The Second Christmas Megapack

by Robert Reginald

  Suddenly she began to sing to the child:

  “I laid my love in a cradley-bed, Lu lu lu lu la lay. Little white love with a soft round head, Lu lu lu lu la lay.

  Before she had it done, she thought to see a light a piece off from her. She made towards it. Out upon the bog itself she was now; and them that saw her tracks after, said one of the holy Angels must have been guiding her then, that she wasn’t drownded, herself and the child, in a bog-hole. She slipped here and she fell there on the wet, rough ground; but she kept on till she reached the light. It was the Christmas Candle, in Michael’s stable, burning there, mild and watchful.

  CHAPTER IV. THE CRIB

  While all this was going on, Big Michael was sitting, snug and comfortable, in the chimney-corner, opposite the wife, and she knitting, knitting away still. Not a word was passing. She had Michael’s supper ready for him, hot and tasty, the same as ever. But he had no goo for it. What did he care was it good or bad! How could he feel gay and riz up in himself, the way a body should at the Christmas, when he knew well Herself had been crying away while he had been down at the stable?

  If only she’d cheer up! If only she’d agree to have the place dressed out, and the Crib and all the other little things done the same as ever! It would do herself good, and they might be having a happy Christmas after all, even if there was only the two of them there with themselves! But he said nothing. Big as Michael was, and little as the Woman was that owned him, it was she had the upper hand in the house. And good right, too; she being a very understanding person, and considered to be a good adviser of a woman all over Ardenoo. Michael was slow, but he was wise enough to give in to the wife. So now when she showed no wish for any of the things he was so made upon, he said no more about them; only after a while says he, “I believe it’s what I’ll take a streel off to see is the cow all right in the stable below.…”

  But what he really wanted was, to get away from the queer, unhappy feel of the silent kitchen. He thought, too, he’d like another sight of the dressed-out stable and the big Candle he had lit there. He meant to stop a bit with those Christmas signs, and the ass, and the munch, munch of the cow, filling the place with her fragrant breath.

  Wasn’t it a pity of the world that Herself was having none of the pleasure? If only he could tell her what he had been doing! If only he could get her to come too, and see how lovely the stable looked!

  As he passed out on the door, the Vanithee looked after him. A kind of pity rose warm in her heart, as she saw the fretted appearance was upon the big man, like a cowed dog, with his tail drooping between his legs.

  All the bygone Christmas Eves they had put in there together! Kind, pleasant times, with little old nonsense and laughing, that no one understood, only themselves! Art had been there, to be sure! He had been the delight of the first of their Christmases, and the same always, till he went off. But was it Michael’s fault that the son wasn’t there yet? Sure poor Michael had done nothing to fret her! It wasn’t he had neglected to write! And wasn’t it full as bad for him, Michael, that had always been the fond father to Art! and had never rightly overed the boy’s quitting off the way he did! Oh, if only they had Art there again! To have him going off with the father of a morning, cutting turf, or making hay, or doing a bit of ploughing! and the two of them in to their dinners and off again…! Why, to have that good time back, she’d even welcome the poor-lookin’ little scollop of a thing, and give her share of the old home…!

  Poor Michael! He that loved the Christmas! Like a child, he was! Most men are, if they have any good in them; and God help them if they get a woman that doesn’t understand that, and can’t make allowances when they don’t grow up!

  Mrs. Moloney was as quick as Michael was slow. So, while he’d be thinking about it, she had a stool over at the dresser and was up on it, feeling for the Crib on the top shelf.

  It was there, safe enough, and it wrapped in a newspaper. A small little contraption of a thing it was, that she had bought off Tommy the Crab, the peddling man, years before. Paid sixpence for it, too; and cheap he told her it was at that money.

  To see it first, it was no more than a middling sizeable Christmas card. But it was really in three, or maybe four, halves that drew out like a telescope. The first part showed the Kings kneeling with their offerings and crowns upon their heads; then you could see the Shepherds, with their crooks and they kneeling too; and in the middle of them all, the Mother herself, with the Holy Child upon her knee. St. Joseph was at one side, and the ox and the ass at the other; all complete, even to a grand Star of silver paper, shining on the top of it all.

  Mrs. Moloney put the Crib into one of the small square windows and drew it out. Then she went back to the dresser for the candles to light it up with. It looked nothing wanting them.

  Not common candles she was going to use, but what had been blessed at Candlemas, and that she had kept put by very carefully.

  “I mustn’t take them all,” she thought, “the way, if one of us was to take and die sudden, there would be a Candle ready to put into the dying hand, to light the soul on its way! But there’s a good few, and so.…”

  Four she took for the four evangelists, and was just lighting them up, when suddenly the door burst open, and with a rush and a laugh in came…Art!

  “Mother!” he said; and in a moment had his arms round her, and was kissing her lips.

  “Oh, Art! so you did come, after all!” says she, with a catch in her breath and a gush of joy to her heart. She had her son, her own son again! And for a minute she forgot everything else—the missed letter, Art’s wife.…

  “Come? And why wouldn’t I come? What else? Och, but it’s grand, the smell of the turf! And the Crib the same as ever! Och, mother, mother! But where’s Delia? Some tricks you and her is up to! Has them hid ‘on’ me? Delia! Delia! where at all are you?”

  At that the mother drew a piece away from him. Her face that had been smiling and rosy even, like a girl’s face, grew stiff and white.

  “Delia! Delia! he can think of nothing else,” she thought. It all came back upon her, like a bad dream. Her son had a wife now! And she had held out her hand to them, and they had slighted it!

  What did Art mean, coming in like a strong wind? Gay and pleasant as summer air at first, but his face changed and became black and stormy and his voice was a strange, fierce voice, asking again, “Where’s Delia?”

  “I know nothing about her! How could I?”

  “Sure she was to be here.…”

  “We got no word.…”

  “No word! Is it that no one met them at the train? My God! what has become of her and the child? And the night it was!”

  The child? What child? the mother was trying to ask, but the words were stopped on her lips, and Art was stopped at the door, in his mad rush forth to look for his wife and baby, by the appearance before them of Michael. Stopped them both, I say, but without a word being spoken. It was just the look in the old man’s face that made them both fall back a step and stand still, looking at Michael in a sort of wonder and fright. His eyes were shining, as if he had been in another world, and had scarcely got back to earth again. He stood facing them for a minute with the same far-away look; then he took each of them by the hand, and just breathed out, “Come! come with me and see what’s in the stable.…”

  They went. The wind had fallen and the rain had ceased. A beautiful moon had risen, and was shining, but you could not see her, only the light she shed down from her throne on high through the soft white mist that had risen from the wet ground and was wavering and dancing solemnly to and fro, filling the space between heaven and earth, as if to veil the sacred sights of the Holy Eve from mortal eyes. The father and mother and son moved silently through the misty, gleaming silence, till they reached the stable, where the Candle was burning steadily, and sending forth its pure white light into the moonlit vapour.

  Michael stepped on and was at the door first. He put his great arm across, as if to ensure caution an
d reverence.

  “Go easy, go easy, the both of yous! But sure, they might be gone back already, and no one to have seen them, only meself!” he said in the same awed whisper.

  They peered in, for beyond the Candle were dusky spaces; yet its light was enough to show them two figures there; a girl-mother with her child, lying very still.

  Was she asleep, or.… She was so white and small! The long dark hair had been loosened and fell about her like a soft mantle; and close, close to her heart lay the little child.

  “Delia, Delia!” said Art.

  “The Child!” said his mother.

  Delia unclosed her eyes and looked up with a little smile. “I have him here, safe!” she said.

  And Michael, only half comprehending, fell on his knees and sobbed aloud.

  TOLD AFTER SUPPER, by Jerome K. Jerome

  INTRODUCTION

  It was Christmas Eve.

  I begin this way because it is the proper, orthodox, respectable way to begin, and I have been brought up in a proper, orthodox, respectable way, and taught to always do the proper, orthodox, respectable thing; and the habit clings to me.

  Of course, as a mere matter of information it is quite unnecessary to mention the date at all. The experienced reader knows it was Christmas Eve, without my telling him. It always is Christmas Eve, in a ghost story,

  Christmas Eve is the ghosts’ great gala night. On Christmas Eve they hold their annual fete. On Christmas Eve everybody in Ghostland who is anybody—or rather, speaking of ghosts, one should say, I suppose, every nobody who is any nobody—comes out to show himself or herself, to see and to be seen, to promenade about and display their winding-sheets and grave-clothes to each other, to criticise one another’s style, and sneer at one another’s complexion.

  “Christmas Eve parade,” as I expect they themselves term it, is a function, doubtless, eagerly prepared for and looked forward to throughout Ghostland, especially the swagger set, such as the murdered Barons, the crime-stained Countesses, and the Earls who came over with the Conqueror, and assassinated their relatives, and died raving mad.

  Hollow moans and fiendish grins are, one may be sure, energetically practiced up. Blood-curdling shrieks and marrow-freezing gestures are probably rehearsed for weeks beforehand. Rusty chains and gory daggers are over-hauled, and put into good working order; and sheets and shrouds, laid carefully by from the previous year’s show, are taken down and shaken out, and mended, and aired.

  Oh, it is a stirring night in Ghostland, the night of December the twenty-fourth!

  Ghosts never come out on Christmas night itself, you may have noticed. Christmas Eve, we suspect, has been too much for them; they are not used to excitement. For about a week after Christmas Eve, the gentlemen ghosts, no doubt, feel as if they were all head, and go about making solemn resolutions to themselves that they will stop in next Christmas Eve; while lady spectres are contradictory and snappish, and liable to burst into tears and leave the room hurriedly on being spoken to, for no perceptible cause whatever.

  Ghosts with no position to maintain—mere middle-class ghosts—occasionally, I believe, do a little haunting on off-nights: on All-hallows Eve, and at Midsummer; and some will even run up for a mere local event—to celebrate, for instance, the anniversary of the hanging of somebody’s grandfather, or to prophesy a misfortune.

  He does love prophesying a misfortune, does the average British ghost. Send him out to prognosticate trouble to somebody, and he is happy. Let him force his way into a peaceful home, and turn the whole house upside down by foretelling a funeral, or predicting a bankruptcy, or hinting at a coming disgrace, or some other terrible disaster, about which nobody in their senses want to know sooner they could possibly help, and the prior knowledge of which can serve no useful purpose whatsoever, and he feels that he is combining duty with pleasure. He would never forgive himself if anybody in his family had a trouble and he had not been there for a couple of months beforehand, doing silly tricks on the lawn, or balancing himself on somebody’s bed-rail.

  Then there are, besides, the very young, or very conscientious ghosts with a lost will or an undiscovered number weighing heavy on their minds, who will haunt steadily all the year round; and also the fussy ghost, who is indignant at having been buried in the dust-bin or in the village pond, and who never gives the parish a single night’s quiet until somebody has paid for a first-class funeral for him.

  But these are the exceptions. As I have said, the average orthodox ghost does his one turn a year, on Christmas Eve, and is satisfied.

  Why on Christmas Eve, of all nights in the year, I never could myself understand. It is invariably one of the most dismal of nights to be out in—cold, muddy, and wet. And besides, at Christmas time, everybody has quite enough to put up with in the way of a houseful of living relations, without wanting the ghosts of any dead ones mooning about the place, I am sure.

  There must be something ghostly in the air of Christmas—something about the close, muggy atmosphere that draws up the ghosts, like the dampness of the summer rains brings out the frogs and snails.

  And not only do the ghosts themselves always walk on Christmas Eve, but live people always sit and talk about them on Christmas Eve. Whenever five or six English-speaking people meet round a fire on Christmas Eve, they start telling each other ghost stories. Nothing satisfies us on Christmas Eve but to hear each other tell authentic anecdotes about spectres. It is a genial, festive season, and we love to muse upon graves, and dead bodies, and murders, and blood.

  There is a good deal of similarity about our ghostly experiences; but this of course is not our fault but the fault ghosts, who never will try any new performances, but always will keep steadily to old, safe business. The consequence is that, when you have been at one Christmas Eve party, and heard six people relate their adventures with spirits, you do not require to hear any more ghost stories. To listen to any further ghost stories after that would be like sitting out two farcical comedies, or taking in two comic journals; the repetition would become wearisome.

  There is always the young man who was, one year, spending the Christmas at a country house, and, on Christmas Eve, they put him to sleep in the west wing. Then in the middle of the night, the room door quietly opens and somebody—generally a lady in her night-dress—walks slowly in, and comes and sits on the bed. The young man thinks it must be one of the visitors, or some relative of the family, though he does not remember having previously seen her, who, unable to go to sleep, and feeling lonesome, all by herself, has come into his room for a chat. He has no idea it is a ghost: he is so unsuspicious. She does not speak, however; and, when he looks again, she is gone!

  The young man relates the circumstance at the breakfast-table next morning, and asks each of the ladies present if it were she who was his visitor. But they all assure him that it was not, and the host, who has grown deadly pale, begs him to say no more about the matter, which strikes the young man as a singularly strange request.

  After breakfast the host takes the young man into a corner, and explains to him that what he saw was the ghost of a lady who had been murdered in that very bed, or who had murdered somebody else there—it does not really matter which: you can be a ghost by murdering somebody else or by being murdered yourself, whichever you prefer. The murdered ghost is, perhaps, the more popular; but, on the other hand, you can frighten people better if you are the murdered one, because then you can show your wounds and do groans.

  Then there is the sceptical guest—it is always ‘the guest’ who gets let in for this sort of thing, by-the-bye. A ghost never thinks much of his own family: it is ‘the guest’ he likes to haunt who after listening to the host’s ghost story, on Christmas Eve, laughs at it, and says that he does not believe there are such things as ghosts at all; and that he will sleep in the haunted chamber that very night, if they will let him.

  Everybody urges him not to be reckless, but he persists in his foolhardiness, and goes up to the Yellow Chamber (or whatever col
or the haunted room may be) with a light heart and a candle, and wishes them all good-night, and shuts the door.

  Next morning he has got snow-white hair.

  He does not tell anybody what he has seen: it is too awful.

  There is also the plucky guest, who sees a ghost, and knows it is a ghost, and watches it, as it comes into the room and disappears through the wainscot, after which, as the ghost does not seem to be coming back, and there is nothing, consequently, to be gained by stopping awake, he goes to sleep.

  He does not mention having seen the ghost to anybody, for fear of frightening them—some people are so nervous about ghosts—but determines to wait for the next night, and see if the apparition appears again.

  It does appear again, and, this time, he gets out of bed, dresses himself and does his hair, and follows it; and then discovers a secret passage leading from the bedroom down into the beer-cellar—a passage which, no doubt, was not unfrequently made use of in the bad old days of yore.

  After him comes the young man who woke up with a strange sensation in the middle of the night, and found his rich bachelor uncle standing by his bedside. The rich uncle smiled a weird sort of smile and vanished. The young man immediately got up and looked at his watch. It had stopped at half-past four, he having forgotten to wind it.

  He made inquiries the next day, and found that, strangely enough, his rich uncle, whose only nephew he was, had married a widow with eleven children at exactly a quarter to twelve, only two days ago,

  The young man does not attempt to explain the circumstance. All he does is to vouch for the truth of his narrative.