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"And here, then," said Edward, as he put his lips to a gold goblet, wrought with gems, and passed it to Anthony the Bastard, "here, count, we take the first wassail to the loves of Charolois and Margaret!" The count drained the goblet, and the wine gave him new fire. "And with those loves, king," said he, "we bind forever Burgundy and England. Woe to France!"
In Grogan's, Christmas cheer was already rampant. Fuzzy entered with his doll. He fancied that as a mummer at the feast of Saturn he might earn a few drops from the wassail cup. He set Betsy on the bar and addressed her loudly and humorously, seasoning his speech with exaggerated compliments and endearments, as one entertaining his lady friend.
Only the loud voice of wassail could be heard, a voice made up of a hundred confused clamors, which rose and grew like a crescendo of Rossini's. Insidious toasts, swagger, and challenges followed. Each renounced any pride in his own intellectual capacity, in order to vindicate that of hogsheads, casks, and vats; and each made noise enough for two.
But I swore to myself that Tripp's whiskey dollar would not be forthcoming. He might play knight-errant at my expense, but he would indulge in no wassail afterward, commemorating my weakness and gullibility. In a kind of chilly anger I put on my coat and hat. Tripp, submissive, cringing, vainly endeavoring to please, conducted me via the street-cars to the human pawn-shop of Mother McGinnis.
We see it in the single combat of Hamlet's father with the elder Fortinbras, in the vulgar wassail of the king, in the English monarch being expected to hang Rosencrantz and Guildenstern out of hand merely to oblige his cousin of Denmark, in Laertes, sent to Paris to be made a gentleman of, becoming instantly capable of any the most barbarous treachery to glut his vengeance.
In the streets below were heard the tramp of busy feet hurrying homeward, and the confused uproar of joyous wassail from the various resorts of entertainment crowded by careless revellers. And the tread of steps mounted the stairs without his door, and there paused; and there was the murmur of two voices without; one the clear voice of Gurth, one softer and more troubled.
26th. Wither's Christmas Carol. The old custom of carrying the wassail bowl from door to door, with songs and merriment, in Christmas week, is still observed in some of our rural districts. woman and girl came to us and sung to us. So home, and Sir W. Pen and his son and daughter to supper to me to a good turkey, and were merry at cards, and so to bed. 27th.
There are very few men whom John Saltram cannot drink under the table, and rise with a steady brain himself when the wassail is ended; yet I believe, in a general way, few men drink less than he does. At cards he is equally strong; a past-master in all games of skill; and the play is apt to be rather high at one or two of the clubs he belongs to.
Instead of the long oak table and the wassail bowl, there stood near the fire a small round table, covered with a snow white cloth, upon which shone in unrivalled brightness a very handsome tea equipage the hissing kettle on one hob was vis a vis'd by a gridiron with three newly taken trout, frying under the reverential care of Father Malachi himself a heap of eggs ranged like shot in an ordnance yard, stood in the middled of the table, while a formidable pile of buttered toast browned before the grate the morning papers were airing upon the hearth every thing bespoke that attention to comfort and enjoyment one likes to discover in the house where chance may have domesticated him for a day or two.
They were huge feeders also and deep carousers, and could not accommodate themselves to the sober diet of our troops, but must fain eat and drink after the manner of their own country. They were often noisy and unruly also in their wassail, and their quarter of the camp was prone to be a scene of loud revel and sudden brawl.
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