"JOY."
"Love took up the glass of Time, and turn'd it in his glowing hands;
Every moment, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden sands.
Love took up the harp of life, and smote on all the chords with might;
Smote the chord of self that, trembling, pass'd in music out of
sight!"
It was a regular joyous, jolly, old-fashioned Christmas morning: bright,
sparkling, exhilarating.
Just sufficient snow had fallen during the night to give that semblance
of winter to the house-tops and hedge-rows, with a faint white powdering
of the roadway and pavement, which adds so much to the quondam season of
family gatherings, merrymakings, and plum-pudding; and this, King Frost
had hardened by his patent adamantine process, so that it might not
cause any inconvenience to foot passengers or lose its virgin freshness;
while, at the same time, he decked and bedizened each separate twig and
branch of the poor, leafless, skeleton trees with rare festal jewels and
ear-drops of glittering icicles; besides weaving fantastic devices of
goblin castles and airy, feathery foliage on the window panes, fairy
armies in martial array and delicate gnome-tracery--transforming their
appearance from that of ordinary glass into brilliantly-embroidered
flakes of transparent, lucent crystal. Ah me! Jack Frost is a cunning
enchanter: his will is all-powerful, his taste wondrous.
The clanging church bells were merrily ringing in "the day of glad
tidings," as our good vicar styled it, when I jumped out of bed and
looked out to see what the weather was like. It was exactly as I could
have wished--if I had had any choice in the matter--Christmas all over!
A little robin acquaintance, who never omitted his daily call at my
window-ledge for his matutinal crumbs, was stretching his tiny crimson
throat to its fullest extent, with quivering heart-notes of choral song,
from a solitary poplar-tree in the adjacent garden on which my room out-
looked, making the still air re-echo with his melody; my old retriever,
Catch, a good dog and true, was pawing and scratching at the door to be
admitted, in his customary way, and sniffing a cordial welcome, as he
wondered and grumbled, in the most intelligible doggy language, at my
being so late in taking him out for his preprandial walk--when it was
such a fine morning, too! I heard the maid wishing me a cheery "Merry
Christmas, sir!" as she left my hot water; so, it is not to be wondered
that, after I had had the moral courage to plunge into my cold tub,
dressing afterwards in a subsequent glow, I became infected with the
buoyant spirit of all these social surroundings; and felt as light-
hearted and "seasonable" as Santa Claus and his wintry comrades, the
church bells, little robin redbreast, dog Catch, and Bridget the maid,
could either inspire or expect.
Dog Catch and I sallied forth for our walk--I, cheerful, and drinking in
healthy draughts of the fresh, frosty aether; he with great red tongue
lolling out, as he trotted along in front of me, coming back every
second step and looking up into my face with a broad grin on his jaws
and a roguish glance in his brown eyes--I suppose at some funny canine
joke or other, which he could not permit me to share--or else, darting
backwards and forwards, gleefully barking and making sundry feints and
dashes at me; or, prancing up in his elephantine bounds, with felonious
intentions regarding my walking stick, which he considered he had a much
better right to carry than myself.
We had lots of meetings and greetings when strolling along.
First, there was the gardener's dog at the corner, an old chum of
Catch's, who passed the time of day to us with a cheerful bow-wow;
although I was surprised to see that he had not "a posy tied to his
tail," according to the orthodox adage of typical smartness. Then there
was the milkman's dog, a gaunt retriever like mine, but of a very bad
disposition, and a surly brute withal. He and Catch were deadly foes,
as is frequently the case with dogs of the same breed; so, of course,
they could never meet without quarrelling: on this occasion they
exchanged ferocious challenges, and parted with signs and symptoms of
unmitigated contempt on both sides, expressed by growls and barks, tail
risings, and mane upliftings.
Further on, we encountered Mrs O'Flannagan, an Irish lady, who kept the
fruit stall at the corner by the cross roads. She was dressed, as
neatly as a new pin, in an "illigant" Connemara cloak, which seemed to
be donned for the first time, besides a bran new bonnet; and, thanks to
"elbow grease," her peachy, soap-scrubbed cheeks shone again. She was
returning from early chapel, whither she had gone to mass and
confession; and where I trust she had received absolution for her little
peccadilloes. I've no doubt she _did_ get absolution, for she told me
that Father Macmanus was "a raal gintleman."
Then Catch chased a roving cat until it got within the neighbouring
shelter of its domiciliary railings, whence it me-ai-ouwed to him,
through all the vowels of pussy's vocabulary, a Christmas compliment--
with, probably, a curse tacked on to the tail of it, or that "phoo!
phoo! phiz!" meant nothing. But the feline expletives were all thrown
away; for Catch was only "full of fun and with nobody to play with him,"
like Peter Mooney's goose, and had only chased pussy in the natural
exuberance of his spirits, having no "hard feelings" towards her, or any
desire, I know, to injure her soft tabby fur.
We next came across old Shuffler, the house-agent, waddling along, with
his sound eye rolling buoyantly on its axis, while the artificial orb
glared steadily forward in a fixed, glassy stare.
"Bootiful weether!" said he, cordially, to me, touching his
hat--"bootiful weether, sir!"
"It _is_ a fine day," I responded. "A merry Christmas to you, Mr
Shuffler."
"Same to you, sir, and many on 'em," he replied, courteously.
"Thank you, Shuffler," I said, satisfied with the colloquy, "but I must
now say good day!"
"Good day, and a 'appy noo year to you," answered he, passing on his
way. Really, everybody appeared to be very civil and good natured to-
day; and everything joyous and rose-coloured! Was it owing to the
bright morning, or to the fact of its being Christmas, or to the sweet
feelings I had lying hidden in my heart anent my darling?