Page:The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club.djvu/370

298 **98 POSTHUMOUS PAPERS OF

But my song I troll out, for Christmas stout.

The hearty, the ti-ue, and the bold ;

A bumper I drain, and with might and main

Give three cheers for this Christmas old.

We'll usher him in with a merry din

That shall gladden his joyous heart.

And we 11 keep him up while there's bite or sap,

And in fellowship good, we'll part.

In his fine honest pride, he scorns to hide

One jot of his hard- weather scars ;

They're no disgrace, for there's much the »amo traoo

On the cheeks of our bravest tars.

Then again I sing 'till the roof doth ring,

And it echoes from wall to wall —

To the stout old wight, fair welcome to-night,

As the King of the Seasons all !

This song was tumultuously applauded, for friends and dependents make a capital audience ; and the poor relations especially were in perfect extasies of rapture. Again was the fire replenished, and again went the wassj'jl round.

" How it snows ! " said one of the men, in a low tone.

" Snows, does it? " said Wardle.

up, that drifts it across the fields, in a thick white cloud."
 * ' Rough, cold night, Sir," replied the man ; " and there's a wind got

thing the matter, is there ? "
 * What does Jem say ? " inquired the old lady. " There ain't any

" No, no, mother," replied Wardle; ** he says there's a snow-drift, and a wind that's piercing cold. I should know that, by the way it rumbles in the chimney."

" Ah ! " said the old lady, " there was just such a wind, and just such a fall of snow, a good many years back, I recollect — ^just five years before your poor father died. It was a Christmas eve, too ; and I remember that on that very night he told us the story about the goblins that carried away old Gabriel Grub."

" The story about what ? " said Mr. Pickwick.

" Oh, nothing — nothing," replied Wardle. " About an old sexton, that the good people down here suppose to have been carried away by goblins."

" Suppose ! " ejaculated the old lady. " Is there any body hardy onough to disbelieve it? Suppose ! Haven't you heard ever since you were a child, that he was carried away by the goblins, and don't vou know he was ? "

" Very well, mother, he was, if you like," said Wardle, laughing. " He was carried away by goblins, Pickwick ; and there's an end of the matter."

" No, no," said Mr. Pickwick, "not an end of it, I assure you; for must hear how, and why, and all 'ibout t/'

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