gentleman. ‘Now I’m happy. You’ll soon be strong enough, my good friend, to take the cast yourself.’
‘I hope so,’ said Mr Wray. ‘It’s very odd that a mere dream should make me feel so weak as I do — I suppose they told you, sir, what a horrible dream it was. If I didn’t see the mask hanging up there now, as whole as ever, I should really believe it had been broken to pieces, just as I dreamt it. It must have been a dream, you know, sir of course; for I dreamt that Annie had gone away and left me; and I found her at home as usual, when I woke up. It seems, too, that I’m a week or more behindhand, in my notion about the day of the month. In short, sir, I should almost think myself bewitched,’ he added, pressing his trembling hand over his forehead, ‘if I didn’t know it was near Christmas time, and didn’t believe what sweet Will Shakespeare says in Hamlet — a passage, by-the-by, sir, which Mr Kemble always regretted to see struck out of the acting copy.’
Here he began to declaim — faintly, but still with all the old Kemble cadences — the exquisite lines to which he referred; the Squire beating time to each modulation, with his forefinger: —
‘Some say, that ever ‘gainst that season comes,
Wherein our Saviour’s birth is celebrated,
This bird of dawning singeth all night long:
And then they say no spirit dares stir abroad;
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallow’d and so gracious is the time.’
‘There’s poetry!’ exclaimed Mr Colebatch, looking up at the mask. ‘That’s a cut above my tragedy of the Mysterious Murderess, I’m afraid. Eh, sir? And how you recite, — splendid! Hang it! we havn’t had half our talk, yet, about Shakespeare and John Kemble. A chat with an old stager like you, is new life to me, in such a barbarous place as this! Ah, Mr Wray!’ (and here the Squire’s voice lowered, and grew strangely tender for such a rough old gentleman), ‘you are a happy man, to have a grandchild to keep you company at all times, but especially at Christmas time. I’m a lonely old bachelor, and must eat my Christmas dinner without wife or child to sweeten the taste to me of a single morsel!’
As little Annie heard this, she rose, and stole up to the Squire’s side. Her pale face was covered with blushes (all her pretty natural colour had not come back yet); she looked softly at Mr Colebatch, for a moment — then looked down — then said —
‘Don’t say you’re lonely sir! If you would let me be like a grandchild to you, I should be so glad. I — I always make the plum pudding, sir, on Christmas Day, for grandfather — if he would allow, — and if — if you — ’
‘If that little love isn’t trying to screw her courage up to ask me to taste her plum pudding, I’m a Dutchman’ — cried the Squire, catching Annie in his arms, and fairly kissing her — ’Without ceremony, Mr Wray, I invite myself here, to a Christmas dinner. We would have had it at Cropley Court; but you’re not strong enough yet, to go out these cold nights. Never mind! all the dinner, except Annie’s pudding, shall be done by my cook; Mrs Buddle, the housekeeper, shall come and help; and we’ll have such a feast, please God, as no king ever sat down to! No apologies, my good friend, on either side: I’m determined to spend the happiest Christmas Day I ever did in my life; and so shall you!’
And the good Squire kept his word. It was, of course, noised abroad over the whole town, that Matthew Colebatch, Esquire, Lord of the Manor of Tidbury-on-the-Marsh, was going to dine on Christmas Day with an old player, in a lodging house. The genteel population were universally scandalized and indignant. The Squire had exhibited his levelling tendencies pretty often before, they said. He had, for instance, been seen cutting jokes in the High Street with a travelling tinker, to whom he had applied in broad daylight to put a new ferrule on his walking stick; he had been detected coolly eating bacon and greens in one of his tenant farmer’s cottages; he had been heard singing, ‘Begone, dull care,’ in a cracked tenor, to amuse another tenant farmer’s child. These actions were disreputable enough; but to go publicly, and dine with an obscure stage-player, put the climax on everything! The Reverend Daubeny Daker said the Squire’s proper sphere of action, after that, was a lunatic asylum; and the Reverend Daubeny Daker’s friends echoed the sentiment.
Perfectly reckless of this expression of genteel popular opinion, Mr Colebatch arrived to dinner at No. 12, on Christmas Day; and, what is more, wore his black tights and silk stockings, as if he had been going to a grand party. His dinner had arrived before him; and fat Mrs Buddle, in her lavender silk gown, with a cambric handkerchief pinned in front to keep splashes off, appeared auspiciously with the banquet. Never did Annie feel the responsibility of having a plum-pudding to make, so acutely as she felt it, on seeing the savoury feast which Mr Colebatch had ordered, to accompany her one little item of saccharine cookery.
They sat down to dinner, with the Squire at the top of the table (Mr Wray insisted on that); and Mrs Buddle at the bottom (he insisted on that also); old Reuben and Annie, at one side; and ‘Julius Caesar’ all by himself (they knew his habits, and gave him elbow room), at the other. Things were comparatively genteel and quiet, till Annie’s pudding came in. At sight of that, Mr Colebatch set up a cheer, as if he had been behind a pack of fox-hounds. The carpenter, thrown quite off his balance by noise and excitement, knocked down a spoon, a wine glass, and a pepperbox, one after the other, in such quick succession, that Mrs Buddle thought him mad; and Annie — for the first time, poor little thing, since all her troubles — actually began to laugh again, as prettily as ever. Mr Colebatch did ample justice, it must be added, to her pudding. Twice did his plate travel up to the dish — a third time it would have gone; but the faithful housekeeper raised her warning voice, and reminded the old gentleman that he had a stomach.
When the tables were cleared, and the glasses filled with the Squire’s rare old port, that excellent man rose slowly and solemnly from his chair, announcing that he had three toasts to propose, and one speech to make; the latter, he said, being contingent on the chance of his getting properly at his voice, through two helpings of plum-pudding; a chance which he thought rather remote, principally in consequence of Annie’s having rather overdone the proportion of suet in mixing her ingredients.
‘The first toast,’ said the old gentleman, ‘is the health of Mr Reuben Wray; and God bless him!’ When this had been drunk with immense fervour, Mr Colebatch went on at once to his second toast, without pausing to sit down — a custom which other after-dinner orators would do well to imitate.
‘The second toast,’ said he, taking Mr Wray’s hand, and looking at the mask, which hung opposite, prettily decorated with holly, — ’the second toast, is a wide circulation and a hearty welcome all through England, for the Mask of Shakespeare!’ This was duly honoured; and immediately Mr Colebatch went on like lightning to the third toast.
‘The third,’ said he, ‘is the speech toast.’ Here he endeavoured, unsuccessfully, to cough up his voice out of the plum pudding. ‘I say, ladies and gentlemen, this is the speech toast.’ He stopped again, and desired the carpenter to pour him out a small glass of brandy; having swallowed which, he went on fluently.
‘Mr Wray, sir,’ pursued the old gentleman, ‘I address you in particular, because you are particularly concerned in what I am going to say. Three days ago, I had a little talk in private with those two young people. Young people, sir, are never wholly free from some imprudent tendencies; and falling in love’s one of them.’ (At this point, Annie slunk behind her grandfather; the carpenter, having nobody to slink behind, put himself quite at his ease, by knocking down an orange.) ‘Now, sir,’ continued the Squire, ‘the private talk that I was speaking of, leads me to suppose that those two particular young people mean to marry each other. You, I understand, objected at first to their engagement; and like good and obedient children, they respected your objection. I think it’s time to reward them for that, now. Let them marry, if they will, sir, while you can live happily to see it! I say nothing about our little darling there, but this: — the vital question for her, and for all girls, is not how high, but how good, she, and they, marry. And I must confess, I don’t think she’s