The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon
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.
THE CHRISTMAS DINNER.
Lo, now is come our 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,
Wee’l bury ‘t in a Christmas pye,
And evermore be merry.
WITHERS, 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 like-wise been wreathed round 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 the painting and armor 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 armor, 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
armor of the family hero; and as he was absolute authority on all
such subjects in 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