Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 3/The months: December
THE MONTHS.
DECEMBER.
Shall I venture upon saying how my household treat the short days of this month? In all companies we hear of the evils of the short daylight; and yet there seems to be nobody among our neighbours who considers how to make the most of the daylight we have. I believe I am pointed out to strangers as an eccentric man, a cruel father, and hard master—not perhaps, all the year round, but in the depth of winter. In short, we are up long before sunrise. We covet every ray of heaven’s light, at this season; and we naturally watch for the earliest, as well as linger upon the latest.
I must say in self-defence, that my wife and children are free to please themselves about getting up early; though, as a matter of fact, we all do it. Our servants are country-bred, and of cottage parentage; so that they have been accustomed to rise at five, or earlier, all their lives. They feel no great pity for the much pitied herd-boy and dairy-maid, who turn out of bed, after eight or nine hours sleep, and are under no misfortune but its being dark. They have not to stand shivering for a quarter of an hour over the tinder-box, as their forefathers had; and I assure fine ladies and gentlemen that there is nothing very fearful in going across the farmyard, or into the field, with a lantern, to find one’s self welcomed by the warm cows and the hungry sheep. The long icicles may sparkle in the light the boy carries; and he may have to sweep a path through the night’s snow, before the animals and their food can be got at; but a healthy young person has his own enjoyment in the exercise. The milker certainly likes to bring the warm fragrant streams into the pail, and to exchange greetings with pet cows. The boy has a pleasure in cleaning out the stalls; and then, when the creatures come in relieved of their burden of milk, he likes filling their troughs with the warm mess of roots and straw, sliced, and chopped, and recommended by a spice of condiment. If his duty lies a-field, and he has to go there through wind and sleet, carrying food for the sheep, the task may set lazy people shuddering, even to hear of; but I can tell them the walk a-field, through wind and sleet, is what my children and I undertake, because we like it. I do not believe in the pleasantness of turning once more in one’s bed, when the house is once astir. The sense that one ought to be up, and must be up presently, must spoil the luxury of bed completely. Fear ruins everything in these small matters as in greater. I once heard a young lady of twenty or thereabouts complaining of the misery of having to get up in winter. She did not rise early? No. She did not use cold water? O, no! She had a good fire? Yes. While I was wondering where, then, the hardship lay, she explained that it spoiled all her comfort in waking to think of crossing the room from the bed to the fire. Such people can know nothing of the satisfaction of a good circulation, and the vigorous exercise of the frame, by which the winter is made a pleasant season in its own way. As for our particular way of welcoming it, it is by seeing as much of it as we can. The parson in the next parish complains to me that the daylight is gone by the time he leaves his desk, during this month and the next; so that he sees and feels nothing of the sun during the season when he needs it most; a hardship for which I must say I cannot think the sun to blame. Our plan is rather to accommodate our ways to the sun. The maids are up (by their own choice), so as to have hot water for anybody who wants it by six. I believe the fowls, and the two lambs, and the calf are the only consumers of hot water till breakfast time. They must have their warm messes early; but as I do not shave, and we all prefer a cold bath to a warm one, we are entirely independent in our early pleasures. Sometimes we sally forth (at half-past six), in a party of four or five. Sometimes, in rainy mornings, I start off by myself. Any way, and in any weather, I am sure of a good deal of pleasure before I come home. At that time of day, no wind is too keen: no darkness is gloomy: no rain is depressing. Moreover, the rainy mornings are few in comparison with the fair. In the very worst, the daylight does come, in some mode or other; and, in fine weather, what is more beautiful than a winter dawn? Coveting every ray, as I said, we catch one touching the lake, another penetrating the wood; and more bringing out the forms of the hills and the track of the road. We see one star set after another, and the moon grow pale as the sky kindles. Underfoot, when we have swept away any drift of snow that has gathered in the night, we find the ice beneath looking of a blacker blue than ever, and full of promise for sport. Though our neighbours are, for the most part, not up, we have some social adventures on our way. We overtake a succession of labourers going to their work. One of them probably cries out n the dark, “And who may you be?” When he learns, he is more pleased than ashamed. He knows now that gentry are abroad early, as he is. The herd-boy and dairy-maid are pleased likewise, when we pass the farmyard. At the pond, we summon any grumbling boys, lounging about with blue faces, and hands in pockets, for a slide. (We all slide, from the oldest to the youngest.) We meet, in returning, children carrying breakfast to their fathers in the woods; and, perhaps, we turn back with them, and hear much about rats, and weazles, and stoats, and squirrel-hunts, and holly-gathering. When we have knocked off the snow from our boots, and seated ourselves round the breakfast-table, it is not above half light. Even by that twilight, however, any one could point out the walkers by the difference in their whole air and complexion from those who have not yet warmed themselves by exercise.
It is just light enough to mend a pen when we separate for work.
We are not going to pore over books and desks till it grows too dark to go on. If the weather is open there is a world of business to be done in field, road, and garden; and we have to see that it is done. If the frost has overtaken us, we must skate and slide while we may. If repairs to buildings or walls are wanted, they must be done while the mortar will not freeze and spoil. If the seed is not all got into the ground, not an hour of open weather should be lost. Manure must be applied when the soil will receive it; and trenching must be done when the spade will enter the ground. All the lawns round must be swept clear of dead sprays from the trees, and of leaves, if they are to be properly rolled before the frost comes. All green walks and gravel walks must be kept in their neatest condition, for the pleasure of winter walking in them. Such green crops as have not been taken up before, must be secured now, if at all; so we see groups of women and children in the turnip-fields, topping and tailing the roots that the men have turned out of the ground. My boys and I are more interested in getting up roots of another kind. I tell the lads that while I am mourning over the felling of a fine tree, they are consoling themselves with the prospect of getting up the root next winter; and when the time comes they reproach me with enjoying the process as much as they do. I certainly do lend a hand at the end of the lever when the mass shows signs of stirring. I certainly do seize a pick, or mattock and wedge, when I see one to spare; and I own to sensations of satisfaction when I see the mass coming out of the ground piecemeal, or entire, and help to split and trim it for the Christmas fire. Then there is the work of cleansing the orchard trees, and the fruit bushes in the kitchen-garden. Damp mosses, and all that can harbour insects, must be removed from the stems, and the whole surface be washed with some mixture or other, according to the judgment of the proprietor. I use soot, quick-lime, and wood-ashes—a wash which one cannot suppose any insect likely to survive. The gooseberry bushes, however, require frosty weather for their relief from some of their enemies. Grubs that breed in the soil below are best removed when the earth is caked by the frost: so we take up the surface soil entire, and burn it, and put fresh in its place. If the bushes have not before been wound round and round with white darning-cotton (the supreme terror of sparrows), we do it now, to save the buds from the birds.
Settled frosts bring their own business as well as pleasure. Among the prettiest tasks is the cutting of ice for the fishmongers and confectioners, and for the ice-houses of the gentry round. When I was a boy, I used to fancy myself one of Captain Parry’s seamen, cutting an escape canal for his ship at the North Pole; and, under that delusion, I toiled myself into heats which might have melted the transparent floor I stood on. It really is pleasant work grooving the ice, and splitting it into blocks, and floating it off, to be fished on shore, loaded on the cart, and deposited in the ice-house, with powderings of small ice, to compact the blocks together. One item of the business done in frosts always saddens me. I do not like to see women—especially old women—or little children gathering up snow, even if it be of the cleanest, or ice when snow is not at hand, to melt for domestic use. When the pump is frozen, and the spring gives out no water, what can the people do, they ask, but melt snow or ice to wash their clothes, and their floors, and their skins?
It is a dreary necessity; and the invariable consequence is a great deal of business for the doctor. When I see a pan of melting snow within the fender, and the children pressing closer and closer to the fire because they cannot get warm, the old granny shivering, and finding it wonderfully chilly, I cannot make them believe that the melting process will account for it, because they do not understand how it can be; but they find my predictions of colds and rheumatism come true. It is a striking thing to them also that my pump is the last to freeze in the whole neighbourhood. They know that I take pains to keep it unfrozen, for the use of my neighbours as well as my household, and this convinces them that I am at least in earnest in my concern at seeing them chilling their rooms by melting snow on the hearth.
Through open and frosty weather, both, the domestic and farm animals require a large amount of daily care. Between cleaning them and their abodes, and cutting, cooking, and serving their food, and fattening and killing, there is enough for many hands to do. Now is the time for children to have fun with pet calves, and make playfellows of the house-lambs. Many an hour of a dreary day is beguiled by these friendships of the season, doomed to a speedy end by the butcher’s knife. The despotism of London tables is an irresistible one; and many a little heart is every season ready to burst when the dear lamb has disappeared, and nobody will tell where it is gone. At present, however, there is much pretty frolic,—the human infant having no more forecast than the brute one of the evil to come.
The poultry-yard is a grave interest at this season, in our neighbourhood as in many others. Our infant population, including my little Harry, would be well pleased if the turkies were absent, on account of the formidable character of the parent birds; but the rearing of the broods is an interest to all the household where it goes on. Our relations on both sides of the house like the good old custom of receiving a Christmas hamper of good things from us; and it is a pleasure to us to keep it up, so that we are as busy as our neighbours in fattening fowls and turkies, and making sausages and pork pies, and even a goose pie, now and then.
I do my part by going out for snipe and woodcocks, so that we can, on occasion, produce a veritable old-fashioned game-pie for Christmas guests. I am regularly invited into the kitchen, some morning about the 20th of December, to see the parcels of good things laid out for packing; eight or ten turkies, each surrounded with sausages and some small dainties, and half-a-dozen vast raised pies, flanked with baking pears, dried apples, or small game. When all are packed and off to the station, the main part of our Christmas work is done. It is owing to this custom that my friends see certain dainties on my table that we ourselves should never think of inquiring after,—prime caviare direct from Russia, West India preserves, sturgeon, German brawn, liqueurs, besides barrels of oysters, pines, salmon, and imported fruits. Whether it is true or not that our old English hospitality is degenerating, it is wise and pleasant to keep up this kind of observance between town and country.
These last words remind one of the days when London itself was the very centre of snipe-shooting. In the times of the Edwards and the Henrys a frost was a circumstance of importance in London; for it enabled the citizens to go out on the surrounding marshes to sport. There they knocked down and snared all the birds which frequent watery places, and obtained eels in profusion. I have thought of that aspect of our London when, in wild colonial regions, I have seen a snipe swinging on a bulrush, just as the frogs were opening their evening concerts, and not a man besides myself was in sight, unless it were a settler, looking after wild fowl or eels. In such a place I have imagined the aspect of that ancient London, with its few great towers and spires, and its straggling group of villages round that centre, and the marshes coming up to the very causeways. I have recalled the same image when at the Baker Street Cattle Show, or as I entered London at Christmas time, and saw the loads of provisions brought in on iron roads, on the same spots where, of old, the sportsmen and their attendants brought in their game on their own shoulders, picking their way over the frozen swamps.
Interesting as it is to us to look back, what would it have been to those Londoners to see forward into our days! How wonderful a mere grocer’s shop would have appeared, with its variety of imported fruits, its firkins of butter and tall piles of cheeses, with sprigs of holly everywhere! Yet more astonishing would have been the vision of the fat beasts at Baker Street, to men whose only idea of winter meat was the flesh of lean cows or tough bullocks, salted down in autumn, for want of keep for the winter! They had their game, their boar’s heads, and other things; but the prime beef of our century—fat and juicy in midwinter—would have been something miraculous in their eyes. So would any Christmas market, in any provincial town, with its evergreen adornments, its neat and clean stall-keepers, displaying their heaps of provisions, where the outpost of fish is merely introductory to a great camp full of meat, poultry, game, fruit and flowers. Yes, flowers,—in great variety! Such a vision would have made them fancy that men had grown wise enough to strip the seasons of their drawbacks, making winter as the summer.
How far is this from being the case! I am not going to question the substantial improvement in the lot of the poor, since the days when the whole labouring class were clothed in woollen, which was worn next the skin, and never changed till it would hold together no longer; and when they were lodged on the cold ground, with rotting thatch over their heads; and when their table was sometimes over-loaded and sometimes bare; but I cannot meet Christmas, any one year, without perceiving and feeling that my cottage neighhours are very far indeed from enjoying their proper share in the improvement of human life in England.
In public speaking, and in literary representation, we are apt to offer the bright sides of life at such seasons; but, after all that genial and benevolent people do, in town and country, to feast and comfort their neighbours of all degrees, there are still too many families in damp and cold, and even with foul thatch dropping upon their heads, with no fire on the hearth, and at most a mouthful each of cold bacon to eat with their dry bread on Christmas Day. Oratory may tell of the cheery Christmas sun shining at once upon the rooftree of the mansion and the thatch of the cottage; but, if it went inside, and told what it saw there, it would exhibit a broader contrast than between the ages of the Plantagenets and our own,
Who can wonder, while even the fewest of such shivering and hungry households remain, that there are people in every game country on the watch for windy nights, that they may have a chance of a hot meal, and a plentiful one? In such a district there are certain weather-wise people, who can give pretty accurate notice of a blustering night. Then certain wives know that their husbands’ guns must be clean and ready, and that hiding-places must be prepared, and fuel got in, for what fate may send in the way of a treat of food. Then the children are sent into the woods, on the side least likely to be observed, to get a faggot; and, besides what they bring, they are to make a pile which will be fetched away at dusk. As the children may be tired after this work, they are put to bed, and covered up soon after dark; and so, they see nothing of the men who come in and go out, or are heard talking low behind the cottage. When the scouts arrive, and report that the keepers have finished their rounds, and are in their lodges, the cottage is emptied presently; all lights are hidden, as if everybody was in bed; and perhaps the wife does snatch her sleep while she can. Meantime, a company of men are treading the snow, in Indian file, along the field-paths which skirt the wood. No one speaks; and when they come to a stile or gap, they halt and listen in the lull of the winds. If nothing suspicious is heard, they step over, and penetrate the cover. Such windy nights generally show a sky of broken and swift clouds. In the lighter spaces which occur overhead, the pheasants are seen in the trees, like dark balls, resting on the branches. When a roar of wind begins at a distance, shots are ventured, and down come the dark balls upon the snow, or the cushion of dead leaves. If there is good success at once, or if the watchers are supposed to be about, the trip is soon over. After a couple of hours the wives at home grow uneasy. They put out their heads at back windows to listen for sounds of scuffle or running. They make ready to admit the husband before he knocks, and huddle him into bed instantly, and his booty into hiding, in case of inquiry. Several times, within the period of my residence here, one husband or another has come home wounded, and of course in desperate ill-humour; or, instead of him, news has come of his having been caught, or even of his having shot a gamekeeper. Much oftener, however, the trespassers get home unsuspected, and with large booty, though each contends that he has not got his share. The middleman, or the poulterer, or the comrade who deals for the party, is always abused for extortion and cheating; but still there is something in the house as good to eat as anything in the Hall larder. The wife thinks they have done enough for to-night, and would fain leave the cooking till the next night; but the husband has no notion of waiting, so the poor woman plucks and broils a bird, after covering the window carefully, from the notice of any chance patrol. If any little wide-open eyes rise in the bed, there is sure to be a cry about being so hungry; and that cry must be stopped; and so the adventure may end in the whole family supping together, and the tired wife, who dare not leave any trace of revel, being scarcely in bed before daylight. Then follow, if not now, next time, or the time after, the wretched consequences. The game is missed; the village is questioned; certain cottages are searched from the top of the chimnies to below the floor; and every year somebody goes to jail. Of those that go in as adventurers (insisting that game ought not to be property), some are sure to come out rogues, destined to be criminals.
A large new wing, added to our county-jail, some years ago, is known as the Poachers’ Wing, not because it is tenanted by poachers, but because the increase of offenders, for whom it was wanted, corresponds in number with the annual average of offenders against the game laws. When it is added that our union workhouse has often been crowded by the influx of the wives, children and parents of those offenders, it is pretty clear that society pays dear, in all ways, for the game-preserving interest. For my part, I can tell how our winters are spoiled by it.
I am not the lord of game,—zealous as I am in helping to put down poaching. But, though I have no game to lose, I have had my losses at this season. The children miss the gypsies, after the leaves have fallen, and ask what becomes of them in cold weather. All I know is that I vehemently suspect them of being not very far off, by the trouble we have to keep our turkies. Sometimes one disappears, or two; but it has twice happened that the yard has been completely cleared of them. It is such a vexatious incident (especially when the birds are for presents), that I have devoted serious care to render them secure. I believe they are beyond the reach of fox and gypsy, and of all but the boldest burglars.
Beyond such preparations as I have detailed, we do nothing till the boys come home for the holidays. When we take our daily walks, we see everything with their eyes; and we leave all we can for their hands. Looking from the upland, we say how green the meadows look below, and the young wheat in the fields, till the snow hides it. When the green plover is piping on the moor, or the thrush is trying a weak note in the ivy, or the hedge-sparrows are twittering, or the robin is singing aloud, we hope they will do so when the boys can hear them. When the water-wagtails jerk about the springhead on the heath, or the village boys are bird-catching under the hedges, Harry hopes that there will be some of the feathered race left by the great 22nd. He does what he can to preserve and attach some of the tribe; for he never forgets to put some of his breakfast upon the window-sill for the birds, even if the weather is so open as that the moles are throwing up their hills in the grass, and worms come up in the flower beds, and a remnant of winged creatures attempt to amuse themselves in the sun. Harry wants his breakfast on fine and mild days, and therefore contends that his birds must be fed also.
At length, the shortest day has arrived. The old folks are at least as well pleased as the young ones. Lengthening days may be thought of in a fortnight more; and by that time the festivals will be over. If the truth were known (but it is a truth which few have the courage to avow), elderly people generally do not like anniversaries, or any periodical celebrations, such as make the joy of young folk. I need not go into the reasons here. I will merely say, as a matter of fact, that, to my wife and me, the highest pleasure of the holidays is in January, when the Christmas racket is over, and we settle into our regular winter life, with Ned and Charley to brighten it.
Meantime, every day is full of pleasures, which we enjoy through the bright faces which are about us. There are not a few which please our own taste also. We like going into the woods for holly, and finding mistletoe for ourselves, instead of condescending to buy it. We like burning fir cones, and choosing the greenest masses of moss for cushioning the pots of bulbs at home. We are never tired of the icicles which glitter everywhere; and on Christmas Day we help to count the kinds of flowers in bloom within our own gates. Once, I remember, we found, among us, thirty-three kinds. I had rather find fewer, for I like a seasonable Christmas; and when one can make a bouquet of thirty-three diverse blooms, one might almost as well be passing Christmas day in Australia, fanning one’s self, and sipping cooling drinks. On the whole, I believe we relish the Waits. Their music is very bad, certainly; but there is something moving in the associations of a lifetime, awakened in the darkness and silence of night, and seizing upon us in the impressionable moment of waking from sleep. I own that, even now, that music plays upon my heartstrings.
From that point, we must acknowledge that our satisfaction is altogether in the pleasure of other people. There is no occasion to tell them (what they will discover in time) that anniversaries are never true in regard to the times of any but very modern events. There is no occasion to forestall for them the discovery that it is not morally good to appoint seasons for emotions. They will learn in course of years that the wise pass onward with the flow of time and events, less and less desiring to revert to former conditions, or to perpetuate states of mind destined to be outgrown. So we accommodate ourselves to them. My wife looks to the mincemeat and other good things, and I help with the games which are to be played at the Hall. We never leave home on Christmas Day, because there is a kitchen party which needs to be entertained. We suppose they like to come, as they always arrive so early and stay so late; but we wonder at them, though we do our best. They come to us from church, that is, at half-past twelve. They dine at one; and so do we, that there may be no trouble about our dinner afterwards. When the kitchen becomes quiet, and the things are all put away, the girls read some comic or fairy tale to the old folks, while my boys take the youngsters out for a walk, or a slide, or games in the barn, according to weather. At dusk they have tea; and then the ancients play at some antique game of cards, while all the rest of the party, parlour and kitchen, go into a series of Christmas games, in which we all exert ourselves to the utmost. Then we darken the kitchen, and ask for the raisins and rum, and have snap-dragons—throwing in salt at the right moment, to make pale faces;—a process which is never got over without some scaring of somebody, too young or too old for such an exhibition. That over, we think we have done our part, and we leave our guests to their supper. When the clock has struck nine, we begin to expect the regular invitation to receive the thanks of the company; but it is nearly ten before the drawing-room door opens, and the cloaked and coated figures appear, curtseying and bowing, and all saying at once that they are sure they never remember a pleasanter Christmas Day. We are very glad; hope they will come next year, if all is well with them and us, and ask whether they are provided with lanterns, to get safe home. Then comes the best hour of the day—the family converse over the fire, when the servants are gone to bed, and we are together and alone, face to face, and heart to heart.
Nobody likes Boxing Day, I suppose, except those who get money by it; and they have but too often anticipated the gains of the day. I have too much reason to know that the Squire’s gifts,—of coals, blankets, money, clothing, and meat,—do more harm than good. I see the bad effects of them, the whole year through, in regard to the temper, as well as the higher morals of the place. I have no business with it, further than to say what I think, when occasion arises; but I am always glad when the day is over which so profanes the season, and the tipplers are sleeping off the madness and folly in which they have exhibited themselves. Then ensues the vexation of all the landed proprietors round, and the wrath of their foresters and gardeners, at finding the havoc made among their evergreens for Christmas decorations. Hollies, long cherished to make them grow, are found split and torn to pieces; laurels and laurestinus are left lopsided, or hanging in tatters. Pyracanthas are found torn down from walls of lodges; and the choice chrysanthemums—the pride of the garden in cottage and parsonage—are broken and trampled. The only comment obtained in return for all the remonstrance of the united gentry, is that “boys will be boys,—especially at Christmas.”
When New Year’s Eve draws on, these and all other vexations are dismissed, as unworthy to interfere with that repose of mind in which each genuine marked period of the individual human life should close. In one sense, it does not seem real to begin a new year in the very midst of the dead season in which the preceding closes; and I, for one, feel the spring to be, in regard to the face of Nature, the opening of the year. But there are reasons which justify the common consent in the existing arrangement by which our year ends with December; and in the lapse of a complete year there is a sound reality, widely different from the conventional anniversaries which celebrate anything else. New Year’s Eve is then a night of deep and genuine interest. There is no effort in the gentle emotion with which we listen to the chimes, when we have unbarred the shutters and opened the window. If the night is still, and the stars are clear, it is with them for witnesses that we exchange the family kiss all round, and wish one another a Happy New Year.