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 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; 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 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 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.