+even the dry details which some antiquarians have given of the
+quaint humours, the burlesque pageants, the complete abandonment to
+mirth and good-fellowship with which this festival was celebrated.
+It seemed to throw open every door, and unlock every heart.  It
+brought the peasant and the peer together, and blended all ranks in
+one warm generous flow of joy and kindness.  The old halls of
+castles and manor-houses resounded with the harp and the Christmas
+carol, and their ample boards groaned under the weight of
+hospitality.  Even the poorest cottage welcomed the festive season
+with green decorations of bay and holly--the cheerful fire glanced
+its rays through the lattice, inviting the passenger to raise the
+latch, and join the gossip knot huddled around the hearth,
+beguiling the long evening with legendary jokes and oft-told
+Christmas tales.
+
+One of the least pleasing effects of modern refinement is the havoc
+it has made among the hearty old holiday customs.  It has
+completely taken off the sharp touchings and spirited reliefs of
+these embellishments of life, and has worn down society into a more
+smooth and polished, but certainly a less characteristic surface.
+Many of the games and ceremonials of Christmas have entirely
+disappeared, and like the sherris sack of old Falstaff, are become
+matters of speculation and dispute among commentators.  They
+flourished in times full of spirit and lustihood, when men enjoyed
+life roughly, but heartily and vigorously; times wild and
+picturesque, which have furnished poetry with its richest
+materials, and the drama with its most attractive variety of
+characters and manners.  The world has become more worldly.  There
+is more of dissipation, and less of enjoyment.  Pleasure has
+expanded into a broader, but a shallower stream, and has forsaken
+many of those deep and quiet channels where it flowed sweetly
+through the calm bosom of domestic life.  Society has acquired a
+more enlightened and elegant tone; but it has lost many of its
+strong local peculiarities, its homebred feelings, its honest
+fireside delights.  The traditionary customs of golden-hearted
+antiquity, its feudal hospitalities, and lordly wassailings, have
+passed away with the baronial castles and stately manor-houses in
+which they were celebrated.  They comported with the shadowy hall,
+the great oaken gallery, and the tapestried parlour, but are
+unfitted to the light showy saloons and gay drawing-rooms of the
+modern villa.
+
+Shorn, however, as it is, of its ancient and festive honours,
+Christmas is still a period of delightful excitement in England.
+It is gratifying to see that home feeling completely aroused which
+seems to hold so powerful a place in every English bosom.  The
+preparations making on every side for the social board that is
+again to unite friends and kindred; the presents of good cheer
+passing and repassing, those tokens of regard, and quickeners of
+kind feelings; the evergreens distributed about houses and
+churches, emblems of peace and gladness; all these have the most
+pleasing effect in producing fond associations, and kindling
+benevolent sympathies.  Even the sound of the waits, rude as may be
+their minstrelsy, breaks upon the mid-watches of a winter night
+with the effect of perfect harmony.  As I have been awakened by
+them in that still and solemn hour, "when deep sleep falleth upon
+man," I have listened with a hushed delight, and, connecting them
+with the sacred and joyous occasion, have almost fancied them into
+another celestial choir, announcing peace and good-will to mankind.
+
+How delightfully the imagination, when wrought upon by these moral
+influences, turns everything to melody and beauty:  The very
+crowing of the cock, who is sometimes heard in the profound repose
+of the country, "telling the night-watches to his feathery dames,"
+was thought by the common people to announce the approach of this
+sacred festival:
+
+
+     "Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes
+      Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
+      This bird of dawning singeth all night long:
+      And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad;
+      The nights are wholesome--then no planets strike,
+      No fairy takes, no witch hath power to charm,
+      So hallow'd and so gracious is the time."
+
+
+Amidst the general call to happiness, the bustle of the spirits,
+and stir of the affections, which prevail at this period, what
+bosom can remain insensible?  It is, indeed, the season of
+regenerated feeling--the season for kindling, not merely the fire
+of hospitality in the hall, but the genial flame of charity in the
+heart.
+
+The scene of early love again rises green to memory beyond the
+sterile waste of years; and the idea of home, fraught with the
+fragrance of home-dwelling joys, reanimates the drooping spirit,--
+as the Arabian breeze will sometimes waft the freshness of the
+distant fields to the weary pilgrim of the desert.
+
+Stranger and sojourner as I am in the land,--though for me no
+social hearth may blaze, no hospitable roof throw open its doors,
+nor the warm grasp of friendship welcome me at the threshold,--yet
+I feel the influence of the season beaming into my soul from the
+happy looks of those around me.  Surely happiness is reflective,
+like the light of heaven; and every countenance, bright with
+smiles, and glowing with innocent enjoyment, is a mirror
+transmitting to others the rays of a supreme and ever shining
+benevolence.  He who can turn churlishly away from contemplating
+the felicity of his fellow beings, and sit down darkling and
+repining in his loneliness when all around is joyful, may have his
+moments of strong excitement and selfish gratification, but he
+wants the genial and social sympathies which constitute the charm
+of a merry Christmas.
+
+
+
+The Stage-coach
+
+
+    Omne bene
+    Sine poena
+Tempus est ludendi;
+    Venit hora,
+    Absque mora
+Libros deponendi.
+
+    --Old Holiday School Song.
+
+
+In the preceding paper I have made some general observations on the
+Christmas festivities of England, and am tempted to illustrate them
+by some anecdotes of a Christmas passed in the country; in perusing
+which, I would most courteously invite my reader to lay aside the
+austerity of wisdom, and to put on that genuine holiday spirit
+which is tolerant of folly, and anxious only for amusement.
+
+In the course of a December tour in Yorkshire, I rode for a long
+distance in one of the public coaches, on the day preceding
+Christmas.  The coach was crowded, both inside and out, with
+passengers, who, by their talk, seemed principally bound to the
+mansions of relations or friends to eat the Christmas dinner.  It
+was loaded also with hampers of game, and baskets and boxes of
+delicacies; and hares hung dangling their long ears about the
+coachman's box,--presents from distant friends for the impending
+feast.  I had three fine rosy-cheeked schoolboys for my fellow
+passengers inside, full of the buxom health and manly spirit which
+I have observed in the children of this country.  They were
+returning home for the holidays in high glee, and promising
+themselves a world of enjoyment.  It was delightful to hear the
+gigantic plans of pleasure of the little rogues, and the
+impracticable feats they were to perform during their six weeks'
+emancipation from the abhorred thraldom of book, birch, and
+pedagogue.  They were full of anticipations of the meeting with the
+family and household, down to the very cat and dog; and of the joy
+they were to give their little sisters by the presents with which
+their pockets were crammed; but the meeting to which they seemed to
+look forward with the greatest impatience was with Bantam, which I
+found to be a pony, and, according to their talk, possessed of more
+virtues than any steed since the days of Bucephalus.  How he could
+trot! how he could run! and then such leaps as he would take--there
+was not a hedge in the whole country that he could not clear.
+
+They were under the particular guardianship of the coachman, to
+whom, whenever an opportunity presented, they addressed a host of
+questions, and pronounced him one of the best fellows in the whole
+world.  Indeed, I could not but notice the more than ordinary air
+of bustle and importance of the coachman, who wore his hat a little
+on one side, and had a large bunch of Christmas greens stuck in the
+button-hole of his coat.  He is always a personage full of mighty
+care and business, but he is particularly so during this season,
+having so many commissions to execute in consequence of the great
+interchange of presents.
+
+And here, perhaps, it may not be unacceptable to my untravelled
+readers to have a sketch that may serve as a general representation
+of this very numerous and important class of functionaries who have
+a dress, a manner, a language, an air, peculiar to themselves, and
+prevalent throughout the fraternity; so that, wherever an English
+stage-coachman may be seen, he cannot be mistaken for one of any
+other craft or mystery.
+
+He has commonly a broad, full face, curiously mottled with red, as
+if the blood had been forced by hard feeding into every vessel of
+the skin; he is swelled into jolly dimensions by frequent potations
+of malt liquors, and his bulk is still further increased by a
+multiplicity of coats, in which he is buried like a cauliflower,
+the upper one reaching to his heels.  He wears a broad-brimmed,
+low-crowned hat; a huge roll of coloured handkerchief about his
+neck, knowingly knotted and tucked in at the bosom; and has in
+summer-time a large bouquet of flowers in his buttonhole; the
+present, most probably, of some enamoured country lass.  His
+waistcoat is commonly of some bright colour, striped; and his
+small-clothes extend far below the knees, to meet a pair of jockey
+boots which reach about half-way up his legs.
+
+All this costume is maintained with much precision; he has a pride
+in having his clothes of excellent materials; and, notwithstanding
+the seeming grossness of his appearance, there is still discernible
+that neatness and propriety of person which is almost inherent in
+an Englishman.  He enjoys great consequence and consideration along
+the road; has frequent conferences with the village housewives, who
+look upon him as a man of great trust and dependence; and he seems
+to have a good understanding with every bright-eyed country lass.
+The moment he arrives where the horses are to be changed, he throws
+down the reins with something of an air, and abandons the cattle to
+the care of the hostler; his duty being merely to drive from one
+stage to another.
+
+When off the box, his hands are thrust in the pockets of his
+greatcoat, and he rolls about the inn-yard with an air of the most
+absolute lordliness.  Here he is generally surrounded by an
+admiring throng of hostlers, stable-boys, shoe-blacks, and those
+nameless hangers-on that infest inns and taverns, and run errands,
+and do all kinds of odd jobs, for the privilege of battening on the
+drippings of the kitchen and the leakage of the tap-room.  These
+all look up to him as to an oracle; treasure up his cant phrases;
+echo his opinions about horses and other topics of jockey lore;
+and, above all, endeavour to imitate his air and carriage.  Every
+ragamuffin that has a coat to his back thrusts his hands in the
+pockets, rolls in his gait, talks slang, and is an embryo Coachey.
+
+Perhaps it might be owing to the pleasing serenity that reigned in
+my own mind, that I fancied I saw cheerfulness in every countenance
+throughout the journey.  A stage-coach, however, carries animation
+always with it, and puts the world in motion as it whirls along.
+The horn, sounded at the entrance of a village, produces a general
+bustle.  Some hasten forth to meet friends; some with bundles and
+bandboxes to secure places, and in the hurry of the moment can
+hardly take leave of the group that accompanies them.  In the
+meantime, the coachman has a world of small commissions to execute.
+Sometimes he delivers a hare or pheasant; sometimes jerks a small
+parcel or newspaper to the door of a public-house; and sometimes,
+with knowing leer and words of sly import, hands to some half-
+blushing, half-laughing housemaid an odd-shaped billet-doux from
+some rustic admirer.  As the coach rattles through the village,
+every one runs to the window, and you have glances on every side of
+fresh country faces, and blooming, giggling girls.  At the corners
+are assembled juntas of village idlers and wise men, who take their
+stations there for the important purpose of seeing company pass;
+but the sagest knot is generally at the blacksmith's, to whom the
+passing of the coach is an event fruitful of much speculation.  The
+smith, with the horse's heel in his lap, pauses as the vehicle
+whirls by; the Cyclops round the anvil suspend their ringing
+hammers, and suffer the iron to grow cool; and the sooty spectre in
+brown paper cap, labouring at the bellows, leans on the handle for
+a moment, and permits the asthmatic engine to heave a long-drawn
+sigh, while he glares through the murky smoke and sulphureous
+gleams of the smithy.
+
+Perhaps the impending holiday might have given a more than usual
+animation to the country, for it seemed to me as if everybody was
+in good looks and good spirits.  Game, poultry, and other luxuries
+of the table, were in brisk circulation in the villages; the
+grocers', butchers', and fruiterers' shops were thronged with
+customers.  The housewives were stirring briskly about, putting
+their dwellings in order; and the glossy branches of holly, with
+their bright red berries, began to appear at the windows.  The
+scene brought to mind an old writer's account of Christmas
+preparations:--"Now capons and hens, besides turkeys, geese, and
+ducks, with beef and mutton--must all die; for in twelve days a
+multitude of people will not be fed with a little.  Now plums and
+spice, sugar and honey, square it among pies and broth.  Now or
+never must music be in tune, for the youth must dance and sing to
+get them a heat, while the aged sit by the fire.  The country maid
+leaves half her market, and must be sent again, if she forgets a
+pack of cards on Christmas eve.  Great is the contention of Holly
+and Ivy, whether master or dame wears the breeches.  Dice and cards
+benefit the butler; and if the cook do not lack wit, he will
+sweetly lick his fingers."
+
+I was roused from this fit of luxurious meditation by a shout from
+my little travelling companions.  They had been looking out of the
+coach-windows for the last few miles, recognising every tree and
+cottage as they approached home, and now there was a general burst
+of joy--"There's John! and there's old Carlo! and there's Bantam!"
+cried the happy little rogues, clapping their hands.
+
+At the end of a lane there was an old sober-looking servant in
+livery waiting for them: he was accompanied by a superannuated
+pointer, and by the redoubtable Bantam, a little old rat of a pony,
+with a shaggy mane and long, rusty tail, who stood dozing quietly
+by the roadside, little dreaming of the bustling times that awaited
+him.
+
+I was pleased to see the fondness with which the little fellows
+leaped about the steady old footman, and hugged the pointer, who
+wriggled his whole body for joy.  But Bantam was the great object
+of interest; all wanted to mount at once; and it was with some
+difficulty that John arranged that they should ride by turns, and
+the eldest should ride first.
+
+Off they set at last; one on the pony, with the dog bounding and
+barking before him, and the others holding John's hands; both
+talking at once, and overpowering him by questions about home, and
+with school anecdotes.  I looked after them with a feeling in which
+I do not know whether pleasure or melancholy predominated: for I
+was reminded of those days when, like them, I had neither known
+care nor sorrow, and a holiday was the summit of earthly felicity.
+We stopped a few moments afterward to water the horses, and on
+resuming our route, a turn of the road brought us in sight of a
+neat country seat.  I could just distinguish the forms of a lady
+and two young girls in the portico, and I saw my little comrades,
+with Bantam, Carlo, and old John, trooping along the carriage road.
+I leaned out of the coach-window, in hopes of witnessing the happy
+meeting, but a grove of trees shut it from my sight.
+
+In the evening we reached a village where I had determined to pass
+the night.  As we drove into the great gateway of the inn, I saw on
+one side the light of a rousing kitchen fire beaming through a
+window.  I entered, and admired, for the hundredth time, that
+picture of convenience, neatness, and broad, honest enjoyment, the
+kitchen of an English inn.  It was of spacious dimensions, hung
+round with copper and tin vessels, highly polished, and decorated
+here and there with a Christmas green.  Hams, tongues, and flitches
+of bacon were suspended from the ceiling; a smoke-jack made its
+ceaseless clanking beside the fireplace, and a clock ticked in one
+corner.  A well scoured deal table extended along one side of the
+kitchen, with a cold round of beef and other hearty viands upon it,
+over which two foaming tankards of ale seemed mounting guard.
+
+Travellers of inferior order were preparing to attack this stout
+repast, while others sat smoking and gossiping over their ale on
+two high-backed oaken seats beside the fire.  Trim house-maids were
+hurrying backwards and forwards under the directions of a fresh,
+bustling landlady; but still seizing an occasional moment to
+exchange a flippant word, and have a rallying laugh, with the group
+round the fire.  The scene completely realised Poor Robin's humble
+idea of the comforts of midwinter.
+
+
+     "Now trees their leafy hats do bare,
+      To reverence Winter's silver hair;
+      A handsome hostess, merry host,
+      A pot of ale now and a toast,
+      Tobacco and a good coal fire,
+      Are things this season doth require."*
+
+
+* Poor Robin's Almanack, 1684.
+
+
+I had not been long at the inn when a postchaise drove up to the
+door.  A young gentleman stepped out, and by the light of the lamps
+I caught a glimpse of a countenance which I thought I knew.  I
+moved forward to get a nearer view, when his eye caught mine.  I
+was not mistaken; it was Frank Bracebridge, a sprightly, good-
+humoured young fellow, with whom I had once travelled on the
+Continent.  Our meeting was extremely cordial; for the countenance
+of an old fellow traveller always brings up the recollection of a
+thousand pleasant scenes, odd adventures, and excellent jokes.  To
+discuss all these in a transient interview at an inn was
+impossible; and finding that I was not pressed for time, and was
+merely making a tour of observation, he insisted that I should give
+him a day or two at his father's country-seat, to which he was
+going to pass the holidays, and which lay at a few miles' distance.
+"It is better than eating a solitary Christmas dinner at an inn,"
+said he; "and I can assure you of a hearty welcome in something of
+the old-fashion style."  His reasoning was cogent; and I must
+confess the preparation I had seen for universal festivity and
+social enjoyment had made me feel a little impatient of my
+loneliness.  I closed, therefore, at once with his invitation: the
+chaise drove up to the door; and in a few moments I was on my way
+to the family mansion of the Bracebridges.
+
+
+
+Christmas Eve
+
+
+Saint Francis and Saint Benedight
+Blesse this house from wicked wight,
+From the night-mare and the goblin,
+That is hight good-fellow Robin;
+Keep it from all evil spirits.
+Fairies, weezels, rats, and ferrets:
+       From curfew time
+       To the next prime.
+
+                      --CARTWRIGHT.
+
+
+It was a brilliant moonlight night, but extremely cold; our chaise
+whirled rapidly over the frozen ground; the post-boy smacked his
+whip incessantly, and a part of the time his horses were on a
+gallop.  "He knows where he is going," said my companion, laughing,
+"and is eager to arrive in time for some of the merriment and good
+cheer of the servants' hall.  My father, you must know, is a
+bigoted devotee of the old school, and prides himself upon keeping
+up something of old English hospitality.  He is a tolerable
+specimen of what you will rarely meet with nowadays in its purity,
+the old English country gentleman; for our men of fortune spend so
+much of their time in town, and fashion is carried so much into the
+country, that the strong, rich peculiarities of ancient rural life
+are almost polished away.  My father, however, from early years,
+took honest Peacham* for his textbook, instead of Chesterfield: he
+determined, in his own mind, that there was no condition more truly
+honourable and enviable than that of a country gentleman on his
+paternal lands, and, therefore, passes the whole of his time on his
+estate.  He is a strenuous advocate for the revival of the old
+rural games and holiday observances, and is deeply read in the
+writers, ancient and modern, who have treated on the subject.
+Indeed, his favourite range of reading is among the authors who
+flourished at least two centuries since; who, he insists, wrote and
+thought more like true Englishmen than any of their successors.  He
+even regrets sometimes that he had not been born a few centuries
+earlier, when England was itself, and had its peculiar manners and
+customs.  As he lives at some distance from the main road, in
+rather a lonely part of the country, without any rival gentry near
+him, he has that most enviable of all blessings to an Englishman,
+an opportunity of indulging the bent of his own humour without
+molestation.  Being representative of the oldest family in the
+neighbourhood, and a great part of the peasantry being his tenants,
+he is much looked up to, and, in general, is known simply by the
+appellation of 'The Squire;' a title which has been accorded to the
+head of the family since time immemorial.  I think it best to give
+you these hints about my worthy old father, to prepare you for any
+little eccentricities that might otherwise appear absurd."
+
+
+* Peacham's "Complete Gentleman," 1622.
+
+
+We had passed for some time along the wall of a park, and at length
+the chaise stopped at the gate.  It was in a heavy, magnificent old
+style, of iron bars, fancifully wrought at top into flourishes and
+flowers.  The huge square columns that supported the gate were
+surmounted by the family crest.  Close adjoining was the porter's
+lodge, sheltered under dark fir-trees, and almost buried in
+shrubbery.
+
+The post-boy rang a large porter's bell, which resounded through
+the still, frosty air, and was answered by the distant barking of
+dogs, with which the mansion-house seemed garrisoned.  An old woman
+immediately appeared at the gate.  As the moonlight fell strongly
+upon her, I had full view of a little primitive dame, dressed very
+much in the antique taste, with a neat kerchief and stomacher, and
+her silver hair peeping from under a cap of snowy whiteness.  She
+came curtseying forth, with many expressions of simple joy at
+seeing her young master.  Her husband, it seems, was up at the
+house keeping Christmas eve in the servants' hall; they could not
+do without him, as he was the best hand at a song and story in the
+household.
+
+My friend proposed that we should alight and walk through the park
+to the hall, which was at no great distance, while the chaise
+should follow on.  Our road wound through a noble avenue of trees,
+among the naked branches of which the moon glittered as she rolled
+through the deep vault of a cloudless sky.  The lawn beyond was
+sheeted with a slight covering of snow, which here and there
+sparkled as the moonbeams caught a frosty crystal; and at a
+distance might be seen a thin, transparent vapour, stealing up from
+the low grounds, and threatening gradually to shroud the landscape.
+
+My companion looked round him with transport:--"How often," said
+he, "have I scampered up this avenue, on returning home on school
+vacations!  How often have I played under these trees when a boy!
+I feel a degree of filial reverence for them, as we look up to
+those who have cherished us in childhood.  My father was always
+scrupulous in exacting our holidays, and having us around him on
+family festivals.  He used to direct and superintend our games with
+the strictness that some parents do the studies of their children.
+He was very particular that we should play the old English games
+according to their original form and consulted old books for
+precedent and authority for every 'merrie disport;' yet I assure
+you there never was pedantry so delightful.  It was the policy of
+the good old gentleman to make his children feel that home was the
+happiest place in the world; and I value this delicious home-
+feeling as one of the choicest gifts a parent can bestow."
+
+We were interrupted by the clangour of a troop of dogs of all sorts
+and sizes, "mongrel, puppy, whelp, and hound, and curs of low
+degree," that, disturbed by the ringing of the porter's bell, and
+the rattling of the chaise, came bounding, open-mouthed, across the
+lawn.
+
+
+             "The little dogs and all,
+    Tray, Blanch, and Sweetheart--see, they bark at me!"
+
+
+cried Bracebridge, laughing.  At the sound of his voice the bark
+was changed into a yelp of delight, and in a moment he was
+surrounded and almost overpowered by the caresses of the faithful
+animals.
+
+We had now come in full view of the old family mansion, partly
+thrown in deep shadow, and partly lit up by the cold moonshine.  It
+was an irregular building of some magnitude, and seemed to be of
+the architecture of different periods.  One wing was, evidently
+very ancient, with heavy stone-shafted bow windows jutting out and
+overrun with ivy, from among the foliage of which the small
+diamond-shaped panes of glass glittered with the moonbeams.  The
+rest of the house was in the French taste of Charles the Second's
+time, having been repaired and altered, as my friend told me, by
+one of his ancestors, who returned with that monarch at the
+Restoration.  The grounds about the house were laid out in the old
+formal manner of artificial flower-beds, clipped shrubberies,
+raised terraces, and heavy stone balustrades, ornamented with urns,
+a leaden statue or two, and a jet of water.  The old gentleman, I
+was told, was extremely careful to preserve this obsolete finery in
+all its original state.  He admired this fashion in gardening; it
+had an air of magnificence, was courtly and noble, and befitting
+good old family style.  The boasted imitation of nature in modern
+gardening had sprung up with modern republican notions, but did not
+suit a monarchical government; it smacked of the levelling system.
+I could not help smiling at this introduction of politics into
+gardening, though I expressed some apprehension that I should find
+the old gentleman rather intolerant in his creed.  Frank assured
+me, however, that it was almost the only instance in which he had
+ever heard his father meddle with politics; and he believed that he
+had got this notion from a member of Parliament who once passed a
+few weeks with him.  The Squire was glad of any argument to defend
+his clipped yew-trees and formal terraces, which had been
+occasionally attacked by modern landscape gardeners.
+
+As we approached the house, we heard the sound of music, and now
+and then a burst of laughter from one end of the building.  This,
+Bracebridge said, must proceed from the servants' hall, where a
+great deal of revelry was permitted, and even encouraged, by the
+Squire throughout the twelve days of Christmas, provided everything
+was done comformably to ancient usage.  Here were kept up the old
+games of hoodman blind, shoe the wild mare, hot cockles, steal the
+white loaf, bob apple and snapdragon: the Yule log and Christmas
+candle were regularly burnt, and the mistletoe, with its white
+berries, hung up to the imminent peril of all the pretty
+housemaids.*
+
+
+* See Note A.
+
+
+So intent were the servants upon their sports, that we had to ring
+repeatedly before we could make ourselves heard.  On our arrival
+being announced, the Squire came out to receive us, accompanied by
+his two other sons; one a young officer in the army, home on leave
+of absence; the other an Oxonian, just from the University.  The
+Squire was a fine, healthy-looking old gentleman, with silver hair
+curling lightly round an open, florid countenance; in which a
+physiognomist, with the advantage, like myself, of a previous hint
+or two, might discover a singular mixture of whim and benevolence.
+
+The family meeting was warm and affectionate; as the evening was
+far advanced, the Squire would not permit us to change our
+travelling dresses, but ushered us at once to the company, which
+was assembled in a large old-fashioned hall.  It was composed of
+different branches of a numerous family connection, where there
+were the usual proportion of old uncles and aunts, comfortably
+married dames, superannuated spinsters, blooming country cousins,
+half-fledged striplings, and bright-eyed boarding-school hoydens.
+They were variously occupied; some at a round game of cards; others
+conversing around the fireplace; at one end of the hall was a group
+of the young folks, some nearly grown up, others of a more tender
+and budding age, fully engrossed by a merry game; and a profusion
+of wooden horses, penny trumpets, and tattered dolls, about the
+floor, showed traces of a troop of little fairy beings, who, having
+frolicked through a happy day, had been carried off to slumber
+through a peaceful night.
+
+While the mutual greetings were going on between Bracebridge and
+his relatives, I had time to scan the apartment.  I have called it
+a hall, for so it had certainly been in old times, and the Squire
+had evidently endeavoured to restore it to something of its
+primitive state.  Over the heavy projecting fireplace was suspended
+a picture of a warrior in armour standing by a white horse, and on
+the opposite wall hung helmet, buckler, and lance.  At one end an
+enormous pair of antlers were inserted in the wall, the branches
+serving as hooks on which to suspend hats, whips, and spurs; and in
+the corners of the apartment were fowling-pieces, fishing-rods, and
+other sporting implements.  The furniture was of the cumbrous
+workmanship of former days, though some articles of modern
+convenience had been added, and the oaken floor had been carpeted;
+so that the whole presented an odd mixture of parlour and hall.
+
+The grate had been removed from the wide overwhelming fireplace, to
+make way for a fire of wood, in the midst of which was an enormous
+log glowing and blazing, and sending forth a vast volume of light
+and heat; this I understood was the Yule-log, which the Squire was
+particular in having brought in and illumined on a Christmas eve,
+according to ancient custom.*
+
+
+* See Note B.
+
+
+It was really delightful to see the old Squire seated in his
+hereditary elbow-chair by the hospitable fireside of his ancestors,
+and looking around him like the sun of a system, beaming warmth and
+gladness to every heart.  Even the very dog that lay stretched at
+his feet, as he lazily shifted his position and yawned, would look
+fondly up in his master's face, wag his tail against the floor, and
+stretch himself again to sleep, confident of kindness and
+protection.  There is an emanation from the heart in genuine
+hospitality which cannot be described, but is immediately felt, and
+puts the stranger at once at his ease.  I had not been seated many
+minutes by the comfortable hearth of the worthy cavalier before I
+found myself as much at home as if I had been one of the family.
+
+Supper was announced shortly after our arrival.  It was served up
+in a spacious oaken chamber, the panels of which shone with wax,
+and around which were several family portraits decorated with holly
+and ivy.  Beside the accustomed lights, two great wax tapers,
+called Christmas candles, wreathed with greens, were placed on a
+highly-polished buffet among the family plate.  The table was
+abundantly spread with substantial fare; but the Squire made his
+supper of frumenty, a dish made of wheat cakes boiled in milk with
+rich spices, being a standing dish in old times for Christmas eve.
+I was happy to find my old friend, minced-pie, in the retinue of
+the feast; and finding him to be perfectly orthodox, and that I
+need not be ashamed of my predilection, I greeted him with all the
+warmth wherewith we usually greet an old and very genteel
+acquaintance.
+
+The mirth of the company was greatly promoted by the humours of an
+eccentric personage whom Mr. Bracebridge always addressed with the
+quaint appellation of Master Simon.  He was a tight, brisk little
+man, with the air of an arrant old bachelor.  His nose was shaped
+like the bill of a parrot; his face slightly pitted with the
+smallpox, with a dry perpetual bloom on it, like a frost-bitten
+leaf in autumn.  He had an eye of great quickness and vivacity,
+with a drollery and lurking waggery of expression that was
+irresistible.  He was evidently the wit of the family, dealing very
+much in sly jokes and innuendoes with the ladies, and making
+infinite merriment by harpings upon old themes; which,
+unfortunately, my ignorance of the family chronicles did not permit
+me to enjoy.  It seemed to be his great delight during supper to
+keep a young girl next him in a continual agony of stifled
+laughter, in spite of her awe of the reproving looks of her mother,
+who sat opposite.  Indeed, he was the idol of the younger part of
+the company, who laughed at everything he said or did, and at every
+turn of his countenance.  I could not wonder at it; for he must
+have been a miracle of accomplishments in their eyes.  He could
+imitate Punch and Judy; make an old woman of his hand, with the
+assistance of a burnt cork and pocket-handkerchief: and cut an
+orange into such a ludicrous caricature, that the young folks were
+ready to die with laughing.
+
+I was let briefly into his history by Frank Bracebridge.  He was an
+old bachelor of a small independent income, which by careful
+management was sufficient for all his wants.  He revolved through
+the family system like a vagrant comet in its orbit; sometimes
+visiting one branch, and sometimes another quite remote; as is
+often the case with gentlemen of extensive connections and small
+fortunes in England.  He had a chirping, buoyant disposition,
+always enjoying the present moment; and his frequent change of
+scene and company prevented his acquiring those rusty
+unacommodating habits with which old bachelors are so uncharitably
+charged.  He was a complete family chronicle, being versed in the
+genealogy, history, and intermarriages of the whole house of
+Bracebridge, which made him a great favourite with the old folks;
+he was a beau of all the elder ladies and superannuated spinsters,
+among whom he was habitually considered rather a young fellow, and
+he was a master of the revels among the children; so that there was
+not a more popular being in the sphere in which he moved than Mr.
+Simon Bracebridge.  Of late years he had resided almost entirely
+with the Squire, to whom he had become a factotum, and whom he
+particularly delighted by jumping with his humour in respect to old
+times, and by having a scrap of an old song to suit every occasion.
+We had presently a specimen of his last mentioned talent; for no
+sooner was supper removed, and spiced wines and other beverages
+peculiar to the season introduced, than Master Simon was called on
+for a good old Christmas song.  He bethought himself for a moment,
+and then, with a sparkle of the eye, and a voice that was by no
+means bad, excepting that it ran occasionally into a falsetto, like
+the notes of a split reed, he quavered forth a quaint old ditty:
+
+
+          "Now Christmas is come,
+           Let us beat up the drum,
+    And call all our neighbours together;
+           And when they appear,
+           Let us make them such cheer
+    As will keep out the wind and the weather,"
+           etc.
+
+
+The supper had disposed every one to gaiety, and an old harper was
+summoned from the servants' hall, where he had been strumming all
+the evening, and to all appearance comforting himself with some of
+the Squire's home-brewed.  He was a kind of hanger-on, I was told,
+of the establishment, and though ostensibly a resident of the
+village, was oftener to be found in the Squire's kitchen than his
+own home, the old gentleman being fond of the sound of "harp in
+hall."
+
+The dance, like most dances after supper, was a merry one; some of
+the older folks joined in it, and the Squire himself figured down
+several couples with a partner with whom he affirmed he had danced
+at every Christmas for nearly half a century.  Master Simon, who
+seemed to be a kind of connecting link between the old times and
+the new, and to be withal a little antiquated in the taste of his
+accomplishments, evidently piqued himself on his dancing, and was
+endeavouring to gain credit by the heel and toe, rigadoon, and
+other graces of the ancient school; but he had unluckily assorted
+himself with a little romping girl from boarding-school, who, by
+her wild vivacity, kept him continually on the stretch, and
+defeated all his sober attempts at elegance;--such are the ill-
+assorted matches to which antique gentlemen are unfortunately
+prone!
+
+The young Oxonian, on the contrary, had led out one of his maiden
+aunts, on whom the rogue played a thousand little knaveries with
+impunity; he was full of practical jokes, and his delight was to
+tease his aunts and cousins; yet, like all madcap youngsters, he
+was a universal favourite among the women.  The most interesting
+couple in the dance was the young officer and a ward of the
+Squire's, a beautiful blushing girl of seventeen.  From several shy
+glances which I had noticed in the course of the evening, I
+suspected there was a little kindness growing up between them; and,
+indeed, the young soldier was just the hero to captivate a romantic
+girl.  He was tall, slender, and handsome, and like most young
+British officers of late years, had picked up various small
+accomplishments on the Continent--he could talk French and Italian--
+draw landscapes,--sing very tolerably--dance divinely; but above
+all he had been wounded at Waterloo;--what girl of seventeen, well
+read in poetry and romance, could resist such a mirror of chivalry
+and perfection!
+
+The moment the dance was over, he caught up a guitar, and lolling
+against the old marble fireplace, in an attitude which I am half
+inclined to suspect was studied, began the little French air of the
+Troubadour.  The Squire, however, exclaimed against having anything
+on Christmas eve but good old English; upon which the young
+minstrel, casting up his eye for a moment, as if in an effort of
+memory, struck into another strain, and, with a charming air of
+gallantry, gave Herrick's "Night-Piece to Julia:"
+
+
+    "Her eyes the glow-worm lend thee,
+     The shooting stars attend thee,
+       And the elves also,
+       Whose little eyes glow
+     Like the sparks of fire, befriend thee.
+
+    "No Will-o'-the-Wisp mislight thee;
+     Nor snake or glow-worm bite thee;
+       But on, on thy way,
+       Not making a stay,
+     Since ghost there is none to affright thee.
+
+    "Then let not the dark thee cumber;
+     What though the moon does slumber,
+       The stars of the night
+       Will lend thee their light,
+     Like tapers clear without number.
+
+    "Then, Julia, let me woo thee,
+     Thus, thus to come unto me;
+       And when I shall meet
+       Thy silvery feet,
+     My soul I'll pour into thee."
+
+
+The song might have been intended in compliment to the fair Julia,
+for so I found his partner was called, or it might not; she,
+however, was certainly unconscious of any such application, for she
+never looked at the singer, but kept her eyes cast upon the floor.
+Her face was suffused, it is true, with a beautiful blush, and
+there was a gentle heaving of the bosom, but all that was doubtless
+caused by the exercise of the dance; indeed, so great was her
+indifference, that she was amusing herself with plucking to pieces
+a choice bouquet of hothouse flowers, and by the time the song was
+concluded, the nosegay lay in ruins on the floor.
+
+The party now broke up for the night with the kind-hearted old
+custom of shaking hands.  As I passed through the hall, on the way
+to my chamber, the dying embers of the Yule-clog still sent forth a
+dusky glow; and had it not been the season when "no spirit dares
+stir abroad," I should have been half tempted to steal from my room
+at midnight, and peep whether the fairies might not be at their
+revels about the hearth.
+
+My chamber was in the old part of the mansion, the ponderous
+furniture of which might have been fabricated in the days of the
+giants.  The room was panelled with cornices of heavy carved work,
+in which flowers and grotesque faces were strangely intermingled;
+and a row of black looking portraits stared mournfully at me from
+the walls.  The bed was of rich though faded damask, with a lofty
+tester, and stood in a niche opposite a bow window.  I had scarcely
+got into bed when a strain of music seemed to break forth in the
+air just below the window.  I listened, and found it proceeded from
+a band, which I concluded to be the waits from some neighbouring
+village.  They went round the house, playing under the windows.
+
+I drew aside the curtains, to hear them more distinctly.  The
+moonbeams fell through the upper part of the casement, partially
+lighting up the antiquated apartment.  The sounds, as they receded,
+became more soft and aerial, and seemed to accord with quiet and
+moonlight.  I listened and listened--they became more and more
+tender and remote, and, as they gradually died away, my head sank
+upon the pillow and I fell asleep.
+
+
+
+Christmas Day
+
+
+Dark and dull night, flie hence away,
+And give the honour to this day
+That Sees December turn'd to May.
+ .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .
+Why does the chilling winter's morne
+Smile like a field beset with corn?
+Or smell like to a meade new-shorne,
+Thus on the sudden?--Come and see
+The cause why things thus fragrant be.
+
+                              --HERRICK.
+
+
+When I awoke the next morning, it seemed as if all the events of
+the preceding evening had been a dream, and nothing but the
+identity of the ancient chamber convinced me of their reality.
+While I lay musing on my pillow, I heard the sound of little feet
+pattering outside of the door, and a whispering consultation.
+Presently a choir of small voices chanted forth an old Christmas
+carol, the burden of which was:
+
+
+     "Rejoice, our Saviour he was born
+      On Christmas Day in the morning."
+
+
+I rose softly, slipped on my clothes, opened the door suddenly, and
+beheld one of the most beautiful little fairy groups that a painter
+could imagine.
+
+It consisted of a boy and two girls, the eldest not more than six,
+and lovely as seraphs.  They were going the rounds of the house,
+and singing at every chamber-door; but my sudden appearance
+frightened them into mute bashfulness.  They remained for a moment
+playing on their lips with their fingers, and now and then stealing
+a shy glance, from under their eyebrows, until, as if by one
+impulse, they scampered away, and as they turned an angle of the
+gallery, I heard them laughing in triumph at their escape.
+
+Everything conspired to produce kind and happy feelings in this
+stronghold of old-fashioned hospitality.  The window of my chamber
+looked out upon what in summer would have been a beautiful
+landscape.  There was a sloping lawn, a fine stream winding at the
+foot of it, and a tract of park beyond, with noble clumps of trees,
+and herds of deer.  At a distance was a neat hamlet, with the smoke
+from the cottage chimneys hanging over it; and a church with its
+dark spire in strong relief against the clear, cold sky.  The house
+was surrounded with evergreens, according to the English custom,
+which would have given almost an appearance of summer; but the
+morning was extremely frosty; the light vapour of the preceding
+evening had been precipitated by the cold, and covered all the
+trees and every blade of grass with its fine crystallisations.  The
+rays of a bright morning sun had a dazzling effect among the
+glittering foliage.  A robin, perched upon the top of a mountain-
+ash that hung its clusters of red berries just before my window,
+was basking himself in the sunshine, and piping a few querulous
+notes; and a peacock was displaying all the glories of his train,
+and strutting with the pride and gravity of a Spanish grandee on
+the terrace-walk below.
+
+I had scarcely dressed myself, when a servant appeared to invite me
+to family prayers.  He showed me the way to a small chapel in the
+old wing of the house, where I found the principal part of the
+family already assembled in a kind of gallery, furnished with
+cushions, hassocks, and large prayer-books; the servants were
+seated on benches below.  The old gentleman read prayers from a
+desk in front of the gallery, and Master Simon acted as clerk, and
+made the responses; and I must do him the justice to say that he
+acquitted himself with great gravity and decorum.
+
+The service was followed by a Christmas carol, which Mr.
+Bracebridge himself had constructed from a poem of his favourite
+author, Herrick; and it had been adapted to an old church melody by
+Master Simon.  As there were several good voices among the
+household, the effect was extremely pleasing; but I was
+particularly gratified by the exaltation of heart, and sudden sally
+of grateful feeling, with which the worthy Squire delivered one
+stanza: his eyes glistening, and his voice rambling out of all the
+bounds of time and tune:
+
+
+   "'Tis thou that crown'st my glittering hearth
+       With guiltlesse mirth,
+     And giv'st me wassaile bowles to drink,
+       Spiced to the brink:
+     Lord, 'tis Thy plenty-dropping hand,
+       That soiles my land;
+     And giv'st me for my bushell sowne,
+       Twice ten for one."
+
+
+I afterwards understood that early morning service was read on
+every Sunday and saint's day throughout the year, either by Mr.
+Bracebridge or by some member of the family.  It was once almost
+universally the case at the seats of the nobility and gentry of
+England, and it is much to be regretted that the custom is fallen
+into neglect; for the dullest observer must be sensible of the
+order and serenity prevalent in those households, where the
+occasional exercise of a beautiful form of worship in the morning
+gives, as it were, the key-note to every temper for the day, and
+attunes every spirit to harmony.
+
+Our breakfast consisted of what the Squire denominated true old
+English fare.  He indulged in some bitter lamentations over modern
+breakfasts of tea-and-toast, which he censured as among the causes
+of modern effeminacy and weak nerves, and the decline of old
+English heartiness; and though he admitted them to his table to
+suit the palates of his guests, yet there was a brave display of
+cold meats, wine, and ale, on the sideboard.
+
+After breakfast I walked about the grounds with Frank Bracebridge
+and Master Simon, or Mr. Simon as he was called by everybody but
+the Squire.  We were escorted by a number of gentleman-like dogs,
+that seemed loungers about the establishment; from the frisking
+spaniel to the steady old staghound; the last of which was of a
+race that had been in the family time out of mind: they were all
+obedient to a dog-whistle which hung to Master Simon's buttonhole,
+and in the midst of their gambols would glance an eye occasionally
+upon a small switch he carried in his hand.
+
+The old mansion had a still more venerable look in the yellow
+sunshine than by pale moonlight; and I could not but feel the force
+of the Squire's idea, that the formal terraces, heavily moulded
+balustrades, and clipped yew-trees, carried with them an air of
+proud aristocracy.  There appeared to be an unusual number of
+peacocks about the place, and I was making some remarks upon what I
+termed a flock of them, that were basking under a sunny wall, when
+I was gently corrected in my phraseology by Master Simon, who told
+me that, according to the most ancient and approved treatise on
+hunting, I must say a MUSTER of peacocks.  "In the same way," added
+he, with a slight air of pedantry, "we say a flight of doves or
+swallows, a bevy of quails, a herd of deer, of wrens, or cranes, a
+skulk of foxes, or a building of rooks."  He went on to inform me,
+that, according to Sir Anthony Fitzherbert, we ought to ascribe, to
+this bird "both understanding and glory; for, being praised, he
+will presently set up his tail chiefly against the sun, to the
+intent you may the better behold the beauty thereof.  But at the
+fall of the leaf, when his tail falleth, he will mourn and hide
+himself in corners, till his tail come again as it was."
+
+I could not help smiling at this display of small erudition on so
+whimsical a subject; but I found that the peacocks were birds of
+some consequence at the Hall, for Frank Bracebridge informed me
+that they were great favourites with his father, who was extremely
+careful to keep up the breed; partly because they belonged to
+chivalry, and were in great request at the stately banquets of the
+olden time; and partly because they had a pomp and magnificence
+about them, highly becoming an old family mansion.  Nothing, he was
+accustomed to say, had an air of greater state and dignity than a
+peacock perched upon an antique stone balustrade.
+
+Master Simon had now to hurry off, having an appointment at the
+parish church with the village choristers, who were to perform some
+music of his selection.  There was something extremely agreeable in
+the cheerful flow of animal spirits of the little man; and I
+confess I had been somewhat surprised at his apt quotations from
+authors who certainly were not in the range of every-day reading.
+I mentioned this last circumstance to Frank Bracebridge, who told
+me with a smile that Master Simon's whole stock of erudition was
+confined to some half-a-dozen old authors, which the Squire had put
+into his hands, and which he read over and over, whenever he had a
+studious fit; as he sometimes had on a rainy day, or a long winter
+evening.  Sir Anthony Fitzherbert's "Book of Husbandry;" Markham's
+"Country Contentments;" the "Tretyse of Hunting," by Sir Thomas
+Cockayne, Knight; Izaak Walton's "Angler," and two or three more
+such ancient worthies of the pen, were his standard authorities;
+and, like all men who know but a few books, he looked up to them
+with a kind of idolatry, and quoted them on all occasions.  As to
+his songs, they were chiefly picked out of old books in the
+Squire's library, and adapted to tunes that were popular among the
+choice spirits of the last century.  His practical application of
+scraps of literature, however, had caused him to be looked upon as
+a prodigy of book-knowledge by all the grooms, huntsmen, and small
+sportsmen of the neighbourhood.
+
+While we were talking we heard the distant toll of the village
+bell, and I was told that the Squire was a little particular in
+having his household at church on a Christmas morning; considering
+it a day of pouring out of thanks and rejoicing; for, as old Tusser
+observed:
+
+
+     "At Christmas be merry, and thankful withal,
+      And feast thy poor neighbours, the great and the small."
+
+
+"If you are disposed to go to church," said Frank Bracebridge, "I
+can promise you a specimen of my cousin Simon's musical
+achievements.  As the church is destitute of an organ, he has
+formed a band from the village amateurs, and established a musical
+club for their improvement; he has also sorted a choir, as he
+sorted my father's pack of hounds, according to the directions of
+Jervaise Markham, in his "Country Contentments;" for the bass he
+has sought out all the 'deep solemn mouths,' and for the tenor the
+'loud ringing mouths,' among the country bumpkins; and for 'sweet
+mouths,' he has culled with curious taste among the prettiest
+lasses in the neighbourhood; though these last, he affirms, are the
+most difficult to keep in tune; your pretty female singer being
+exceedingly wayward and capricious, and very liable to accident."
+
+As the morning, though frosty, was remarkably fine and clear, the
+most of the family walked to the church, which was a very old
+building of gray stone, and stood near a village, about half a mile
+from the park gate.  Adjoining it was a low snug parsonage, which
+seemed coeval with the church.  The front of it was perfectly
+matted with a yew-tree that had been trained against its walls,
+through the dense foliage of which apertures had been formed to
+admit light into the small antique lattices.  As we passed this
+sheltered nest, the parson issued forth and preceded us.
+
+I had expected to see a sleek, well-conditioned pastor, such as is
+often found in a snug living in the vicinity of a rich patron's
+table; but I was disappointed.  The parson was a little, meagre,
+black-looking man, with a grizzled wig that was too wide, and stood
+off from each ear; so that his head seemed to have shrunk away
+within it, like a dried filbert in its shell.  He wore a rusty
+coat, with great skirts, and pockets that would have held the
+church Bible and prayer-book; and his small legs seemed still
+smaller, from being planted in large shoes decorated with enormous
+buckles.
+
+I was informed by Frank Bracebridge that the parson had been a chum
+of his father's at Oxford, and had received this living shortly
+after the latter had come to his estate.  He was a complete black-
+letter hunter, and would scarcely read a work printed in the Roman
+character.  The editions of Caxton and Wynkin de Worde were his
+delight; and he was indefatigable in his researches after such old
+English writers as have fallen into oblivion from their
+worthlessness.  In deference, perhaps, to the notions of Mr.
+Bracebridge, he had made diligent investigations into the festive
+rites and holiday customs of former times; and had been as zealous
+in the inquiry as if he had been a boon companion; but it was
+merely with that plodding spirit with which men of adust
+temperament follow up any track of study, merely because it is
+denominated learning; indifferent to its intrinsic nature, whether
+it be the illustration of the wisdom, or of the ribaldry and
+obscenity of antiquity.  He had pored over these old volumes so
+intensely, that they seemed to have been reflected into his
+countenance indeed; which, if the face be an index of the mind,
+might be compared to a title-page of black-letter.
+
+On reaching the church porch, we found the parson rebuking the
+gray-headed sexton for having used mistletoe among the greens with
+which the church was decorated.  It was, he observed, an unholy
+plant, profaned by having been used by the Druids in their mystic
+ceremonies; and though it might be innocently employed in the
+festive ornamenting of halls and kitchens, yet it had been deemed
+by the Fathers of the Church as unhallowed, and totally unfit for
+sacred purposes.  So tenacious was he on this point, that the poor
+sexton was obliged to strip down a great part of the humble
+trophies of his taste, before the parson would consent to enter
+upon the service of the day.
+
+The interior of the church was venerable but simple; on the walls
+were several mural monuments of the Bracebridges, and just beside
+the altar was a tomb of ancient workmanship, on which lay the
+effigy of a warrior in armour, with his legs crossed, a sign of his
+having been a crusader.  I was told it was one of the family who
+had signalised himself in the Holy Land, and the same whose picture
+hung over the fireplace in the hall.
+
+During service, Master Simon stood up in the pew, and repeated the
+responses very audibly; evincing that kind of ceremonious devotion
+punctually observed by a gentleman of the old school, and a man of
+old family connections.  I observed, too, that he turned over the
+leaves of a folio prayer-book with something of a flourish;
+possibly to show off an enormous seal-ring which enriched one of
+his fingers, and which had the look of a family relic.  But he was
+evidently most solicitous about the musical part of the service,
+keeping his eye fixed intently on the choir, and beating time with
+much gesticulation and emphasis.
+
+The orchestra was in a small gallery, and presented a most
+whimsical grouping of heads, piled one above the other, among which
+I particularly noticed that of the village tailor, a pale fellow
+with a retreating forehead and chin, who played on the clarionet,
+and seemed to have blown his face to a point; and there was
+another, a short pursy man, stooping and labouring at a bass viol,
+so as to show nothing but the top of a round bald head, like the
+egg of an ostrich.  There were two or three pretty faces among the
+female singers, to which the keen air of a frosty morning had given
+a bright rosy tint; but the gentlemen choristers had evidently been
+chosen, like old Cremona fiddles, more for tone than looks; and as
+several had to sing from the same book, there were clusterings of
+odd physiognomies, not unlike those groups of cherubs we sometimes
+see on country tombstones.
+
+The usual services of the choir were managed tolerably well, the
+vocal parts generally lagging a little behind the instrumental, and
+some loitering fiddler now and then making up for lost time by
+travelling over a passage with prodigious celerity, and clearing
+more bars than the keenest fox-hunter to be in at the death.  But
+the great trial was an anthem that had been prepared and arranged
+by Master Simon, and on which he had founded great expectation.
+Unluckily there was a blunder at the very outset; the musicians
+became flurried; Master Simon was in a fever; everything went on
+lamely and irregularly until they came to a chorus beginning "Now
+let us sing with one accord," which seemed to be a signal for
+parting company: all became discord and confusion; each shifted for
+himself, and got to the end as well, or rather as soon, as he
+could, excepting one old chorister in a pair of horn spectacles
+bestriding and pinching a long sonorous nose; who, happening to
+stand a little apart, and being wrapped up in his own melody, kept
+on a quavering course, wriggling his head, ogling his book, and
+winding all up by a nasal solo of at least three bars' duration.
+
+The parson gave us a most erudite sermon on the rites and
+ceremonies of Christmas, and the propriety of observing it not
+merely as a day of thanksgiving, but of rejoicing; supporting the
+correctness of his opinions by the earliest usages of the Church,
+and enforcing them by the authorities of Theophilus of Cesarea, St.
+Cyprian, St. Chrysostom, St. Augustine, and a cloud more of Saints
+and Fathers, from whom he made copious quotations.  I was a little
+at a loss to perceive the necessity of such a mighty array of
+forces to maintain a point which no one present seemed inclined to
+dispute; but I soon found that the good man had a legion of ideal
+adversaries to contend with; having, in the course of his
+researches on the subject of Christmas, got completely embroiled in
+the sectarian controversies of the Revolution, when the Puritans
+made such a fierce assault upon the ceremonies of the Church, and
+poor old Christmas was driven out of the land by proclamation of
+Parliament.*  The worthy parson lived but with times past, and knew
+but a little of the present.
+
+
+* See Note C.
+
+
+Shut up among worm-eaten tomes in the retirement of his antiquated
+little study, the pages of old times were to him as the gazettes of
+the day; while the era of the Revolution was mere modern history.
+He forgot that nearly two centuries had elapsed since the fiery
+persecution of poor mince-pie throughout the land; when plum-
+porridge was denounced as "mere popery," and roast beef as
+antichristian; and that Christmas had been brought in again
+triumphantly with the merry court of King Charles at the
+Restoration.  He kindled into warmth with the ardour of his
+contest, and the host of imaginary foes with whom he had to combat;
+had a stubborn conflict with old Prynne and two or three other
+forgotten champions of the Round-heads, on the subject of Christmas
+festivity; and concluded by urging his hearers, in the most solemn
+and affecting manner, to stand to the traditionary customs of their
+fathers, and feast and make merry on this joyful anniversary of the
+Church.
+
+I have seldom known a sermon attended apparently with more
+immediate effects; for, on leaving the church, the congregation
+seemed one and all possessed with the gaiety of spirit so earnestly
+enjoined by their pastor.  The elder folks gathered in knots in the
+churchyard, greeting and shaking hands; and the children ran about
+crying, Ule! Ule! and repeating some uncouth rhymes,* which the
+parson, who had joined us, informed me had been handed down from
+days of yore.  The villagers doffed their hats to the Squire as he
+passed, giving him the good wishes of the season with every
+appearance of heartfelt sincerity, and were invited by him to the
+Hall, to take something to keep out the cold of the weather; and I
+heard blessings uttered by several of the poor, which convinced me
+that, in the midst of his enjoyments, the worthy old cavalier had
+not forgotten the true Christmas virtue of charity.
+
+
+* "Ule! Ule!
+   Three puddings in a pule;
+   Crack nuts and cry ule!"
+
+
+On our way homeward his heart seemed overflowing with generous and
+happy feelings.  As we passed over a rising ground which commanded
+something of a prospect, the sounds of rustic merriment now and
+then reached our ears; the Squire paused for a few moments, and
+looked around with an air of inexpressible benignity.  The beauty
+of the day was of itself sufficient to inspire philanthropy.
+Notwithstanding the frostiness of the morning, the sun in his
+cloudless journey had acquired sufficient power to melt away the
+thin covering of snow from every southern declivity, and to bring
+out the living green which adorns an English landscape even in
+midwinter.  Large tracts of smiling verdure contrasted with the
+dazzling whiteness of the shaded slopes and hollows.  Every
+sheltered bank on which the broad rays rested yielded its silver
+rill of cold and limpid water, glittering through the dripping
+grass; and sent up slight exhalations to contribute to the thin
+haze that hung just above the surface of the earth.  There was
+something truly cheering in this triumph of warmth and verdure over
+the frosty thraldom of winter; it was, as the Squire observed, an
+emblem of Christmas hospitality, breaking through the chills of
+ceremony and selfishness, and thawing every heart into a flow.  He
+pointed with pleasure to the indications of good cheer reeking from
+the chimneys of the comfortable farmhouses and low, thatched
+cottages.  "I love," said he, "to see this day well kept by rich
+and poor; it is a great thing to have one day in the year, at
+least, when you are sure of being welcome wherever you go, and of
+having, as it were, the world all thrown open to you; and I am
+almost disposed to join with Poor Robin, in his malediction of
+every churlish enemy to this honest festival:
+
+
+    "'Those who at Christmas do repine,
+      And would fain hence despatch him,
+      May they with old Duke Humphry dine,
+      Or else may Squire Ketch catch 'em.'"
+
+
+The Squire went on to lament the deplorable decay of the games and
+amusements which were once prevalent at this season among the lower
+orders, and countenanced by the higher: when the old halls of
+castles and manor-houses were thrown open at daylight; when the
+tables were covered with brawn, and beef, and humming ale; when the
+harp and the carol resounded all day long, and when rich and poor
+were alike welcome to enter and make merry.*  "Our old games and
+local customs," said he, "had a great effect in making the peasant
+fond of his home, and the promotion of them, by the gentry made him
+fond of his lord.  They made the times merrier, and kinder, and
+better; and I can truly say, with one of our old poets:
+
+
+    "'I like them well--the curious preciseness
+      And all-pretended gravity of those
+      That seek to banish hence these harmless sports,
+      Have thrust away much ancient honesty.'
+
+
+* See Note D.
+
+
+"The nation," continued he, "is altered; we have almost lost our
+simple, true-hearted peasantry.  They have broken asunder from the
+higher classes, and seem to think their interests are separate.
+They have become too knowing, and begin to read newspapers, listen
+to alehouse politicians, and talk of reform.  I think one mode to
+keep them in good humour in these hard times would be for the
+nobility and gentry to pass more time on their estates, mingle more
+among the country people, and set the merry old English games going
+again."
+
+Such was the good Squire's project for mitigating public
+discontent; and, indeed, he had once attempted to put his doctrine
+in practice, and a few years before had kept open house during the
+holidays in the old style.  The country people, however, did not
+understand how to play their parts in the scene of hospitality;
+many uncouth circumstances occurred; the manor was overrun by all
+the vagrants of the country, and more beggars drawn into the
+neighbourhood in one week than the parish officers could get rid of
+in a year.  Since then, he had contented himself with inviting the
+decent part of the neighbouring peasantry to call at the Hall on
+Christmas Day, and distributing beef, and bread, and ale, among the
+poor, that they might make merry in their own dwellings.
+
+We had not been long home when the sound of music was heard from a
+distance.  A band of country lads, without coats, their shirt-
+sleeves fancifully tied with ribands, their hats decorated with
+greens, and clubs in their hands, were seen advancing up the
+avenue, followed by a large number of villagers and peasantry.
+They stopped before the hall door, where the music struck up a
+peculiar air, and the lads performed a curious and intricate dance,
+advancing, retreating, and striking their clubs together, keeping
+exact time to the music; while one, whimsically crowned with a
+fox's skin, the tail of which flaunted down his back, kept capering
+around the skirts of the dance, and rattling a Christmas-box with
+many antic gesticulations.
+
+The Squire eyed this fanciful exhibition with great interest and
+delight, and gave me a full account of its origin, which he traced
+to the times when the Romans held possession of the island; plainly
+proving that this was a lineal descendant of the sword-dance of the
+ancients.  "It was now," he said, "nearly extinct, but he had
+accidentally met with traces of it in the neighbourhood, and had
+encouraged its revival; though, to tell the truth, it was too apt
+to be followed up by rough cudgel-play and broken heads in the
+evening."
+
+After the dance was concluded, the whole party was entertained with
+brawn and beef, and stout home-brewed.  The Squire himself mingled
+among the rustics, and was received with awkward demonstrations of
+deference and regard.
+
+It is true, I perceived two or three of the younger peasants, as
+they were raising their tankards to their mouths when the Squire's
+back was turned, making something of a grimace, and giving each
+other the wink; but the moment they caught my eye they pulled grave
+faces, and were exceedingly demure.  With Master Simon, however,
+they all seemed more at their ease.
+
+His varied occupations and amusements had made him well known
+throughout the neighbourhood.  He was a visitor at every farmhouse
+and cottage; gossiped with the farmers and their wives; romped with
+their daughters; and, like that type of a vagrant bachelor, the
+bumblebee, tolled the sweets from all the rosy lips of the country
+around.
+
+The bashfulness of the guests soon gave way before good cheer and
+affability.  There is something genuine and affectionate in the
+gaiety of the lower orders, when it is excited by the bounty and
+familiarity of those above them; the warm glow of gratitude enters
+into their mirth, and a kind word or a small pleasantry, frankly
+uttered by a patron, gladdens the heart of the dependant more than
+oil and wine.  When the Squire had retired, the merriment
+increased, and there was much joking and laughter, particularly
+between Master Simon and a hale, ruddy-faced, white-headed farmer,
+who appeared to be the wit of the village; for I observed all his
+companions to wait with open mouths for his retorts, and burst into
+a gratuitous laugh before they could well understand them.
+
+The whole house, indeed, seemed abandoned to merriment.  As I
+passed to my room to dress for dinner, I heard the sound of music
+in a small court, and, looking through a window that commanded it,
+I perceived a band of wandering musicians, with pandean pipes and
+tambourine; a pretty, coquettish housemaid was dancing a jig with a
+smart country lad, while several of the other servants were looking
+on.  In the midst of her sport the girl caught a glimpse of my face
+at the window, and, colouring up, ran off with an air of roguish
+affected confusion.
+
+
+
+The Christmas Dinner
+
+
+Lo, now is come the joyful'st feast!
+  Let every man be jolly,
+Eache roome with yvie leaves is drest,
+  And every post with holly.
+Now all our neighbours' chimneys smoke,
+  And Christmas blocks are burning;
+Their ovens they with bak't meats choke,
+  And all their spits are turning.
+    Without the door let sorrow lie,
+      And if, for cold, it hap to die,
+    We'll bury't in a Christmas pye,
+      And evermore be merry.
+
+                --WITHERS'S Juvenilia.
+
+
+I had finished my toilet, and was loitering with Frank Bracebridge
+in the library, when we heard a distant thwacking sound, which he
+informed me was a signal for the serving up of the dinner.  The
+Squire kept up old customs in kitchen as well as hall; and the
+rolling-pin, struck upon the dresser by the cook, summoned the
+servants to carry in the meats.
+
+
+    "Just in this nick the cook knock'd thrice,
+     And all the waiters in a trice
+       His summons did obey;
+     Each serving man, with dish in hand,
+     March'd boldly up, like our train-band,
+       Presented and away."*
+
+
+* Sir John Suckling.
+
+
+The dinner was served up in the great hall, where the Squire always
+held his Christmas banquet.  A blazing, crackling fire of logs had
+been heaped on to warm the spacious apartment, and the flame went
+sparkling and wreathing up the wide-mouthed chimney.  The great
+picture of the crusader and his white horse had been profusely
+decorated with greens for the occasion; and holly and ivy had
+likewise been wreathed around the helmet and weapons on the
+opposite wall, which I understood were the arms of the same
+warrior.  I must own, by the by, I had strong doubts about the
+authenticity of painting and armour as having belonged to the
+crusader, they certainly having the stamp of more recent days; but
+I was told that the painting had been so considered time out of
+mind; and that as to the armour, it had been found in a lumber
+room, and elevated to its present situation by the Squire, who at
+once determined it to be the armour of the family hero; and as he
+was absolute authority on all such subjects to his own household,
+the matter had passed into current acceptation.  A sideboard was
+set out just under this chivalric trophy, on which was a display of
+plate that might have vied (at least in variety) with Belshazzar's
+parade of the vessels of the Temple: "flagons, cans, cups, beakers,
+goblets, basins, and ewers;" the gorgeous utensils of good
+companionship, that had gradually accumulated through many
+generations of jovial housekeepers.  Before these stood the two
+Yule candles, beaming like two stars of the first magnitude: other
+lights were distributed in branches, and the whole array glittered
+like a firmament of silver.
+
+We were ushered into this banqueting scene with the sound of
+minstrelsy, the old harper being seated on a stool beside the
+fireplace, and twanging his instrument with a vast deal more power
+than melody.  Never did Christmas board display a more goodly and
+gracious assemblage of countenances; those who were not handsome
+were, at least, happy; and happiness is a rare improver of your
+hard-favoured visage.
+
+I always consider an old English family as well worth studying as a
+collection of Holbein's portraits or Albert Durer's prints.  There
+is much antiquarian lore to be acquired; much knowledge of the
+physiognomies of former times.  Perhaps it may be from having
+continually before their eyes those rows of old family portraits,
+with which the mansions of this country are stocked; certain it is,
+that the quaint features of antiquity are often most faithfully
+perpetuated in these ancient lines; and I have traced an old family
+nose through a whole picture-gallery, legitimately handed down from
+generation to generation, almost from the time of the Conquest.
+Something of the kind was to be observed in the worthy company
+around me.  Many of their faces had evidently originated in a
+Gothic age, and been merely copied by succeeding generations; and
+there was one little girl, in particular, of staid demeanour, with
+a high Roman nose, and an antique vinegar aspect, who was a great
+favourite of the Squire's, being, as he said, a Bracebridge all
+over, and the very counterpart of one of his ancestors who figured
+in the court of Henry VIII.
+
+The parson said grace, which was not a short, familiar one, such as
+is commonly addressed to the Deity, in these unceremonious days;
+but a long, courtly, well-worded one of the ancient school.
+
+There was now a pause, as if something was expected; when suddenly
+the butler entered the hall with some degree of bustle; he was
+attended by a servant on each side with a large wax-light, and bore
+a silver dish, on which was an enormous pig's head, decorated with
+rosemary, with a lemon in its mouth, which was placed with great
+formality at the head of the table.  The moment this pageant made
+its appearance, the harper struck up a flourish; at the conclusion
+of which the young Oxonian, on receiving a hint from the Squire,
+gave, with an air of the most comic gravity, an old carol, the
+first verse of which was as follows:
+
+
+      "Caput apri defero
+       Reddens laudes Domino.
+   The boar's head in hand bring I,
+   With garlands gay and rosemary.
+       I pray you all synge merily
+       Qui estis in convivio."
+
+
+Though prepared to witness many of these little eccentricities,
+from being apprised of the peculiar hobby of mine host; yet, I
+confess, the parade with which so odd a dish was introduced
+somewhat perplexed me, until I gathered from the conversation of
+the Squire and the parson that it was meant to represent the
+bringing in of the boar's head: a dish formerly served up with much
+ceremony, and the sound of minstrelsy and song, at great tables on
+Christmas Day.  "I like the old custom," said the Squire, "not
+merely because it is stately and pleasing in itself, but because it
+was observed at the College of Oxford, at which I was educated.
+When I hear the old song chanted, it brings to mind the time when I
+was young and gamesome--and the noble old college-hall--and my
+fellow students loitering about in their black gowns; many of whom,
+poor lads, are now in their graves!"
+
+The parson, however, whose mind was not haunted by such
+associations, and who was always more taken up with the text than
+the sentiment, objected to the Oxonian's version of the carol:
+which he affirmed was different from that sung at college.  He went
+on, with the dry perseverance of a commentator, to give the college
+reading, accompanied by sundry annotations: addressing himself at
+first to the company at large; but finding their attention
+gradually diverted to other talk, and other objects, he lowered his
+tone as his number of auditors diminished, until he concluded his
+remarks, in an under voice, to a fat-headed old gentleman next him,
+who was silently engaged in the discussion of a huge plateful of
+turkey.*
+
+
+* See Note E.
+
+
+The table was literally loaded with good cheer, and presented an
+epitome of country abundance, in this season of overflowing
+larders.  A distinguished post was allotted to "ancient sirloin,"
+as mine host termed it; being, as he added, "the standard of old
+English hospitality, and a joint of goodly presence, and full of
+expectation."
+
+There were several dishes quaintly decorated, and which had
+evidently something traditionary in their embellishments; but about
+which, as I did not like to appear over curious, I asked no
+questions.  I could not, however, but notice a pie, magnificently
+decorated with peacocks' feathers, in imitation of the tail of that
+bird, which overshadowed a considerable tract of the table.  This,
+the Squire confessed, with some little hesitation, was a pheasant-
+pie, though a peacock-pie was certainly the most authentical; but
+there had been such a mortality among the peacocks this season,
+that he could not prevail upon himself to have one killed.*
+
+
+* See Note F.
+
+
+It would be tedious, perhaps, to my wiser readers, who may not have
+that foolish fondness for odd and obsolete things to which I am a
+little given, were I to mention the other makeshifts of this worthy
+old humourist, by which he was endeavouring to follow up, though at
+humble distance, the quaint customs of antiquity.  I was pleased,
+however, to see the respect shown to his whims by his children and
+relatives; who, indeed, entered readily into the full spirit of
+them, and seemed all well versed in their parts; having doubtless
+been present at many a rehearsal.  I was amused, too, at the air of
+profound gravity with which the butler and other servants executed
+the duties assigned them, however eccentric.  They had an old-
+fashioned look; having, for the most part, been brought up in the
+household, and grown into keeping with the antiquated mansion, and
+the humours of its lord; and most probably looked upon all his
+whimsical regulations as the established laws of honourable
+housekeeping.  When the cloth was removed, the butler brought in a
+huge silver vessel of rare and curious workmanship, which he placed
+before the Squire.  Its appearance was hailed with acclamation;
+being the Wassail Bowl, so renowned in Christmas festivity.  The
+contents had been prepared by the Squire himself; for it was a
+beverage in the skilful mixture of which he particularly prided
+himself, alleging that it was too abstruse and complex for the
+comprehension of an ordinary servant.  It was a potation, indeed,
+that might well make the heart of a toper leap within him; being
+composed of the richest and raciest wines, highly spiced and
+sweetened, with roasted apples bobbing about the surface.*
+
+
+* See Note G.
+
+
+The old gentleman's whole countenance beamed with a serene look of
+indwelling delight, as he stirred this mighty bowl.  Having raised
+it to his lips, with a hearty wish of a merry Christmas to all
+present, he sent it brimming, around the board, for every one to
+follow his example, according to the primitive style; pronouncing
+it "the ancient fountain of good feeling, where all hearts met
+together."*
+
+
+* See Note H.
+
+
+There was much laughing and rallying, as the honest emblem of
+Christmas joviality circulated, and was kissed rather coyly by the
+ladies.  When it reached Master Simon he raised it in both hands,
+and with the air of a boon companion struck up an old Wassail
+chanson:
+
+
+     The browne bowle,
+     The merry browne bowle,
+     As it goes round about-a,
+          Fill
+          Still,
+     Let the world say what it will,
+     And drink your fill all out-a.
+
+     The deep canne,
+     The merry deep canne,
+     As thou dost freely quaff-a,
+          Sing,
+          Fling,
+     Be as merry as a king,
+     And sound a lusty laugh-a.*
+
+
+* From "Poor Robin's Almanack."
+
+
+Much of the conversation during dinner turned upon family topics,
+to which I was a stranger.  There was, however, a great deal of
+rallying of Master Simon about some gay widow, with whom he was
+accused of having a flirtation.  This attack was commenced by the
+ladies; but it was continued throughout the dinner by the fat-
+headed old gentleman next the parson, with the persevering
+assiduity of a slow-hound; being one of those long-winded jokers,
+who, though rather dull at starting game, are unrivalled for their
+talents in hunting it down.  At every pause in the general
+conversation, he renewed his bantering in pretty much the same
+terms; winking hard at me with both eyes whenever he gave Master
+Simon what he considered a home thrust.  The latter, indeed, seemed
+fond of being teased on the subject, as old bachelors are apt to
+be; and he took occasion to inform me, in an undertone, that the
+lady in question was a prodigiously fine woman, and drove her own
+curricle.
+
+The dinner-time passed away in this flow of innocent hilarity; and,
+though the old hall may have resounded in its time with many a
+scene of broader rout and revel, yet I doubt whether it ever
+witnessed more honest and genuine enjoyment.  How easy it is for
+one benevolent being to diffuse pleasure around him; and how truly
+is a kind heart a fountain of gladness, making everything in its
+vicinity to freshen into smiles!  The joyous disposition of the
+worthy Squire was perfectly contagious; he was happy himself, and
+disposed to make all the world happy; and the little eccentricities
+of his humour did but season, in a manner, the sweetness of his
+philanthropy.
+
+When the ladies had retired, the conversation, as usual, became
+still more animated; many good things were broached which had been
+thought of during dinner, but which would not exactly do for a
+lady's ear; and though I cannot positively affirm that there was
+much wit uttered, yet I have certainly heard many contests of rare
+wit produce much less laughter.  Wit, after all, is a mighty tart,
+pungent ingredient, and much too acid for some stomachs; but honest
+good humour is the oil and wine of a merry meeting, and there is no
+jovial companionship equal to that where the jokes are rather
+small, and the laughter abundant.  The Squire told several long
+stories of early college pranks and adventures, in some of which
+the parson had been a sharer; though in looking at the latter, it
+required some effort of imagination to figure such a little dark
+anatomy of a man into the perpetrator of a madcap gambol.  Indeed,
+the two college chums presented pictures of what men may be made by
+their different lots in life.  The Squire had left the university
+to live lustily on his paternal domains, in the vigorous enjoyment
+of prosperity and sunshine, and had flourished on to a hearty and
+florid old age; whilst the poor parson, on the contrary, had dried
+and withered away, among dusty tomes, in the silence and shadows of
+his study.
+
+Still there seemed to be a spark of almost extinguished fire,
+feebly glimmering in the bottom of his soul; and as the Squire
+hinted at a sly story of the parson and a pretty milkmaid, whom
+they once met on the banks of the Isis, the old gentleman made an
+"alphabet of faces," which, as far as I could decipher his
+physiognomy, I verily believe was indicative of laughter;--indeed,
+I have rarely met with an old gentleman who took absolutely offence
+at the imputed gallantries of his youth.
+
+I found the tide of wine and wassail fast gaining on the dry land
+of sober judgment.  The company grew merrier and louder as their
+jokes grew duller.  Master Simon was in as chirping a humour as a
+grasshopper filled with dew; his old songs grew of a warmer
+complexion, and he began to talk maudlin about the widow.  He even
+gave a long song about the wooing of a widow, which he informed me
+he had gathered from an excellent black-letter work, entitled
+"Cupid's Solicitor for Love," containing store of good advice for
+bachelors, and which he promised to lend me.  The first verse was
+to this effect:
+
+
+     "He that will woo a widow must not dally,
+      He must make hay while the sun doth shine;
+      He must not stand with her, Shall I, Shall I?
+      But boldly say, Widow, thou must be mine."
+
+
+This song inspired the fat-headed old gentleman, who made several
+attempts to tell a rather broad story out of Joe Miller, that was
+pat to the purpose; but he always stuck in the middle, everybody
+recollecting the latter part excepting himself.  The parson, too,
+began to show the effects of good cheer, having gradually settled
+down into a doze, and his wig sitting most suspiciously on one
+side.  Just at this juncture we were summoned to the drawing-room,
+and, I suspect, at the private instigation of mine host, whose
+joviality seemed always tempered with a proper love of decorum.
+
+After the dinner-table was removed, the hall was given up to the
+younger members of the family, who, prompted to all kind of noisy
+mirth by the Oxonian and Master Simon, made its old walls ring with
+their merriment, as they played at romping games.  I delight in
+witnessing the gambols of children, and particularly at this happy
+holiday-season, and could not help stealing out of the drawing-room
+on hearing one of their peals of laughter.  I found them at the
+game of blind-man's buff.  Master Simon, who was the leader of
+their revels, and seemed on all occasions to fulfil the office of
+that ancient potentate, the Lord of Misrule,* was blinded in the
+midst of the hall.  The little beings were as busy about him as the
+mock fairies about Falstaff; pinching him, plucking at the skirts
+of his coat, and tickling him with straws.  One fine blue-eyed girl
+of about thirteen, with her flaxen hair all in beautiful confusion,
+her frolic face in a glow, her frock half torn off her shoulders, a
+complete picture of a romp, was the chief tormentor; and from the
+slyness with which Master Simon avoided the smaller game, and
+hemmed this wild little nymph in corners, and obliged her to jump
+shrieking over chairs, I suspected the rogue of being not a whit
+more blinded than was convenient.
+
+
+* See Note I.
+
+
+When I returned to the drawing-room, I found the company seated
+around the fire, listening to the parson, who was deeply ensconced
+in a high-backed oaken chair, the work of some cunning artificer of
+yore, which had been brought from the library for his particular
+accommodation.  From this venerable piece of furniture, with which
+his shadowy figure and dark weazen face so admirably accorded, he
+was dealing forth strange accounts of popular superstitions and
+legends of the surrounding country, with which he had become
+acquainted in the course of his antiquarian researches.  I am half
+inclined to think that the old gentleman was himself somewhat
+tinctured with superstition, as men are very apt to be who live a
+recluse and studious life in a sequestered part of the country, and
+pore over black-letter tracts, so often filled with the marvellous
+and supernatural.  He gave us several anecdotes of the fancies of
+the neighbouring peasantry, concerning the effigy of the crusader
+which lay on the tomb by the church altar.  As it was the only
+monument of the kind in that part of the country, it had always
+been regarded with feelings of superstition by the goodwives of the
+village.  It was said to get up from the tomb and walk the rounds
+of the churchyard in stormy nights, particularly when it thundered;
+and one old woman, whose cottage bordered on the churchyard, had
+seen it, through the windows of the church, when the moon shone,
+slowly pacing up and down the aisles.  It was the belief that some
+wrong had been left unredressed by the deceased, or some treasure
+hidden, which kept the spirit in a state of trouble and
+restlessness.  Some talked of gold and jewels buried in the tomb,
+over which the spectre kept watch; and there was a story current of
+a sexton in old times who endeavoured to break his way to the
+coffin at night; but just as he reached it, received a violent blow
+from the marble hand of the effigy, which stretched him senseless
+on the pavement.  These tales were often laughed at by some of the
+sturdier among the rustics, yet when night came on, there were many
+of the stoutest unbelievers that were shy of venturing alone in the
+footpath that led across the churchyard.  From these and other
+anecdotes that followed, the crusader appeared to be the favourite
+hero of ghost stories throughout the vicinity.  His picture, which
+hung up in the hall, was thought by the servants to have something
+supernatural about it; for they remarked that, in whatever part of
+the hall you went, the eyes of the warrior were still fixed on you.
+The old porter's wife, too, at the lodge, who had been born and
+brought up in the family, and was a great gossip among the maid
+servants, affirmed that in her young days she had often heard say
+that on Midsummer eve, when it is well known all kinds of ghosts,
+goblins, and fairies become visible and walk abroad, the crusader
+used to mount his horse, come down from his picture, ride about the
+house, down the avenue, and so to the church to visit the tomb; on
+which occasion the church door most civilly swung open of itself:
+not that he needed it; for he rode through closed gates and even
+stone walls, and had been seen by one of the dairymaids to pass
+between two bars of the great park gate, making himself as thin as
+a sheet of paper.
+
+All these superstitions, I found, had been very much countenanced
+by the Squire, who, though not superstitious himself, was very fond
+of seeing others so.  He listened to every goblin tale of the
+neighbouring gossips with infinite gravity, and held the porter's
+wife in high favour on account of her talent for the marvellous.
+He was himself a great reader of old legends and romances, and
+often lamented that he could not believe in them; for a
+superstitious person, he thought, must live in a kind of fairyland.
+
+Whilst we were all attention to the parson's stories, our ears were
+suddenly assailed by a burst of heterogeneous sounds from the hall,
+in which was mingled something like the clang of rude minstrelsy,
+with the uproar of many small voices and girlish laughter.  The
+door suddenly flew open, and a train came trooping into the room,
+that might almost have been mistaken for the breaking up of the
+court of Fairy.  That indefatigable spirit, Master Simon, in the
+faithful discharge of his duties as Lord of Misrule, had conceived
+the idea of a Christmas mummery, or masking; and having called in
+to his assistance the Oxonian and the young officer, who were
+equally ripe for anything that should occasion romping and
+merriment, they had carried it into instant effect.  The old
+housekeeper had been consulted; the antique clothes-presses and
+wardrobes rummaged and made to yield up the relics of finery that
+had not seen the light for several generations; the younger part of
+the company had been privately convened from the parlour and hall,
+and the whole had been bedizened out, into a burlesque imitation of
+an antique masque.*
+
+
+* See Note J.
+
+
+Master Simon led the van, as "Ancient Christmas," quaintly
+apparelled in a ruff, a short cloak, which had very much the aspect
+of one of the old housekeeper's petticoats, and a hat that might
+have served for a village steeple, and must indubitably have
+figured in the days of the Covenanters.  From under this his nose
+curved boldly forth, flushed with a frost-bitten bloom, that seemed
+the very trophy of a December blast.  He was accompanied by the
+blue-eyed romp, dished up as "Dame Mince-Pie," in the venerable
+magnificence of faded brocade, long stomacher, peaked hat, and
+high-heeled shoes.  The young officer appeared as Robin Hood, in a
+sporting dress of Kendal green and a foraging cap with a gold
+tassel.  The costume, to be sure, did not bear testimony to deep
+research, and there was an evident eye to the picturesque, natural
+to a young gallant in the presence of his mistress.  The fair Julia
+hung on his arm in a pretty rustic dress, as "Maid Marian."  The
+rest of the train had been metamorphosed in various ways; the girls
+trussed up in the finery of the ancient belles of the Bracebridge
+line, and the striplings bewhiskered with burnt cork, and gravely
+clad in broad skirts, hanging sleeves, and full-bottomed wigs, to
+represent the characters of Roast Beef, Plum Pudding, and other
+worthies celebrated in ancient maskings.  The whole was under the
+control of the Oxonian, in the appropriate character of Misrule;
+and I observed that he exercised rather a mischievous sway with his
+wand over the smaller personages of the pageant.
+
+The irruption of this motley crew, with beat of drum, according to
+ancient custom, was the consummation of uproar and merriment.
+Master Simon covered himself with glory by the stateliness with
+which, as Ancient Christmas, he walked a minuet with the peerless,
+though giggling, Dame Mince-Pie.  It was followed by a dance of all
+the characters, which, from its medley of costumes, seemed as
+though the old family portraits had skipped down from their frames
+to join in the sport.  Different centuries were figuring at cross
+hands and right and left; the dark ages were cutting pirouettes and
+rigadoons; and the days of Queen Bess jigging merrily down the
+middle, through a line of succeeding generations.
+
+The worthy Squire contemplated these fantastic sports, and this
+resurrection of his old wardrobe, with the simple relish of
+childish delight.  He stood chuckling and rubbing his hands, and
+scarcely hearing a word the parson said, notwithstanding that the
+latter was discoursing most authentically on the ancient and
+stately dance at the Paon, or Peacock, from which he conceived the
+minuet to be derived.*  For my part, I was in a continual
+excitement, from the varied scenes of whim and innocent gaiety
+passing before me.  It was inspiring to see wild-eyed frolic and
+warm-hearted hospitality breaking out from among the chills and
+glooms of winter, and old age throwing off his apathy, and catching
+once more the freshness of youthful enjoyment.  I felt also an
+interest in the scene, from the consideration that these fleeting
+customs were posting fast into oblivion, and that this was,
+perhaps, the only family in England in which the whole of them were
+still punctiliously observed.  There was a quaintness, too, mingled
+with all this revelry that gave it a peculiar zest; it was suited
+to the time and place; and as the old Manor House almost reeled
+with mirth and wassail, it seemed echoing back the joviality of
+long-departed years.
+
+
+* See Note K.
+
+
+But enough of Christmas and its gambols; it is time for me to pause
+in this garrulity.  Methinks I hear the questions asked by my
+graver readers, "To what purpose is all this?--how is the world to
+be made wiser by this talk?"  Alas! is there not wisdom enough
+extant for the instruction of the world?  And if not, are there not
+thousands of abler pens labouring for its improvement?--It is so
+much pleasanter to please than to instruct--to play the companion
+rather than the preceptor.
+
+What, after all, is the mite of wisdom that I could throw into the
+mass of knowledge? or how am I sure that my sagest deductions may
+be safe guides for the opinions of others?  But in writing to
+amuse, if I fail, the only evil is my own disappointment.  If,
+however, I can by any lucky chance, in these days of evil, rub out
+one wrinkle from the brow of care, or beguile the heavy heart of
+one moment of sorrow; if I can now and then penetrate through the
+gathering film of misanthropy, prompt a benevolent view of human
+nature, and make my reader more in good humour with his fellow
+beings and himself, surely, surely, I shall not then have written
+entirely in vain.
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+Notes
+
+
+NOTE A.
+
+The misletoe is still hung up in farmhouses and kitchens at
+Christmas; and the young men have the privilege of kissing the
+girls under it, plucking each time a berry from the bush.  When the
+berries are all plucked, the privilege ceases.
+
+
+NOTE B.
+
+The Yule-clog is a great log of wood, sometimes the root of a tree,
+brought into the house with great ceremony, on Christmas eve, laid
+in the fireplace, and lighted with the brand of last year's clog.
+While it lasted there was great drinking, singing, and telling of
+tales.  Sometimes it was accompanied by Christmas candles, but in
+the cottages the only light was from the ruddy blaze of the great
+wood fire.  The Yule-clog was to burn all night; if it went out, it
+was considered a sign of ill luck.
+
+Herrick mentions it in one of his songs:
+
+
+       "Come, bring with a noise
+        My merrie, merrie boyes,
+     The Christmas log to the firing:
+        While my good dame, she
+        Bids ye all be free,
+     And drink to your hearts' desiring."
+
+
+The Yule-clog is still burnt in many farmhouses and kitchens in
+England, particularly in the north, and there are several
+superstitions connected with it among the peasantry.  If a
+squinting person come to the house while it is burning, or a person
+barefooted, it is considered an ill omen.  The brand remaining from
+the Yule-clog is carefully put away to light the next year's
+Christmas fire.
+
+
+NOTE C.
+
+From the Flying Eagle, a small gazette, published December 24,
+1652: "The House spent much time this day about the business of the
+Navy, for settling the affairs at sea; and before they rose, were
+presented with a terrible remonstrance against Christmas day,
+grounded upon divine Scriptures, 2 Cor. v. 16; 1 Cor. xv. 14, 17;
+and in honour of the Lord's Day, grounded upon these Scriptures,
+John xx. I; Rev. i. 10; Psalm cxviii. 24; Lev. xxiii. 7, 11; Mark
+xvi. 8; Psalm lxxxiv. 10, in which Christmas is called Anti-
+Christ's masse, and those Mass-mongers and Papists who observe it,
+etc.  In consequence of which Parliament spent some time in
+consultation about the abolition of Christmas day, passed orders to
+that effect, and resolved to sit on the following day, which was
+commonly called Christmas day."
+
+
+NOTE D.
+
+An English gentleman at the opening of the great day, i. e. on
+Christmas day in the morning, had all his tenants and neighbours
+enter his hall by daybreak.  The strong beer was broached, and the
+black jacks went plentifully about with toast, sugar, nutmeg, and
+good Cheshire cheese.  The hackin (the great sausage) must be
+boiled by daybreak, or else two young men must take the maiden
+(i.e. the cook) by the arms and run her round the market-place till
+she is shamed of her laziness.--Round about our Sea-coal Fire.
+
+
+NOTE E.
+
+The old ceremony of serving up the boar's head on Christmas day is
+still observed in the hall of Queen's College, Oxford.  I was
+favoured by the parson with a copy of the carol as now sung, and as
+it may be acceptable to such of my readers as are curious in these
+grave and learned matters, I give it entire.
+
+
+    "The boar's head in hand bear I,
+     Bedeck'd with bays and rosemary;
+     And I pray you, my masters, be merry,
+       Quot estia in convivio.
+         Caput apri defero
+         Reddens laudes Domino.
+
+
+    "The boar's head, as I understand,
+     Is the rarest dish in all this land,
+     Which thus bedeck'd with a gay garland
+       Let us servire cantico.
+         Caput apri defero, etc.
+
+
+    "Our Steward hath provided this
+     In honour of the King of Bliss,
+     Which on this day to be served is
+       In Reginensi Atrio.
+         Caput apri defero,"
+                   Etc., etc., etc.
+
+
+NOTE F.
+
+The peacock was anciently in great demand for stately
+entertainments.  Sometimes it was made into a pie, at one end of
+which the head appeared above the crust in all its plumage, with
+the beak richly gilt; at the other end the tail was displayed.
+Such pies were served up at the solemn banquets of chivalry, when
+knights-errant pledged themselves to undertake any perilous
+enterprise; whence came the ancient oath, used by Justice Shallow,
+"by cock and pie."
+
+The peacock was also an important dish for the Christmas feast; and
+Massinger, in his "City Madam," gives some idea of the extravagance
+with which this, as well as other dishes, was prepared for the
+gorgeous revels of the olden times:
+
+
+"Men may talk of country Christmasses,
+Their thirty pound butter'd eggs, their pies of carps' tongues:
+Their pheasants drench'd with ambergris; the carcases of three fat
+wethers bruised for gravy, to make sauce for a single peacock!"
+
+
+
+NOTE G.
+
+The Wassail Bowl was sometimes composed of ale instead of wine;
+with nutmeg, sugar, toast, ginger, and roasted crabs; in this way
+the nut-brown beverage is still prepared in some old families, and
+round the hearths of substantial farmers at Christmas.  It is also
+called Lambs' Wool, and is celebrated by Herrick in his "Twelfth
+Night:"
+
+
+       "Next crowne the bowle full
+        With gentle Lambs' Wool,
+     Add sugar, nutmeg, and ginger,
+        With store of ale too;
+        And thus ye must doe
+     To make the Wassaile a swinger."
+
+
+NOTE H.
+
+The custom of drinking out of the same cup gave place to each
+having his cup.  When the steward came to the doore with the
+Wassel, he was to cry three times, Wassel, Wassel, Wassel, and then
+the chappel (chaplain) was to answer with a song.--Archaeologia.
+
+
+NOTE I.
+
+At Christmasse there was in the Kings's house, wheresoever hee was
+lodged, a lorde of misrule, or mayster of merry disportes; and the
+like had ye in the house of every nobleman of honour, or good
+worshippe, were he spirituall or temporall.--Stow.
+
+
+NOTE J.
+
+Maskings or mummeries were favourite sports at Christmas in old
+times; and the wardrobes at halls and manor-houses were often laid
+under contribution to furnish dresses and fantastic disguisings.  I
+strongly suspect Master Simon to have taken the idea of his from
+Ben Jonson's "Masque of Christmas."
+
+
+NOTE K.
+
+Sir John Hawkins, speaking of the dance called the Pavon, from
+pavo, a peacock, says: "It is a grave and majestic dance; the
+method of dancing it anciently was by gentlemen dressed with caps
+and swords, by those of the long robe in their gowns, by the peers
+in their mantles, and by the ladies in gowns with long trains, the
+motion whereof, in dancing, resembled that of a peacock."--History
+of Music.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of The Project Gutenberg Etext Old Christmas, by Washington Irving
+
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