Charles Dickens.]

AN IDYL FOR CHRISTMAS IN-DOORS.

7

idle; he calls it thievish and villanous. He
would be the last man in all England to
encourage such doings. On the contrary, he
would show them no mercy. Every man-
jack of them that could be caught, he would
send for two or three days to hard work on
Primrose Hill. After this they would be-
come better and wiser men; more industrious,
more cautious; not so full of talk in beer-
houses; more punctual and reliable; alto-
gether more useful members of society. But
as for his show of hares and other game, this
Christmas, he will warrant every one, as hav-
ing been honestly come by, and duly paid for,
and not too " high " for immediate eating.
What a capital show he makes this year! One
hundred and twenty long-legs (as he familiarly
calls the hares), three hundred rabbits, fifty
brace of pheasants, ninety brace of " birds,"
twenty brace of woodcocks, thirty brace of
snipe, a hundred and fifty brace of pigeons,
two hundred turkeys, three hundred geese,
with wild ducks, tame ducks, and barn-door
fowls innumerable! The inside of his shop
is full ill every corner; from countless hooks,
hang rows of turkeys by the necks, and long
double chains of sausages and rows of ducks,
and rows of fowls, all dangling by the necks,
too, and in full feather; while his shelves
present compact arrays of fowls plucked and
trussed, and powdered, and blown up in the
breast with a blow-pipe: their livers and
gizzards tucked neatly, like opera-hats, under
their pinions. Rows of them, also, like small
batteries, front the street. The outside of his
house, even up to the second floor window, is
hung with hares, rabbits, pheasants, wild-
ducks, turkeys, and partridges.

But, if Christmas is a season of greatness to
some, of hilarity to many, of importance to all,
it is pre-eminently a season of equal anxiety
and splendour to THE COOK, Her long kit-
chen-range is a perfect bonfire, from morning
to night, while the various bright utensils
which are placed upon the chimney-piece and
on the walls at both sides of it, are profusely
interspersed with twigs and boughs of holly.
"Now, do get out of my way, all of you!
don't you see how much I have got on my
mind with this Christmas dinner! Where's
Jane?–––Jane Stokes!–––oh, the plague of
kitchen-maids! they 're always out of the
way at the moment they 're most wanted.
Barbara, are the vegetables washed? " " Not
yet, Cook! " It's always " not yet " with
them scullery-girls! Oh, how the Cook wishes
there were no need for any help from any
soul alive, if so be as she could but do every-
thing herself, which is that is where it is and
all about it! But the Christmas dinner don't
get spoiled; by no means–––everything turns
out excellently, and compliments, like full-
blown cabbage-roses, are showered upon Cook
from the visitors of the hospitable board. They
are brought to her, as she sits wiping her fore-
head, and all her face and throat, in a cool and
remote corner. Her heart expands; she loves

all mankind; and she retires to rest, after a
small glass of cordial, at peace with herself and
all the world.

AN IDYL FOR CHRISTMAS
IN-DOORS.

"The houses were decked with evergreens in December,
that the Sylvan Spirits might repair to them, and remain
unnipped with frost and cold winds, until a .milder season
had renewed the foliage of their abodes." –––BRAND'S
Popular Antiquities.

SCENE: –––A room by twilight, on Christmas Eve: the fire
burning with a sleepy red. Branches of Holly, Laurel,
and Mistletoe, hanging on the walls. A. Sylvan Spirit sitting
in each plant.

SPIRIT OF THE HOLLY.

THE icy streams are black and slow;
The icy wind goes sighing, sighing;
And far around, and deep below,
The great, broad, blank, unfeatured snow
On the idle earth is lying;
And the birds in the air are dying.
Just now, ere the day-beams fled,
Out of doors I thrust my head,
And saw the livid western light
Shrink up, like an eye bewitch'd,
At the staring of the Night.
The bare branches writhed and twitch'd;
And the holly-bushes old
Chatter'd among themselves for cold,
And scraped their leaves 'gainst one another,
And nestled close, like child with mother.
Ay, not all the globy fire
Of their berries, scarlet hot,
Which the mortals all admire,
Could their bodies warm a jot:
They look'd heavy and sad, God wot!
The nested birds sat close together,
'Plaining of the mournful weather;
And the tough and tangled hedges,
Near and distant, mark'd the track
Of the roadway, and the edges
Of the fields, with lines of black.
Soon I skipp'd, all shivering, back.
Here, beneath the sheltering eaves
Of the ceiling, dry and warm,
Air, like breath of Summer, weaves
In between my glossy leaves,
Doing me no harm:
And the CHRISTMAS spirit benign
Sparkles in my heart like wine.

SPIRIT OF THE LAUREL.

Gone is the Summer's warmth and light;
Gone are the rich, red Autumn days;
And Winter old, and Winter white,
Bits moodily in the open ways.
Like a great dumb marble statue,
'Bideth he upon the wold;
And his grey eyes, staling at you,
Make you also dumb with cold.
And the woods grow lean and swarth
In the vexings of the North;
Fill'd with sighings and lamentations
Of the winged forest nations,
Who, beneath their shatter'd bovvers,
Wonder at the gusty showers,
And the length of the dark hours.
But the in-door year is bright
With the flush of CHRISTMAS light;
And the breath of that glad comer
Kindles with a second Summer,