Old Christmas

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 Peacham2

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1

Poor Robin's Almanack, 1684.

2

Peacham's "Complete Gentleman," 1622.