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Some one had told her it was a custom for everybody to wear white to the carol-singing, but it was hard to remember things, maybe she had only dreamed it. She wished that she did not have to remember things, but could lie there without moving, until morning. What was it her mother used to sing to her? "Asleep in the arms of the slow-swinging seas." Oh! The white seal's lullaby.
Well, he would of course spend Christmas at Lidford; and he fancied how the holly and mistletoe, the church-decorations and carol-singing, and all the stereotyped genialities of the season, things that had seemed trite and dreary to him since the days of his boyhood, would have a new significance and beauty for him when he and Marian kept the sacred festival together.
On recovering his speech, he stammered out, grinding his teeth: "They shall pay clearly for this jesting; Franconnette shall have no other husband than myself." Many months passed. The harvest was gathered in. There were no more out-door fetes or dances. The villagers of Estanquet assembled round their firesides. Christmas arrived with it games and carol-singing.
Music he loved, and over music would spend time and trouble which he would have grudged in almost every other way; but he rubbed his hands with satisfaction when the last rehearsal was over, and boasted gleefully that for carol-singing not many choirs could be found to beat his own.
Don't cry any more." The good-natured tone of his voice quieted the child, as he intended it should. He went away into the back kitchen to wash himself. As he was bending his head over the sink before the little mirror, lathering to shave, there came from outside the dissonant voices of boys, pouring out the dregs of carol-singing. "While Shep-ep-ep-ep-herds watched "
So he broke into the 'Tivity Hymm, just as at Christmas carol-singing; when, lo and behold, down went the bull on his bended knees, in his ignorance, just as if 'twere the true 'Tivity night and hour. As soon as his horned friend were down, William turned, clinked off like a long-dog, and jumped safe over hedge, before the praying bull had got on his feet again to take after him.
And still no sign of deliverance came to the unwilling vigil-keepers. Towards one o'clock the sound of rather boisterous and undisciplined carol-singing approached rapidly, and came to a sudden anchorage, apparently just outside the garden-gate.
As the mood seizes him he plays the rôle of fireman for hours together; goes carol-singing in his sledge, and reaps his harvest of coppers from the houses of his subjects; rides a hobby-horse at a village fair, and shrieks with laughter until he falls off; or plies saw and plane in a shipbuilding yard, sharing the meals and drinking bouts of his fellow-workmen.
Where's young Bill? Here, come on, do, we're all a-waiting " "What's up?" inquired the Rat, pausing in his labours. "I think it must be the field-mice," replied the Mole, with a touch of pride in his manner. "They go round carol-singing regularly at this time of the year. They're quite an institution in these parts.
It may be inferred, from a passage in one of Horsley's Charges, that in some country churches, towards the end of the century, there was no religious observance of the day. But such neglect was altogether exceptional. The custom of carol-singing was continued only in a few places, more generally in Yorkshire than elsewhere.
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