A Christmas Garland

By

HL*RE BLLC

There was a man came to an Inn by night, and after he had called three times they should open him the door—­though why three times, and not three times three, nor thirty times thirty, which is the number of the little stone devils that make mows at St. Aloesius of Ledera over against the marshes Gué-la-Nuce to this day, nor three hundred times three hundred (which is a bestial number), nor three thousand times three-and-thirty, upon my soul I know not, and nor do you—­when, then, this jolly fellow had three times cried out, shouted, yelled, holloa’d, loudly besought, caterwauled, brayed, sung out, and roared, he did by the same token set himself to beat, hammer, bang, pummel, and knock at the door.  Now the door was Oak.  It had been grown in the forest of Boulevoise, hewn in Barre-le-Neuf, seasoned in South Hoxton, hinged nowhere in particular, and panelled—­and that most abominably well—­in Arque, where the peasants sell their souls for skill in such handicraft.  But our man knew nothing of all this, which, had he known it, would have mattered little enough to him, for a reason which I propose to tell in the next sentence.  The door was opened.  As to the reasons why it was not opened sooner, these are most tediously set forth in Professor Sir T.K.  Slibby’s “Half-Hours With Historic Doors,” as also in a fragment at one time attributed to Oleaginus Silo but now proven a forgery by Miss Evans.  Enough for our purpose, merry reader of mine, that the door was opened.

The man, as men will, went in.  And there, for God’s sake and by the grace of Mary Mother, let us leave him; for the truth of it is that his strength was all in his lungs, and himself a poor, weak, clout-faced, wizen-bellied, pin-shanked bloke anyway, who at Trinity Hall had spent the most of his time in reading Hume (that was Satan’s lackey) and after taking his degree did a little in the way of Imperial Finance.  Of him it was that Lord Abraham Hart, that far-seeing statesman, said, “This young man has the root of the matter in him.”  I quote the epigram rather for its perfect form than for its truth.  For once, Lord Abraham was deceived.  But it must be remembered that he was at this time being plagued almost out of his wits by the vile (though cleverly engineered) agitation for the compulsory winding-up of the Rondoosdop Development Company.  Afterwards, in Wormwood Scrubbs, his Lordship admitted that his estimate of his young friend had perhaps been pitched too high.  In Dartmoor he has since revoked it altogether, with that manliness for which the Empire so loved him when he was at large.

Now the young man’s name was Dimby—­“Trot” Dimby—­and his mother had been a Clupton, so that—­but had I not already dismissed him?  Indeed I only mentioned him because it seemed that his going to that Inn might put me on track of that One Great Ultimate and Final True Thing I am purposed to say about Christmas.  Don’t ask me yet what that Thing is.  Truth dwells in no man, but is a shy beast you must hunt as you may in the forests that are round about the Walls of Heaven.  And I do hereby curse, gibbet, and denounce in execrationem perpetuam atque aeternam the man who hunts in a crafty or calculating way—­as, lying low, nosing for scents, squinting for trails, crawling noiselessly till he shall come near to his quarry and then taking careful aim.  Here’s to him who hunts Truth in the honest fashion of men, which is, going blindly at it, following his first scent (if such there be) or (if none) none, scrambling over boulders, fording torrents, winding his horn, plunging into thickets, skipping, firing off his gun in the air continually, and then ramming in some more ammunition anyhow, with a laugh and a curse if the charge explode in his own jolly face.  The chances are he will bring home in his bag nothing but a field-mouse he trod on by accident.  Not the less his is the true sport and the essential stuff of holiness.

As touching Christmas—­but there is nothing like verse to clear the mind, heat the blood, and make very humble the heart.  Rouse thee, Muse!

  One Christmas Night in Pontgibaud
      (Pom-pom, rub-a-dub-dub)
  A man with a drum went to and fro
      (Two merry eyes, two cheeks chub)
  Nor not a citril within, without,
  But heard the racket and heard the rout
  And marvelled what it was all about
      (And who shall shrive Beelzebub?)

  He whacked so hard the drum was split
      (Pom-pom, rub-a-dub-dum)
  Out lept Saint Gabriel from it
      (Praeclarissimus Omnium)
  Who spread his wings and up he went
  Nor ever paused in his ascent
  Till he had reached the firmament
      (Benedicamus Dominum).

That’s what I shall sing (please God) at dawn to-morrow, standing on the high, green barrow at Storrington, where the bones of Athelstan’s men are.  Yea,

  At dawn to-morrow
    On Storrington Barrow
  I’ll beg or borrow
    A bow and arrow
  And shoot sleek sorrow
    Through the marrow. 
  The floods are out and the ford is narrow,
  The stars hang dead and my limbs are lead,
    But ale is gold
    And there’s good foot-hold
  On the Cuckfield side of Storrington Barrow.

This too I shall sing, and other songs that are yet to write.  In Pagham I shall sing them again, and again in Little Dewstead.  In Hornside I shall rewrite them, and at the Scythe and Turtle in Liphook (if I have patience) annotate them.  At Selsey they will be very damnably in the way, and I don’t at all know what I shall do with them at Selsey.

Such then, as I see it, is the whole pith, mystery, outer form, common acceptation, purpose, usage usual, meaning and inner meaning, beauty intrinsic and extrinsic, and right character of Christmas Feast. Habent urbs atque orbis revelationem. Pray for my soul.