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Christmas Day
Dark and dull night, flie hence away,
And give the honor 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 woke 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, slipt 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 vapor of
the preceding evening had been precipitated by the cold, and
covered all the trees and every blade of grass with its fine
crystalizations. 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 favorite
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 eye glistening and his voice rambling out of all
the bounds of time and tune:
"'Tis Thou that crown'st my glittering hearth
With guiltless mirth,
And givest 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
falling 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 keynote 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 gentlemanlike dogs,
that seemed loungers about the establishment, from the frisking
spaniel to the steady old stag-hound, 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 favorites 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, Isaac 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
neighborhood.
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 neighbors, the great with 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 neighborhood; 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 Wynkyn
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
coinpanion; 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; which, if the face be indeed 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 armor with his legs crossed, a sign of
his having been a crusader. I was told it was one of the family
who had signalized 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
clarinet, and seemed to have blown his face to a point; and there
was another, a short pursy man, stooping and laboring 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 happened 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 Caesarea,
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 little of the present.
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 anti-christian, 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 ardor of his contest
and the host of imaginary foes with whom he had to combat; he had
a stubborn conflict with old Prynne and two or three other
forgotten champions of the Roundheads on the subject of Christmas
festivity; and concluded by urging his hearers, in the most
solemn and affecting manner, to stand to the traditional customs
of their fathers and feast and make merry on this joyful
anniversary of the Church.
* 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; I
Cor. xv. 14, 17; and in honor of the Lord's Day, grounded upon
these Scriptures, John xx. I; Rev. i. 10; Psalms cxviii. 24; Lev.
xxiii. 7, 11; Mark xv. 8; Psalms lxxxiv. 10, in which Christmas
is called Anti-christ's masse, and those Masse-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."
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 gayety 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 banded 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 overflowed 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
mid-winter. 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 farm-houses 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 on every churlish enemy to this honest festival:
"`Those who at Christmas do repine,
And would fain hence dispatch 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.'"
"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 ale-house politicians, and talk of reform. I think one
mode to keep them in good-humor 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."
* "An English gentleman, at the opening of the great day--i.e. on
Christmas Day in the morning--had all his tenants and neighbors
enter his hall by daybreak. The strong beer was broached, and the
black-jacks went plentifully about, with toast, sugar and 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.
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 neighborhood 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 neighboring peasantry to
call at the hall on Christmas Day, and with 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 ribbons, their hats decorated
with greens, and clubs in their hands, was 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 round 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
neighborhood, and had encouraged its revival; though, to tell the
truth, it was too apt to be followed up by the 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 neighborhood. 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 humblebee, tolled the sweets from all
the rosy lips of the country round.
The bashfulness of the guests soon gave way before good cheer and
affability. There is something genuine and affectionate in the
gayety 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 months 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, coloring up, ran off with an air
of roguish affected confusion.
Washington Irving's short story: Christmas Day
_
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