The Christmas Seasons

Evening Post, Volume LXXIV, Issue 150, 21 December 1907, Page 16

The Christmas Seasons

Foi Tho Post. By Frank Morton.— (All Itights Eoservod.)

The first Christmas I definitely remember, we spent on an old farm a few miles back in that delifgrfus country that skirts the murky squalour and crowding ugliness of the Five Towns. I remember the cold drive from tho little railway station at Sandon (or was it Leigh?), the frosty glitter of copse and hedgerow under the moon, the clinking music of the mare's hoofs on the turnpike ; and I remember, most and best, the crooning welcome of that dainty grandmother whose bosom in my happiest memories is perpetually odorous of lavender. It was Christmas Eve, and all was genial glamour at the farm. I remember — ah, but how. a man may change! — that the lavish kisses of a round half-dozen dairymaids overpowered and embarrassed me, ruffling my dignity newly glimpsed. I felt that I was too big a fellow to be gentled by laughing women in open firelight. Was I not to be breeched at the New Year? I seem to remember that I sulked for at least three .minutes, and was then appeased with indigestibles. And next I went to sleep in a bed most wonderful—a veritable sea of ,a bed that seemed as sweet as Christmas itself, almost as sweet as grandma. I drowsed luxuriously for a little while, writing fairy tales for myself in letters all wispy gold across the comfortable deep dimness of the night. (I could write fairy-tales long before I knew my letters ; but I cannot write them now, after I have read so many books.) Then I was fully awakened by a; goodly apparition with a candle, and this was Mrs. Carter, the lady of the party honoured by my wise preference that week. She shed her lisping plumage with all tho daintiness of, a pretty woman, by comparison with .'which tho daintiness of your over-advertised humming-bird is a thing wearisomely crude and stupid. She leaned across my pillow to tell me — ah, but how a. man may change! — that I was a tired -wee darling ; and I was not offended. She told me, her voice a puro contralto, full of alluring glows, tho sweetest story in the world ; and I confessed that I loved her very much. After thai, I watched her as she knelt and said v her prayers, for this was ever so long ago. > I saw how the tremulous candlelight caressed the brown-goid ringlets by her ears. Then . . . a blur And morning. The first of all my recognised Christmas mornings. The dawn of joy on a white world. A noisily, companionable littlo robin that flirted perkily in the great holly bush by the -window. Mrs. Carter, in a dear fleecy gown, who sang me the whole enthralling history of King Wenceslas, to the uncertain accompaniment of an amazing survival of a piano that stood in the corner by the linon-press. After that, breakfast : one of those delightful Coton breakfasts that have served through all my vicissitudes to keep me always somewhat of a gourknet. But ham and eggs aro not what they were. Ham and eggs never will be what they wero again, now 'that dear grandma has joined the long line of my grandma's grandmas that stretches back, always in that one parish, right to Stephen, and beyond Stephen loses itself indistinguishably in the muddle of ; men and women from whom the first j grandma sprang. Tho sorrow and the tragedy of life, 'apart frqra special incidents and instances, consists pretty much in that : that ham and eggs are not what they were, and never will be Avhat they wore again. . . . Then there was tho three miles' walk across park and pastures to Fradswell Church, where my eldest uncle, whom I recognised for a very wonderful man, played the- organ so incomparably well that ho knew by instinct when anybody v/as abont to say Amen. I had boon reared a good Dissenter, so that to me the sweet old Anglican service ■ was always a sort of precious heathen ! mystery ; but even when I was three I Uncle William's organ-playing almost j persuaded mo to become a fashionable Christian, That, even in thought, was a great concession to be made .by tins elder son of a good Dissenting houss in Staffordshire in 1872, and I still count that to be the 'first of all my hetero- ! doxies. In these rural parishes exceedingly quaint ceremonies and customs still survived at Christmas, even in my time. I remembeT, as a minor instance, an ex-traordimu-y carol the dairymaids taught ! me^ — Once on a time there were three Jews — Once on a timo there were — throe — Jews ! — Jcw-ew-ew-ew-ew-ew-ews ! — [ Jew-ew-ew-ew-ew-ew-ews ! — Once on a time there WERE--THREE JEWS ! !— The name o' the first was A-bra-ham ! — Tho name o' the first was A-bra-ham! — A-A-A-A-A-br'm-br'm! — j A-A-A-A-A-br'm-br'm! — The name o' the first was A-bra-HAM ! ! And so on through almost innumerable stanzas. For years I could recite the j whole of the first book of "Paradise Lost," but never for tho life of me could I hope to remember the whole of that carol. Among other Christmases I remember just now — one or two at sea, one or two [ in Singapore, several in various Stales of Australia — memory of my first Christmas in Calcutta is very vivid. Among thousands of good fellows, I knew practically nobody. The first shock of the cold season, after years in the hob Far East and a fever-spell just suffered in Rangoon, had given me an ulcerated throat. I had a silly feeling we all experience now and then, if we happen to have nerves : the feeling that ono is tho only visible human soul astray amid a multitude of soulless strangers. The chill bright air seemed stale and etiolate. The very stars that Christmas Eve' showed in my vision" dull and tawdy like pebbles inexplicably dead, that had once been precious gems. And the clutch of Asia's mystery (which there is no describing) was moro tightly about my spirit than it had ever been in all my years of wandering. Asia is the continent of unquiet night, and the night of Calcutta is the most disquieting in the world. Tho solid-seeming city has an unceasing tremor of eevy restlessness. In the deep shadows between the towering sombre houses you can feel it stir and whimper like a thing in pain, a huge thing suffering hopelessly in tho eternal dark. Through the dark city swirls and sobs a darker river, a river with an ill-repute for sullen murders and treacheries manifold. You can hear its cruel maw sucking at the ghats. Where the remote stars arc mirrored dimly in {.his river's oily oddies, each faint reflection has the malign suggestion of a submerged eye — the eyo of somo lurking monster of the river's bloody host. Ugh ! but I was unhappy and forlorn, that Christmas Eve! And theu, quite by hazard, I was clipered. I turned into a hotel, and in a quiet corner of the upper bnr I camo across tho anomaly (in India) of a coloured American gen'levnnn serving drinks. Ho wns a shrowd person, with a ke.ee evo ) anc * jswethirur ixj the timbre

of his speaking-voice told me that sometime, somoAvhere, he had been a singer. "Say," ho said, "guess you're feelin' just paltry. Look as if you can't enjoy yourself nohoAv. You feel jus' 'Lout as spry as a bee in a blizzard. That so?" I said I Avas no apiarist, but still admired his skill in diagnosis. And he said that Avhat I needed Avas a cocktail, and he was the one man in all India to build it — yessuh. I discovered that in that matter also his skill was admirable, and I Avas already feeling less lugubrious when the second American negro came along. The second Avore a resplendent military uniform, stood Avell over six feet, gloried in tremendous shoulders, and Avas introduced to me as Captain Cox. The .barman said that his OAvn name was Dave Bowman. Told me he had been through Australia Avith a company, and jes' starred right along — yessuh. Sang me a dear old song, too j and tho remnant of the fine voice Avas only cruel in effect in the upper register. DaA'e's voice, in fact, proved that he sutt'nly could sing — once. Captain Cox I AA-as, to see a good deal of, later. He had Tjeen one of the officers of the Manipur Relief Expedition, and had behaved like a hero. In a fight, at close quarters, he Avould have been an ugly customer enough, I thought ; but that night in the Esplanade Hotel his smile would have illumined Iblis. He introduced aie to people — a couple of Hughli pilots, the skipper of an American barque, a colour-sergeant of tho Buffs, others. He Avas far more at home in that company than he could over havo been in his OAvn country. A very sunny and entertaining soul Avas Cox. When aa-o left the hotel, he took me along to a big house of hisonDharamtollah, where, under his direct supervision and_ advice, I doctored my throat with Heulsieck, chicken, cream cheese, long grapes that had come packed in cotton from Afghanistan, and the finest Turkish cigarettes I ever smoked. The treatment was apparently effective; for lAvas much better next day, ate a good dinner jn congenial company, and Avas no longer any Avhit, forlorn. And this is how it happened that my first tAvo friends 'in India were coloured gentlemen, but aliens in India like myself. It's a queer world. ' > Christinas at Singapore Avas always very joyous. I remember the first one especially avoll, because I had just escaped from the drudgery of a mission school, and just commenced newspaper Avork. At the school I had had a class of thirty assorted Chinese and 'Malay boys, soberly genial youngsters AvhOse quaint ideas of humour Avere sometimes annoying to the neophyte in that heat. With tho exception of tho neAA'est comers, everybody in Singapore speaks Malay. That is a necessity. Amid a populace the most polyglot in the world, Malay is a pleasant medium of communication. 1 haA'e attended company meetings there at Avhich all the proceedings Avere conducted (in Malay, though nil tho persons present Avere European. Malay is a simple language. My friend, Dr. Leuring, preached in Malay less than three Aveeks after his arrival in the Straits. But Leuring spoke pretty avoll every language 1 ever heard of, and wo are not all Luerings. When I took charge of the thirty amiable imps, 1 I t spoke positively no .Malay at all, but all the boys spoke excellent English. Also, they shoAved an excellent willingness to teach me Malay, and I Avas beginning to have a certain prida in my vocabulary when one day I called at a Kling shop on North 'Boat Quay to buy a lead pencil. I gave my order, Avith a fluency infinitely pleasing to my,--j s>elf. "Kaseh," said j, "kaseh, kapala gaja. Savvy?" The 'Kling looked at me, and frowned. He spread expostulating hands. Then, as he had no English, he spoke Tamil. Tamil "is lik9 nothing in the Avorld so much as the gurgling under pressure of Avater from a narroAv-necked bottle, Avhilo four frogs croak and a drunken private, got's mad on a kettle-drum in the middle distance. It isn't .i language j it is a disease, a sort of disguised .insanity. I left the. shop in disgust. And I aa\is movo disgusted a littlo Inter Avhen 7 found that "kapnla {raja" is an elephant's head. | But this is a detail aside. \ I Avas saying that that first Christmas at Singapore was very joyous. On : Christmas Eve, my Editor, Arnot Reid, gave me an unexpected cheque, Avith the j proprietors' compliments. Reid is noAV Avith the gods, and if there is any reAvard for merit over yonder he has a j high seat. On Christmas morning Aye ! paid a tangled round of calls, as the custom of tho- country is. Then, having refreshed ourselves Avith* tiffin and a sleep, Aye swam and rioted in the gentle sea , for full three hours. Harry Tregarthen, Tom CoAyen (he aftenvards became famous as a Avar correspondent, and last year died in 'Japan), and I had a bungaloAv out ab ' Tanjong lihu ; and Avhen avo Avere not working or< sleeping, AA'e spent most of our time astonishing the natives in neAv aiid resounding Avays. 1 But CoAven, as I say, is dead; Treg'arthen is a district magistrate, or sonicthing else as ordinary ; and I, as Murger sings, I alone remember yet. Sic transit gloria mundi ! But Christmas, I- think, is always refreshing, and glad oasis amid the" greyish monotony of -months and days. For some, 'it is a/d ay" of special gratitude, reneAA r ed realisation of blessed hopes held piously amid al l tho distractions of a naughty Avorld. For some of us the clay has lost all its ancient religious significance. Bub for all it is a good season, if only because through long habit men and Avomen everyAvhero seem to get a little nearer to each other at this time, to smile with uncommonly kindly tolerance of each other's weaknesses and idiosyncracies, to bo a little gentler in their condemnation of each other's sin;.. The pall of mere asceticism is for the moment shed, and even bigotry's cruel maw is masked Avith A'eh T et. It is a soasori of coming together, a season^ of deliberate arid divine forbearance. And ahrays at this season I remember best and most clearly my first con-, scious Christmas, the clinking music of the mare's hoofs on tho turnpike, tho frosty glitter -of copse and hedgevoAv under the moon, tho crooning Aveleome of that dainty grandmother whose very A'oice AA-as lavender. Mrs. Carter's pure contralto that Avas so full, of alluring gloAvs, the crazy piano that stood in the shaded corner by the line3i-pTss. and the astonishing adA-onture of good King Wcnceslas aa-lio is dead. . . .

When Grover Cleveland was practising laAv in Buffalo ono of his friends Avas -a lazy young laAvyer vrho Avas forevci pestering him with questions about legal points that he could just as Avell have looked up for himself. Even Clevoland's patience- had an end. One day as his friend entered ha remarked : "There are my books. Help yourself to them. You can look up your OAvn ense." The lazy lawyer stared at him in amazement. "Sco here, Grover Cleveland," he said indignantly, '"I Availt j - ou to understand that you and your old books can go to tbtmdar. You Iciioav very well that I don't read law. I pisctico entirely by ear.."-