8 GHOST OF CHRISTMAS. 



and a dozen kindly souls have started for the labouring traveller. 

 Another log or so is thrown upon the fire vestments are got ready, 

 and, as they are warmed through, the ambassadors of Christmas re- 

 turn, bearing with them, his blood a frozen mass, the poor way-worn 

 plodder of the snow. In a trice he is stripped, newly cloathed his 

 bowels glow with liquor, offered him by fifty hands he eats, is placed 

 by the fire, and in a brief time is as gay as the merriest. Nay, when 

 his turn comes, like his fellow-sufferer the robin redbreast, he can give 

 thanks for hospitality in a song, in some such slip-shod verse as that 

 which follows : 



A traveler have I been from birth, 



A traveler must I be, 

 Yet ne'er saw I the tree on earth, 



That's like the holly tree. 

 Beneath the palm I've found relief, 



Beneath the great banyan 

 But nought is like the holly leaf, 



Unto an Englishman. 



Hie holly the holly, with berries red, 



That garlands the snows of old Winter's head 



The cedar is a mighty thing 



It form'd the Temple's roof; 

 The oak it is a forest king, 



With trunk of tempest proof; 

 The coco a cures a thirsty grief, 



As well as cup or can 

 But nought is like the holly leaf, 



Unto an Englishman. 



The holly the holly, with berries red, 



That garlands the snows of old Winter's head. 



The laurel pays the poet's deeds, 

 The laurel soldiers win ; 



But lattice panes, with holly beads 

 As red as hearts within ! 



They make the traveler's sorrow brief- 

 Take off the pilgrim ban ; 



No ! nought is like the holly leaf, 

 Unto an Englishman. 



The holly the holly, with berries red, 



That garlands the snows of old Winter's head. 



And now Christmas is fairly off. The feast's dispatched and all 

 now sit te sphering about the wassail cup." The old boy tells his 

 merriest tales his features take a deeper red, and, with whim 

 twinkling in his eyes, he roars out snatches of songs of ballads al- 

 most as old as the chalk cliffs of our wonderful island. Then he 

 jumps on his feet, dances in the morning star ; and so, for twelve 

 long days, made hours by enjoyment, rare Old Christmas eats and 

 drinks,, and scatters abroad good liquor and meat, and puts heart into 

 the bodies of his poorer neighbours. 



This was the course of Christmas, when the veteran was in robust 

 health. This very course was he pursuing, when a spell fell upon 

 him, which, although he tried to beat it by sheer good humour and 

 stout determination, wasted him away by slow degrees, until his 



