Old Christmas | Page 8

the kitchen, with a cold round of beef and other hearty
viands upon it, over which two foaming tankards of ale seemed
mounting guard.
Travellers of inferior order were preparing to attack this stout repast,
while others sat smoking and gossiping over their ale on two
high-backed oaken seats beside the fire. Trim house-maids were
hurrying backwards and forwards under the directions of a fresh,
bustling landlady; but still seizing an occasional moment to exchange a
flippant word, and have a rallying laugh, with the group round the fire.
The scene completely realised Poor Robin's humble idea of the
comforts of midwinter.
"Now trees their leafy hats do bare, To reverence Winter's silver hair; A
handsome hostess, merry host, A pot of ale now and a toast, Tobacco
and a good coal fire, Are things this season doth require."*
* Poor Robin's Almanack, 1684.
I had not been long at the inn when a postchaise drove up to the door.
A young gentleman stepped out, and by the light of the lamps I caught
a glimpse of a countenance which I thought I knew. I moved forward to
get a nearer view, when his eye caught mine. I was not mistaken; it was
Frank Bracebridge, a sprightly, good- humoured young fellow, with
whom I had once travelled on the Continent. Our meeting was
extremely cordial; for the countenance of an old fellow traveller always
brings up the recollection of a thousand pleasant scenes, odd adventures,
and excellent jokes. To discuss all these in a transient interview at an
inn was impossible; and finding that I was not pressed for time, and
was merely making a tour of observation, he insisted that I should give
him a day or two at his father's country-seat, to which he was going to
pass the holidays, and which lay at a few miles' distance. "It is better
than eating a solitary Christmas dinner at an inn," said he; "and I can

assure you of a hearty welcome in something of the old-fashion style."
His reasoning was cogent; and I must confess the preparation I had
seen for universal festivity and social enjoyment had made me feel a
little impatient of my loneliness. I closed, therefore, at once with his
invitation: the chaise drove up to the door; and in a few moments I was
on my way to the family mansion of the Bracebridges.

Christmas Eve
Saint Francis and Saint Benedight Blesse this house from wicked wight,
From the night-mare and the goblin, That is hight good-fellow Robin;
Keep it from all evil spirits. Fairies, weezels, rats, and ferrets: From
curfew time To the next prime.
--CARTWRIGHT.
It was a brilliant moonlight night, but extremely cold; our chaise
whirled rapidly over the frozen ground; the post-boy 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 honourable 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
favourite 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 humour without molestation. Being representative of the oldest
family in the neighbourhood, and a great part of the peasantry being his
tenants, he is much looked up to, and,