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<h2> CHRISTMAS EVE. </h2>
<p>Saint Francis and Saint Benedight<br/>
Blesse this house from wicked wight;<br/>
From the night-mare and the goblin,<br/>
That is hight good fellow Robin;<br/>
Keep it from all evil spirits,<br/>
Fairies, weezels, rats, and ferrets:<br/>
From curfew time<br/>
To the next prime.<br/>
CARTWRIGHT.<br/></p>
<p>IT was a brilliant moonlight night, but extremely cold; our chaise whirled
rapidly over the frozen ground; the postboy 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 honorable 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
favorite 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 humor
without molestation. Being representative of the oldest family in the
neighborhood, 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 eccentricities that
might otherwise appear absurd."</p>
<p>* Peacham's Complete Gentleman, 1622.<br/></p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>The postboy rang a large porter's bell, which resounded though 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 a 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 seemed, 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.</p>
<p>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 vapor stealing up from
the low grounds and threatening gradually to shroud the landscape.</p>
<p>My companion looked around 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 could bestow."</p>
<p>We were interrupted by the clamor of a troop of dogs of all sorts and
sizes, "mongrel, puppy, whelp, and hound, and curs of lower degree," that
disturbed by the ring of the porter's bell and the rattling of the chaise,
came bounding, open-mouthed, across the lawn.</p>
<p>"'——The little dogs and all, Tray, Blanch,<br/>
and Sweetheart, see, they bark at me!'"<br/></p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 leveling 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.</p>
<p>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 conformably 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 snap dragon; the Yule-clog
and Christmas candle were regularly burnt, and the mistletoe with its
white berries hung up, to the imminent peril of all the pretty
housemaids.*</p>
<p>* The mistletoe is still hung up in farm-houses and kitchens<br/>
at Christmas, and the young men have the privilege of<br/>
kissing the girls under it, plucking each time a berry from<br/>
the bush. When the berries are all plucked the privilege<br/>
ceases.<br/></p>
<p>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 a 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 the physiognomist, with the advantage,
like myself, of a previous hint or two, might discover a singular mixture
of whim and benevolence.</p>
<p>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, comfortable 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.</p>
<p>While the mutual greetings were going on between young 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
endeavored to restore it to something of its primitive state. Over the
heavy projecting fireplace was suspended a picture of a warrior in armor,
standing by a white horse, and on the opposite wall hung a 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 parlor and hall.</p>
<p>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-clog, which the squire was particular in having
brought in and illumined on a Christmas Eve, according to ancient custom.*</p>
<p>* The Yule-clog is a great log of wood, sometimes the root<br/>
of a tree, brought into the house with great ceremony on<br/>
Christmas Eve, laid in the fireplace, and lighted with the<br/>
brand of last year's clog. While it lasted there was great<br/>
drinking, singing, and telling of tales. Sometimes it was<br/>
accompanied by Christmas candles; but in the cottages the<br/>
only light was from the ruddy blaze of the great wood fire.<br/>
The Yule-clog was to burn all night; if it went out, it was<br/>
considered a sign of ill luck.<br/></p>
<p>Herrick mentions it in one of his songs:</p>
<p>Come, bring with a noise,<br/>
My metric, merrie boys,<br/>
The Christmas Log to the firing;<br/>
While my good dame, she<br/>
Bids ye all be free,<br/>
And drink to your hearts' desiring.<br/></p>
<p>The Yule-clog is still burnt in many farm-houses 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.</p>
<p>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 old cavalier before I
found myself as much at home as if I had been one of the family.</p>
<p>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. Besides
the accustomed lights, two great wax tapers, called Christmas candles,
wreathed with greens, were placed on a highly polished beaufet 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.</p>
<p>The mirth of the company was greatly promoted by the humors 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 small-pox, with a dry perpetual bloom on
it, like a frostbitten 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
harping 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 to 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.</p>
<p>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, unaccommodating
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
favorite 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 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 humor 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:</p>
<p>Now Christmas is come,<br/>
Let us beat up the drum,<br/>
And call all our neighbors together;<br/>
And when they appear,<br/>
Let us make them such cheer,<br/>
As will keep out the wind and the weather, &c.<br/></p>
<p>The supper had disposed every one to gayety, 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."</p>
<p>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
couple 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 endeavoring 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-sorted matches to which antique gentlemen are unfortunately prone.</p>
<p>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 favorite
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?</p>
<p>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:"</p>
<p>Her eyes the glow-worm lend thee,<br/>
The shooting stars attend thee,<br/>
And the elves also,<br/>
Whose little eyes glow<br/>
Like the sparks of fire, befriend thee.<br/>
<br/>
No Will-o'-the-Wisp mislight thee;<br/>
Nor snake nor slow-worm bite thee;<br/>
But on thy way,<br/>
Not making a stay,<br/>
Since ghost there is none to affright thee,<br/>
<br/>
Then let not the dark thee cumber;<br/>
What though the moon does slumber,<br/>
The stars of the night<br/>
Will lend thee their light,<br/>
Like tapers clear without number.<br/>
<br/>
Then, Julia, let me woo thee,<br/>
Thus, thus to come unto me,<br/>
And when I shall meet<br/>
Thy silvery feet,<br/>
My soul I'll pour into thee.<br/></p>
<p>The song might or might not have been intended in compliment to the fair
Julia, for so I found his partner was called; 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 amused herself with plucking to pieces
a choice bouquet of hot-house flowers, and by the time the song was
concluded the nosegay lay in ruins on the floor.</p>
<p>The party now broke up for the night with the kind-hearted old custom of
shaking hands. As I passed through the hall on my 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.</p>
<p>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
neighboring 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 the quiet and moonlight. I listened and
listened—they became more and more tender and remote, and, as they
gradually died away, my head sunk upon the pillow and I fell asleep.</p>
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