Part 17

I had turned and strolled back with him under the pale December twilight. The new quiet of things, the frosty glimmer of the moon, here and there a star beginning to show, the renovated life of the village about us—all made for peace and content. Grewes suddenly stopped and laid his basket down.

‘Spelthorne wants to move on now,’ he told me; ‘he says we have painted the place out, and I haven’t tried to persuade him, you know, but—but—I don’t want to go, and that’s a fact.’

He looked at me distressfully, his stubbly lantern jaw in his lean hand.

‘What has happened to change the place so?’ he asked. ‘Everybody you meet looks as if bound for a wedding. You are all humming carol tunes wherever you go. I haven’t seen a dirty-faced child for a week. And how the people joke and laugh with each other! It can’t be all because Christmas—’

‘Yes, it is,’ said I, ‘it is all because one old man we love insists on having it so, year by year. He has been into every home in the village, great and small, and fired each man, woman, and child with his own rejoicing spirit. If you stop for the next ten days, you will see things change more thoroughly still. Wait till you see them bringing the Christmas-tree up the hill for the children’s treat! And the committee going round on Boxing-Day to award the prizes for the home decorations! And if you have never heard real old-fashioned carols, nor listened to a real Christmas sermon preached by a holy angel in a white beard—’

He took up his basket hurriedly.

‘If—if I must go,’ he said, as we trudged on towards the quarry where the caravan had made its pitch, ‘I shall think of you all wherever I— It seems rather selfish to press him, don’t you think? But perhaps— Oh! here we are! Do come in and talk to Spelthorne for a bit, will you? He sees so little company, and—’

‘Is that you at last, Grewes? My good fellow, what an unconscionable time to take in procuring no more than one pennyworth of pepper and just a pound of gravy beef! To say that I am excessively annoyed is wholly to understate my— Of course all my carefully-thought-out plans for the meal are entirely upset!’

I drew back into the darkness.

‘No, not to-night. There are times when you cannot stand—I mean, when a call is not convenient, and— Why on earth don’t you tell the selfish old brute to go to smithereens?’

III

This has been a week of undeniably hard work for us all, and one, at least, is by no means sorry that to-morrow is Christmas Eve.

Most of the time I seem to have spent on the top of a rickety step-ladder in the school-room, having tin-tacks and boughs of holly and gaily-coloured flags passed up to me by Mr. Weaverly and the mutually distrustful Miss Sweet and Miss Matilda Coles. Tom Clemmer, helped by half a dozen others, brought the great tree up from Windle Woods, and it stands now in its tub of spangled cotton-wool, a gorgeous sight, every branch weighed down with toy-shop treasures, the queen-doll at its apex brandishing her gilt-starred sceptre high up among the oaken beams of the ceiling. Every available chair or bench in the village has been confiscated, and ranged round the room. The tables at the far end fairly creak and groan under their burden of infantile good cheer. It is all ready for to-morrow. We put in the finishing touches with the last gleam of daylight this evening, Weaverly and I alone together. Then he locked the door, speechlessly tired and happy, and faded away—a black but benevolent ghost in goloshes—down the length of the darkening street.

As for me, I followed at a respectful distance with no object definitely in view but to smoke a quiet pipe after the day’s work, and enjoy the unwonted life and bustle of the village.

Thinking it over discriminately, it seemed to be a great thing, a real advance on the true line of social progress, to be strolling about there, taking unfeigned pleasure in the sight of two small shops doubtfully illuminated with oil-lamps and candles, and in the sound made by perhaps fifty people all told, as they clattered and chattered to and fro in a single, narrow village street. There were folk, I knew, wandering just as aimlessly in the crowded thoroughfares of great cities miles away, whose ears were deafened with a prodigious uproar, and eyes blinded by a myriad superfluous lights, but who were not half so entertained, so thoroughly instilled with the sense of being one in a hustling, happy Christmas multitude, as I. Then again, of all the thousands that the city promenader meets in the crush of a London street between one electric standard and the next, how many can he rightfully greet as neighbour, or even remember to have seen before? While here was I, after a good half-hour’s loitering up and down, who had encountered none but old familiar faces, nor let one go by without the kind word or friendly glance exchanged. Truly the scale, the mere arithmetic of life goes for nothing: it is the proportional, the relative, that counts. There was not so much folly as we imagine in the grave debate of the old philosophers as to how many angels could stand upon a pin’s point.

I tarried awhile in the broad beam of light that fell from the window of the village store, and, in the company of a dozen other loiterers, feasted eyes on its Yule-tide splendour. From where I stood on the opposite side of the way, it seemed no less than a palace of glittering beauty. Candles of all colours in little tinselled sconces shone amidst the wares of everyday—bacon and worsted stockings, loaves of bread and tin saucepans, butter, neckties, bars of mottled soap, and trousers in moleskin or corduroy. The ceiling of the shop, which at ordinary times is hidden by hanging festoons of boots, basket-ware, hedging-gloves, coils of rope, was intersected now by chains of coloured paper and threadled holly-leaves. There was a suspended roasting-jack in a corner slowly twirling round a grand set-piece of Christmas knick-knacks; and there were two copper coalscuttles, the one filled with oranges, the other heaped high with bunches of green grapes that made the mouth water a dozen yards away. All these I gazed upon, and at the jostling throng of housewives, at least half a score, within, and at the red-faced, perspiring shopkeeper overdone with business; and from the bottom of my heart, I rejoiced that they sufficed for me, that I should go to bed that night with as complete a sense of having looked on at the great world’s Yuletide gladness as if I had tired out feet and eyes and nerves in the roaring maelstrom at the Elephant, or the Messina Strait of the Strand. For indeed life and its disciplines, its experiences, its outcomes, can be no mere matters of dimension: when we come at last to find eternity and the angels, they are as like to be on a pin’s point as out-thronging all the labyrinth of the Milky Way.

From the village store I moved on presently to the little sweetstuff shop, and stood awhile looking in through the holly-garlanded door. Susan sat in a wilderness of scalloped silver paper, presiding over a lucky tub. There was no getting near her to-night for the mob of children that surrounded her, and overflowed into the street; but she bawled me an affectionate Christmas greeting, and passed me, by half a dozen intervening hands—in exchange for a thrown halfpenny—a packet from the lucky-dip, which proved to contain a cherubim modelled out of pink scented soap. With this symbolic testimony to our old-time friendship bulging my pocket, I went rambling on again, and in course of time arrived at the Three Thatchers Inn. A tilt-cart was just driving away from the door. A numerous company was gathered outside, speeding the vehicle on its way with laugh and jest.

‘Ye’ve not fared so bad,’ roared old Daniel Dray, as he spied me in the darkness, ‘though ye didn’t come to th’ drawin’. Ye’ve got a topside, an’ a hand o’ pig-meat. Stall’ard here, he’s got wan o’ th’ turkeys, an’ young George Artlett th’ tother. A good club it ha’ been, considerin’. An’ now the lot o’ us ha’ got to bide here ’til Dan’l gets hoame from Stavisham wi’ th’ tack.’

This annual prize-drawing, and division of the Christmas Club funds, with the subsequent wait in the cosy inn parlour while the things were fetched from the town, was a great event in Windlecombe. On this one night in the year, we cultivated as a fine art the pleasure of anticipation, and each did his best to make the time go with mirth and neighbourly good-will. The occasion was also, in some degree, a kind of benefit for the landlord, to which all might contribute as a duty, if by any chance the inclination lacked. Looking round the crowded room, I could think of hardly one of the well-known faces that was missing. The old ferryman was there—how he got there was a mystery; but there he was, in the corner of the settle whence he had been absent so long. Even George Artlett had stayed to await the arrival of his turkey, and now sat at my side quaffing lemonade, his face as grave and thoughtful as ever, but his eyes twinkling with a jollity I had never seen in them before.

Young Daniel knew that no one would desire to curtail this part of the prize-drawing ceremony, and there was little fear of his wheels being heard in the sloppy street for a good two hours to come. We stretched out our legs to the cheery blaze, and felt that for once we had succeeded in wing-clipping old Father Time.

‘Beef-club drawin’ agen, Dan’l!’

‘Ay! beef-club drawin’ agen, Tom.’

In a break in the general clamour, the two veterans exchanged the thought slowly and pensively, looking down their long pipe-stems into the fire.

‘An’ no one gone, Dan’l.’

‘Ne’er a wan, Tom, thank God.’

‘How quirk ’a do hould hisself, to be sure,’ said old Tom Clemmer after a pause, and none doubted who he meant. ‘Ah! an’ how ’a do brisk along still! Another year o’ him by—’tis another blessin’. Here’s to un, wi’ all our love an’ dooty!’

It was a silent toast, but drunk deep. George Artlett’s glass was lighter than any when he set it down.

‘But ’tain’t been allers so,’ old Clemmer went on ruminatively. ‘How many drawin’s ha’ ye seen, Dan’l, boy an’ man?—threescore belike, and I bean’t fur ahent ye. An’ many’s th’ time as summun’s money ha’ laid on th’ table wi’ only widder or poor-box to claim it; an’ he, poor soul, quiet i’ th’ litten-yard up there. Ay! ’tis a lucky drawin’ wi’ nane but livin’ hands to draw.’

Daniel Dray took up the prize-list and scanned it curiously, his white head thrown back, his spectacles straddling the extreme tip of his nose.

‘An’ what,’ said he, ‘will a single man, onmarried, do wi’ a whole gurt turkey-burd? An’ him wi’ never a wife! ’Tis wicked waste, neighbours! Him an’ th’ parrot, they’ll ha’ nought but turkey-meat i’ th’ house from now to Lady-time.’

Stallwood’s beady black eyes disappeared in a wide smile.

‘I knowed a man once,’ he said, ‘out in Utah State in Murriky, ’twur—as got a brace o’ ostriches at a Christmas drawin’; an’ when it come to carvin’ at dinner-time, th’ pore feller, he got no more ’n half a bite fer hisself because—’ He stopped, suddenly recollecting George Artlett’s lustrating presence, ‘Ah! he wur married, I tell ye, an’ never a wured o’ a lie!’

‘What’ll ’a do wi’ it, Dan’!?’ The old ferryman leant from his corner eagerly, staring at the wall as though he saw there the picture that rose in his mind. ‘What’ll ’a do wi’ it? Jest think on ’t! Nobbut hisself in a quiet kitchen o’ Christmas morning—his boots on, an’ nane to rate un for spannellin’ about—click-clack from the roastin’ jack, an’ tick-tack from th’ clock, an’ a good cuss now an’ agen from th’ ould parrot, but never a wured o’ wimmin’s wrath. Ah, life!—’tis all jest a gurt beef-club drawin’! Some on us draws peace an’ quiet an’ turkey-burds, an’ some draws—’

His lips closed on his pipe-stem with a snap. A commiserate shake of the head went round the company.

‘An’ here,’ went on old Daniel, still conning the prize-list, ‘here be Jack Farley wi’ bare money an’ fower ounces o’ tobacker—him as doan’t smoke, an’ has sixteen i’ family. Lor’, Jack! how that there deuce-ace do foller ye i’ life!’

Jack Farley sat in the draughtiest seat by the door, his invariable modest choice of station. No one had ever seen him without a smile on his emaciated, sun-blackened face; and now he was smiling more determinedly than ever.

‘I dunno’, Dan’1,’ he expostulated gently. ‘’Twur a real double-six when ’er an’ me come together all they years ago. An’ th’ chillern, they be good throws, every wan. An’ that there noo little ’un, Dan’l—nauthin’ o’ th’ deuce-ace about him, I tell ye! But them as putts to sea, Dan’l, they must look fer rough weather, time and agen.’

He squared himself and gazed about him as though his weekly carter-wage of fourteen shillings were as many pounds. Then he beat his mug upon the table jovially. ‘An’ now,’ said he, ‘I’ll sing ye “Th’ Mistletoe Bough!”’

It was the beginning of the real entertainment of the evening. Vocal music in the Three Thatchers at ordinary times was accounted a rather disreputable thing—a mere tap-room vulgarism—by the habitual parlour company; but on certain rare nights in the year, of which this was one, every man present was expected to sing. One by one now, in Jack Farley’s wake, followed the rest of the assembly, and every song had a chorus that shook the very roof-beams of the house. No man thought of looking at the clock until, in the midst of a doleful melody from the landlord, old Tom Clemmer suddenly sprang to his one available foot.

‘’Tis th’ cart!’ he cried, and made for the door. In the general stampede after him, I heard Captain Stallwood’s grumbling voice:

‘Ut bean’t right nohow fer people as caan’t use tobacker to draw un away from them as can. I means to ha’ that there fower ounces, Dan’l. An’ Jack Farley—th’ ould swab!—’a must make out as best ’a can wi’ th’ turkey-burd.’

IV

‘Yes, I can see it,’ said the Reverend, ‘plainer than the sun in a midday sky.’

With a taper at the end of a long cane, I had just ignited the last of the candles, and the great Christmas-tree stood up before us, clad, from its bole to its highest twig, in a shimmering garment of light. We two were alone in the schoolroom, but beyond the closed door, we knew, was Mr. Weaverly; and, beyond him again, a sea of expectant faces filling the wide porch, and stretching out half across the street under the still, frost-bound night. Every child that was not whispering excitedly to its neighbour, was crooning to itself with irrepressible joy; and the sound came to us through the solid timber like the sound of a bee-hive just going to swarm.

‘Now open the door,’ said the Reverend, getting into his corner. ‘And if you miss a single thing, I’ll haunt you when I am gone to the end of your miserable life.’

I turned the key in the lock, and retreated hastily. The door flung open. I saw the black form of Mr. Weaverly flicker aside, and expected the whole room to be invaded in a minute by an avalanche of scrambling, vociferating mites. But it did not happen so.

‘Not one has come in yet,’ said I, over the Reverend’s shoulder. ‘They are just peering in at the door. I can see thirty faces, perhaps, with thirty mouths, and twice as many eyes, opened wide; but never a smile among the lot. How quiet they keep! But now trembling fingers are coming round the doorposts, and a boot or two has got beyond the threshold. The reluctant vanguard is being pressed forward by those behind. They are creeping in now at last. The crowd has divided, and they are edging up the room right and left, keeping their shoulders against the walls. And all the time every wide-open eye remains fixed upon the tree in awestruck delight. You hear that low whispering note? They are beginning to find their voices again, and the girls are at last venturing to let go one another’s hands. They are all in now, I think. At least the room could hardly hold another—’

And just as a failing mill-dam begins to ooze, then to trickle and spurt, and finally, in a moment gives way before the pressing tide, so the silence now broke down under the flood of child voices. Shouts and hurrahs, shrill peals of laughter, a hubbub of delighted commentary, made the rafters vibrate above us, and the window-glass tremble in its quarries. Before the din had so far moderated that I could get my tongue to work again in the old vicar’s service, Weaverly and his satellites were forging ahead with the first joyful business of the night.

It all comes back to me now—as I sit alone and late by my workroom fire—clearer perhaps than when I was in the vortex of it all, with the happy voices ringing about me, and the toy-drums and trumpets, the mouth-organs and the whistle-pipes, each going to swell the already deafening chorus the moment it was cut from the tree and put into some eager, uplifted hand. I can see the great glittering pyramid of the tree slowly giving up its treasures, until it bears nothing but the queen-doll waving her star-tipped wand up among the flags and paper chains and holly garlands of the ceiling. I see Weaverly, poised on the top of the rickety ladder, gingerly dislodging her from her perch, while two overdressed and over-perfumed ladies hold the ladder firm below, and gaze up at him with fond and anxious eyes.

Now at last I see the Christmas-tree deserted, forgotten, while the tables at the end of the room are unloading themselves of their cakes and oranges and the score of other items appertaining to the feast. This is a silent time, save for the exploding crackers and occasional shrieks of fearsome delight; but it is over at last. The games begin, and with them reawakens all the old turmoil in redoubled fury. Though each of us has eaten more than is credible in any but a Downland-bred child, this in no way impairs our agility. We hunt the slipper; we sing ourselves hoarse with ‘Green Gravel’; we play ‘Blind Man’s Buff,’ and the Reverend, being caught, is allowed to go through the part of Blind Man, at his own jovial suggestion, without the handkerchief over his eyes.

And now two things come back to me more significant than all. But for this busy quarter of an hour—when he is staggering to and fro, clutching at pinafores and shock heads of hair—the Reverend has been rather a silent and deliberate figure in the midst of all the madcap business, more detached and quiet than I have known him at other Christmas gaieties bygone. He has hovered about on the fringe of the merrymaking, happy-faced as ever, yet with a certain slowness, a languor, that I have never marked in him before. This is the one thing. The other is a random glance I take over my shoulder at the Christmas-tree, when the fun and frolic are at their highest. Pathetically forlorn and deserted it looks, with bits of string clinging here and there to its drooping green fronds, a single shining trinket hanging forgotten on one of its lower branches, and half its glory already quenched. As I look at it, every moment sees another candle gutter out and die. A few minutes more, I think, and it will be nothing but a sombre and solemn fir-tree again, ready to be carted down and set once more amidst the silent glooms of the wood. Somehow, in spite of myself, the two things, the two thoughts, blend themselves indivisibly together. I am glad now that, while through the long evening I poured into the Reverend’s patient ear much idle chatter and many feather-brained conceits, I said no word to him about the dying Christmas-tree.

While I have been sitting here, turning over these thoughts, my own candles have burned low: the wood-fire has sunk to a few waning embers: it must be growing late, how late I do not guess until I turn to look at the clock. Almost midnight! Another minute or two, and then—Christmas morning! Perhaps, as the night is so clear and still, I shall be able to hear the hour chime in far-off Stavisham. I go to the window, throw back the casement against the rustling ivy, and look forth.

There is the glimmer of a lantern over by the Seven Sisters on the green, and a sound of people talking quietly together. I think I can distinguish George Artlett’s deep tones, and his brother Tom’s—the Singing Plowman’s—higher, clearer speech, and an admonitory word or two that might be Weaverly’s. The clock is striking now. Before its last droning note dies on the frosty air, the darkness beneath me fills with a living, joyous music:

‘Hark! the herald angels sing Glory to the new-born King, Peace on earth, and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled. Joyful all ye nations, rise, Join the triumph of the skies; With the angelic host proclaim, “Christ is born in Bethlehem.” Hark! the herald angels sing Glory to the new-born King!’

* * * * *

* * * * *

Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to His Majesty at the Edinburgh University Press