Page:Under the Sun.djvu/126

102 wife every day for the last month, I have refused for two months to pay him — just because it was Christmas Day! To increase the absurdity, I had to confess the reason to him! For having sworn solemnly on all the rules of arithmetic that I did not owe him one farthing, I was obliged to give a decent explanation for my sudden acknowledgment of the debt; and how could I, before my servants, better maintain my dignity, and at the same time get rid of an importunate coolie, than by making him a present of his extortionate demand in full, because it was a “Feast day with us Christians.”

For yet another Christmas, then, have I kept alive a Yule spark!

I look up at the poem lying open before me, and with a fateful response, that may compare with the unhappy King’s Virgilii Sortes, the book replies —

“Cast no least thing thou lovedst once away, Since yet perchance thine eyes shall see the day.”

Perchance, indeed, we shall all see another Christmas Day “at home,” and among romping children and welcoming friends rekindle the smouldering Yule spark into an honest English Christmas blaze.