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Updated: July 28, 2025
Great black clouds were rolling across the heavens, and squalls of rain, with hail, swept by us with such extreme violence, that the Captain determined to run into Wigwam Cove. This is a snug little harbour, not far from Cape Horn; and here, at Christmas-eve, we anchored in smooth water.
And yet amid these social festivities, with all the amiable zeal and interest that then was felt for me, I had one disengaged evening; one evening on which I suddenly felt solitude in its most oppressive form; Christmas-eve, that very evening of all others on which I would most willingly witness something festal, willingly stand beside a Christmas- tree, gladdening myself with the joy of children, and seeing the parents joyfully become children again.
None of us here to-night have reason to put ourselves in the position of a Christ or a Judas we are all good friends and boon companions, and I cannot suppose for a moment that this little cloud can possibly affect you seriously. Remember also that this is Christmas-eve, and that according to the world's greatest poet, Shakespeare,
There is no fear of your being seen; all the people will be indoors, keeping Christmas-eve. You will find a change of clothes hidden in the malt-house, and an old caldron full of quicklime. Destroy the clothes you have got on, and dress yourself in the other clothes that you find.
While the former were drawn mostly from his own full and eventful life, the latter were fairy stories, pure and simple, sometimes already well known, sometimes made up, wherein fairies, ghosts, elves, gnomes, goblins and dragons, will-o'-the-wisps, nixies, kelpies and dwarfs disported themselves. Christmas was approaching, and the next day, Christmas-eve, the tree was to be lighted.
"That's a bad look-out for Christmas-eve. Why don't you go over to Watts's?" "What's Watts's?" "It's a house in High Street, where you'll get a good supper, a bed, and a fourpenny-bit in the morning if you can show you'em an honest man, and not a regular tramp. There's old Watts's muniment down by the side of the choir.
So I jogged up to London with the old horse, light and easy, to have my Christmas-eve and Christmas-day alone by the fire in the Library Cart, and then to buy a regular new stock of goods all round, to sell 'em again and get the money. I am a neat hand at cookery, and I'll tell you what I knocked up for my Christmas-eve dinner in the Library Cart.
Well, then, I have no scruple in asking you to join us;" and he gave Grace a look, as much as to say, "Am I not a considerate person?" "I am infinitely obliged to you, Mr. Raby," said Coventry, seriously; "I will come." "You will stay to luncheon, godpapa?" "Never touch it. Good-by. Well, then, Christmas-eve I shall expect you both. Dinner at six.
It preached resignation with every deep vibration of the cello. Harmony fidgeted. "How terrible!" she whispered. "To turn their Christmas-Eve into mourning! Stop them!" "Stop a German orchestra?" "They are crying, some of them. Oh, Peter!" The music came to an end at last. Tears were dried. Followed recitations, gifts, a speech of thanks from Nurse Elisabet for the patients. Then Harmony.
As I am not easily balked in a design when I am set upon it, I urged to the good lady that this was Christmas-eve; that Christmas comes but once a year, which is unhappily too true, for when it begins to stay with us the whole year round we shall make this earth a very different place; that I was possessed by the desire to treat the Travellers to a supper and a temperate glass of hot Wassail; that the voice of Fame had been heard in that land, declaring my ability to make hot Wassail; that if I were permitted to hold the feast, I should be found conformable to reason, sobriety, and good hours; in a word, that I could be merry and wise myself, and had been even known at a pinch to keep others so, although I was decorated with no badge or medal, and was not a Brother, Orator, Apostle, Saint, or Prophet of any denomination whatever.
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