OUR CHRISTMAS DINNER AT DR. LICKEMWELL’S.

By Robert Hope Moncrieff,
Author of “Oudendale,” “Horace Hazelwood,” “The Lycée Boys,” &c., &c.

When I was a boy—dear me, what a long time ago it seems!—I was a boarder at Upton House, Dr. Lickemwell’s school. It was a good school, and Dr. Lickemwell was a very good sort of man, and we were on the whole very happy there. I didn’t think so then, but I think so now, and I dare say you boys will think as kindly of your old schools and masters when you come to be men. You don’t believe what your parents tell you, that your school days will be the happiest time of your life, but it is true all the same, as you will find out some day.

We were a very decent set of fellows at Dr. Lickemwell’s. None of your prim young gentlemen, who always have clean collars on, and go out walking two by two, like the picture of the beasts going into Noah’s ark. And none of your young swells that I see now-a-days swaggering to school with canes and kid gloves. No; we were nearly all real, honest school-boys, fond of play, and not very fond of lessons, but obliged to do them all the same; occasionally given to idleness and mischief, but not at all above taking our canings, as a matter of course, when we were found out.

Though we were happy enough at school, you may be sure we were not at all sorry when the holidays came round. Like most boys, we used to think weeks before of the joyful journey home, and the bright blaze of our own firesides, and our father’s cheery welcome, and our sisters’ kisses, and our mother’s smiles—and jam cupboards. The Doctor kept us to our work in a way which made us relish thoroughly the pleasures of idleness for a few weeks, and the comforts and luxuries of home seemed doubly pleasant after the dusty, noisy school-rooms, and the bread and scrape, and Mrs. Lickemwell’s puddings, in which (though she was an excellent woman in other respects) a strict regard for truth compels me to say that there was a great deal of suet and very few plums. But let me not seem ungrateful. The puddings might not be adapted to our taste, but, while we could get nothing better, we adapted our taste to the puddings, and enjoyed them thoroughly at the time, with only an occasional looking back to the flesh pots of the home kitchen, and a regretful remembrance of the glories of mamma’s Christmas plum pudding.

To such a plum pudding, among other delights, was I looking forward one cold, snowy December. The holidays were drawing near, lessons were growing doubly stupid and tedious, the days were passing slowly by. But we lived on hope, and exercised our arithmetical talents in counting the days that had yet to pass by before the day, a course of study which we liked better than compound proportion, but which did not please our master at all, seeing that it obliged him to do more caning in the last fortnight of the half than in a month at any other time.

But on this occasion my calculations were put an end to by a terrible and unexpected misfortune—the most terrible misfortune which had ever happened to me, as I thought then. Just a week before the beginning of the holidays, I received a letter from my father.

“There’s some money in it,” thought I, as I eagerly broke the seal. “Perhaps I am to come home at once. Oh, how jolly!” But, alas! these were the contents:—

“December 13th.

“My dear Boy,

“I am as sorry, as you will be, to tell you that we cannot allow you to come home for the Christmas holidays this year. Your little brother Ned has taken scarlet fever, and though we hope he is in no danger, we think it right that you should not come to the house, for fear of infection. I have therefore written to Dr. Lickemwell, asking him to keep you for the holidays. If Ned gets better soon, your mamma and I may, perhaps, come and see you.

“I know that this will be a great disappointment to you, but disappointments are things none of us can help meeting in this world, and we must just try to bear them cheerfully, and make the best of them.

“I am sure Dr. and Mrs. Lickemwell will do all they can to make you enjoy your holidays, and I hope that your not being able to come home may turn out to be not such a great misfortune after all. I enclose you five shillings as a Christmas present.

“I have no time to write more. Mamma cannot write at all, she is so anxious about Ned, but she sends her love to you. And, hoping you are quite well, I am, your affectionate

“Pater.”

Just fancy my feelings when I had read this letter! It was so sudden and unexpected, that at first I could scarcely believe it to be true. But there was the well-known handwriting, and the words were plain enough. When I had read it over twice, I put the letter into my pocket, and, seeking out a solitary corner of the playground, had a good cry. Need I be ashamed of it? I was only twelve years old, and you may judge for yourselves how great the disappointment was.

For two or three days I was very dull and miserable. The pleasure with which I had looked forward to the holidays was all gone, and the glee of the other boys made me feel quite angry. But it takes a great deal to depress a boy’s spirits for any length of time, and I soon began to get over my disappointment, and to console myself with the first maxim of philosophy, “What must be, must be.” Perhaps the five shillings contributed more than the philosophy to reconcile me to my lot.

But when the breaking-up day came, I felt my misfortune very keenly. The Doctor had been in the habit of making us a farewell speech on these occasions, which had always appeared to me very appropriate, but now I thought his jesting tone singularly out of place. “I have to bid you good-bye for a few weeks,” he said, “and, in doing so, I need not say how sorry I am to part with you. Of course teaching you, and caning you, and scolding you, is the greatest pleasure I have in the world. Of course I don’t like holidays. Of course you give me very little trouble, and I am very angry with your parents for taking that trouble off my shoulders for a few weeks. But that we may not forget each other during the holidays, I suppose I must give out some work for you to do while you are away.”

Dr. Lickemwell always said this at the beginning of the holidays, but the boys, who understood very well the merry twinkle in his eye, always met the proposal by a laughing shout of “No, no; oh, no, Sir! No holiday task.” “What!” cried the Doctor, pretending to be very much astonished. “No holiday task! Well, I think that I understand your feelings. You haven’t the heart to do any work away from me and my cane. It is very gratifying to me to find that we are such favourites. So let it be, then. And now all I have to do is to hope that you will get home safely, and spend a merry Christmas.”

At this the boys leaped up and gave three tremendous cheers for the Doctor, and then most of them rushed off to make their final preparations for departure. I could not bear to see the coaches full of happy faces roll off, so I betook myself to my retreat in the playground, and remained there alone till the dinner bell rang, when I returned to the house and joined my companions in misery.

There were five of us who, from various reasons, were to pass the holidays at school. First, Jack and Willy Somers. These two brothers generally spent their holidays at the house of an aunt, but she was ill, and could not receive them this time. Jack was certainly the very worst boy to be near a sick bed, always chattering, and shouting, and racketing about. Unless his aunt was a very different person from most single ladies I have known, I can’t understand how she ever managed to put up with him; indeed, I believe they had frequent squabbles, in consequence of a propensity of Jack’s for climbing on the outside of the staircase, and a habit he had of tying a tin kettle to the tail of her favourite cat, and other amusements, which the good lady did not at all approve of. Willy was a small boy, about nine years old, and all I can remember of him is that he had curly hair, great red cheeks, and a funny little lump in the place where other people have noses. Then there was Arthur Howard, a quiet, gentle boy, who had neither father nor mother, nor aunt to go to, and spent all his holidays at the school, poor fellow. And the last was Edwin Saunders, whose parents were in India, where he gave us to understand that he was soon to follow them, and reside in a palace surrounded with palm-trees, with about a dozen white elephants, and rather more than a hundred native servants at his disposal. This picture of oriental luxury rather dazzled us, and we looked to Saunders as a person of consequence, but I have since had reason to believe that he was exaggerating his expectations, inasmuch as I afterwards found him residing in a small house in a country town with his father, who had retired from the army on half pay.

Being left alone, then, in the great school-house, which seemed so strangely silent and empty, we five resolved to make the best of it. And we got on pretty well after all. We had no lessons to learn, and almost nobody to look after us, and could roam about all day where we liked. So we chattered, and played, and read story books out of the school library, and enjoyed our freedom. If it had only come on hard frost, we wouldn’t have minded staying at school a bit, for there was a splendid pond for skating just at the back of Upton House.

On the third day we were all sitting round the fire in the school-room, after dinner, when Willy Somers, who had been meditating deeply, uttered the following remarkable piece of information:—

“To-morrow’s Christmas Day.”

“Well, we all know that,” said his brother. “Can’t you think of something new and original to tell us, Willy?”

“I was thinking—I was wondering if Lickemwell would give us a plum pudding.”

“Catch him,” said Saunders, who was of a cynical disposition, and had no great faith in human nature. “He’ll have one himself, but we’ll get nothing better than that everlasting stick jaw. If I was in India, what a splendid pudding I should have!”

“‘If ifs and ands were pots and pans,’” quoted Jack, and then stopped, leaving us to meditate over this unfinished sentiment.

We were all silent for a few minutes, thinking of the same subject, the glories of the Christmas dinner which the other boys would enjoy. And the more we thought of it, the less we liked the cheerless prospect which was before us. I am afraid we were a set of greedy little fellows.

Suddenly, as I turned over my five shillings, or what was left of them, in my trousers’ pocket, a bright idea came into my mind.

“Why shouldn’t we get up a Christmas dinner for ourselves? I mean, buy a lot of things, and cook them at the school-room fire, and have a regular spread.”

“Oh, that would be jolly!” cried little Willy. “I have three shillings and sixpence. That would buy—let me see—forty-two apple tarts. No; I think I would rather buy eighty-four sponge biscuits.”

“Buy your grandmother!” said Jack, contemptuously. “If we go in for the thing at all, we must do it in regular style—get a goose or a turkey, or something of that sort. It’s not a bad idea. What do you say, Saunders?”

“I say it’s a splendid idea,” said Saunders, who hadn’t any money, and therefore felt free to pronounce a very decided opinion on the matter.

“But the Doctor won’t allow us to be cooking things in the school-room,” objected Howard.

“Then we’ll allow ourselves,” said Jack. “No fear of the Doctor shoving his nose into the business. He’ll be too busy guzzling in the parlour with Mrs. L. and the young Licks.”

“Oh, we can easily manage it,” said I. “I have about half-a-crown.”

“At all events, if we are to do it, we must look sharp about it,” said Jack. “We must buy the things this afternoon. All the shops will be shut to-morrow.”

Without further discussion Jack and I settled that the thing should be. Saunders and Howard held back, being rather afraid of the Doctor; but, as they were not to furnish the funds, their opinion was not regarded.

Our first step was to form ourselves into a committee of ways and means, of which Jack, who was one of those fellows that always take the lead in everything, elected himself president, secretary, and treasurer. Our joint funds were found to amount to about ten shillings, but as we didn’t care to spend all our money, Jack, Willy, and I, agreed to give two shillings a-piece, which we thought would be enough to furnish a sumptuous feast. Saunders contributed half of a cake, which somebody had sent him. Greedy fellow! he had already eaten up the other half, without saying a word to any of us. Howard gave nothing, but nobody grudged him his share in the matter, for we all knew that he would have been generous enough, if he had had anything to give.

Of course the great question was what to buy with our money. Willy was very anxious to have a turkey, but that was out of the question, so it was settled that a duck should be got instead, which Jack assured us could be bought for half-a-crown, and could be easily roasted at the school-room fire. Then sixpence was to be spent on potatoes, tenpence on apple tarts, two for each of us, the same sum on sweet biscuits, and the rest, it was unanimously voted, should be applied to the purchase of chocolate drops, by way of dessert. As soon as this bill of fare was decided upon, we sallied forth in a body to make our purchases, and succeeded in bringing back the articles, duck and all, without being observed, and locking them up in an empty desk in the school-room.

Next day, you may be sure, we were in a state of great excitement. I am sure no family in England could have been looking forward to their Christmas dinner with more pleasing anticipations than we five. As soon as church was done we hastened home, and sat down with no great relish to our ordinary school dinner. It seemed lucky for us that we had something better in view, for all that was on the table was a dish of potatoes and some scraps of cold mutton. Neither the Doctor nor Mrs. Lickemwell made their appearance; only one of the maids was in attendance, and to her Jack began to grumble, more for the sake of grumbling than because he cared particularly what he had for dinner on that day.

“I say, Sally,” said he, “this is a low shame. Is this all the grub we’re to get?”

I may here remark that, by time-honoured custom, all the maids at Upton House were called Sally by the boys, who further distinguished them, with a lofty disregard for the rules of gender, as Sally Primus, Sally Secundus, and so forth. They didn’t use to like it at first, but they soon got accustomed to it, I dare say.

“That’s all you are to get just now,” said Sally. “There’s a great deal of cooking going on to-day.”

“Mother L. might have given us a plum pudding, at least. We’ll all be starved,” said Jack, winking at us.

Sally vouchsafed no further answer, but disappeared with the dish cover, leaving us to the enjoyment of the cold mutton, which disappeared very fast. We were too full of the thoughts of our own banquet to waste more time on the discussion of Mrs. Lickemwell’s stinginess, as we thought it.

Before Sally came back we had hidden away as many plates and knives as we thought she would not miss, and, when she had cleared away and left the room, we at once commenced operations, trusting to good luck that we would not be interrupted.

Jack and I undertook the important business of roasting the duck. We first carefully plucked it and buried the feathers, and then tied a string to one of its legs, and took turns at spinning it round before the fire, with such satisfactory results that in about an hour and a half it was pronounced ready for eating, one side being by that time burnt quite black. To Willy and Howard was entrusted the task of roasting the potatoes, which they accomplished much to their own satisfaction, though a critical observer might have objected that they burned to cinders a good many more than they cooked. Saunders, for his part, engaged to manufacture a wonderful cake of bread crumbs, slices of raw potato, and salt butter, which compound, I may here remark, was unanimously pronounced to be an utter failure.

Everything being thus ready, it was agreed to take the viands up to one of the bedrooms, and spend the rest of the afternoon there, in the enjoyment of them. This was done, and we were preparing to abandon ourselves to festivity, when a heavy tread was heard in the passage, and Jack exclaimed in a loud whisper—“Look out! Here’s the Doctor, or Porbury.” In a moment a counterpane was flung over the tempting array of tarts and so forth, spread out on one of the beds. Saunders hastily sat down on the dish containing the potatoes, thereby mashing them for us very well, as Jack afterwards remarked. The roast duck was not so easily disposed of, but Jack’s presence of mind did not forsake him. He hastily squeezed it into the pocket of his greatcoat, which he had just put on, as there was no fire in the bedroom. Scarcely was all this done, than the door opened, and in walked Mr. Porbury, the only one of the assistant masters who had remained for the Christmas holidays.

How lucky it wasn’t the Doctor! we thought Porbury was a heavy, slow fellow, with spectacles, whom we boys rather looked down upon, I am sorry to say, because it was so easy to “humbug him.”

“What are you doing here?” asked Mr. Porbury.

“Nothing, sir,” said Saunders, who was in agony lest he should have to rise and reveal the potatoes.

This seemed to satisfy Mr. Porbury, and he was going out again, when he suddenly stopped, and began to snuff about him suspiciously.

“H’m. Dear me! Isn’t there a very curious smell in this room, boys?”

“Smell, sir?” said Jack, innocently, though all the while guiltily conscious of the roast duck in his pocket.

“Yes; a smell of burning, I think. Surely there is something on fire. Dear me, I hope not.”

“Perhaps it is in some of the other rooms, sir,” suggested Jack, hoping that he would go to look, and thus give us an opportunity of getting rid of the unlucky duck.

“Perhaps it is,” said Mr. Porbury. “Will you come round with me to the other rooms, and we will see.”

There was nothing for it but to obey, and with a comical look at us Jack followed him out of the room. His presence of mind quite forsook him here. He should have taken off his great coat, and left it behind. But he did not think of that, and so, as Mr. Porbury was making his tour of inspection, he, curiously enough, noticed the same smell in every room they entered.

You may be sure we waited in great anxiety for Jack’s return. In a few minutes he rushed back into the room, choking with laughter, and, flinging himself on his bed, began to relieve his feelings by kicking up his heels, and writhing about convulsively. “Oh, dear! oh, dear! What a joke! I never saw anything like it. Oh! I say, you fellows, hold me together, or I’ll split with laughing. Oh, dear!”

“What’s the matter? Did he twig the duck?” we inquired, anxiously.

“Not a bit of him,” shouted Jack, drawing it forth from his pocket in triumph. “Every room we went into he snuffed about, and said, ‘very curious; there’s the same smell here.’ At length he thought it must be coming from the kitchen—oh, dear! I shall never get over it;” and Jack rolled about, and screamed, till the tears ran down his cheeks, and he could laugh no longer. Only, for the next half hour or so, he was always threatening to burst out into another explosion, and exclaiming, “Well, I can’t help it. To think how neatly Porbury was taken in. What a splendid joke!”

Not having such a keen sense of the ludicrous as Jack, our mirth was not so boisterous, but we were greatly relieved to find that our duck was safe. It was thought prudent, however, to put off the feast for a little, in case we should again be interrupted. But at the end of half-an-hour our impatience overcame our prudence.

“The Doctor has a dinner-party to-day, so he’s safe not to come near us,” said Jack. “And Porbury’s sure to be at it. He wasn’t at our dinner, you know.”

So we set to work at once upon the duck, which Jack divided by tearing off the legs and wings, and giving one to each of us. The body he kept to himself, and I think he had the best of the bargain. But Jack, as I said before, was one of those fellows who manage to get the best of everything for themselves. I remember we thought him very generous when he cut off a piece of the breast with his pocket knife, and gave it to Howard, to whose lot had fallen the wing that had been burned in the process of cooking.

The duck was pronounced excellent; the only fault was that there seemed to be so little on it after all; and when it and the potatoes were finished, and the bones licked clean, we turned our attention to the less substantial portion of the entertainment. Didn’t we make short work of the apple tarts and Saunders’ cake, washing them down with lemonade, made out of two lemons and some sugar, which we had coaxed out of the housekeeper! All the while we were talking and laughing, as well as eating as fast as we could, and agreeing that it was the jolliest Christmas dinner we had ever had.

The fun, indeed, began to grow fast and furious. At a very early stage of the proceedings Jack had volunteered a song, and now, inspired by the potent liquor I have just mentioned, he had mounted on a chair, and was bellowing, at the pitch of his voice, a song which some youthful genius had composed, as a sort of national anthem for the school. I only remember the first verse, which was—

“In Upton House’s wintry clime,

We now must work at our books for a time,

Or, if we don’t, we’ll catch toko,

Which is what Mr. Patrick did upon the musical instrument bestow,

So early in the morning,

Before the break of day.”

The remarkable feature of this melody was, that every verse was sung to a different air, and with a different chorus, in which we all joined lustily, and made such a din, that this time we never heard footsteps creaking along the passage, as we might have done if we had been less noisy.

But in the middle of the song the door of the room was flung open, and in stalked—the Doctor.

He cast one sharp glance at the bed, on which was spread out our feast, and another at us. We looked at one another, and then, though we were in a great fright, couldn’t help smiling, the whole thing was so ludicrous. Jack, standing on a chair, with his back turned to the door, flourishing the backbone of the duck in one hand, and a half-eaten tart in the other, had just begun a new verse—

“Old Lickemwell, he is a—”

But here, suddenly perceiving from our silence that something had gone wrong, Jack turned round, and, when he saw the Doctor, stopped short, and got down from the chair, looking foolish enough. We were all looking foolish, I dare say, but we couldn’t help laughing, and the Doctor looked as if he, too, was inclined to smile, though he was trying to look stern.

“Well,” he said at length, and then there was a portentous silence. When Dr. Lickemwell said “well,” in a peculiarly dry, meaning way which he had, we generally understood that matters were going to turn out anything but well for us. “This is how Mr. Porbury felt a smell of burning. Ah!”

Then the Doctor looked at us again, and we felt particularly uncomfortable.

“I suppose you are the ringleader in this, Somers?”

“Yes, sir,” said Jack, modestly.

“Come with me,” said the Doctor, motioning to Jack to follow him out of the room.

Jack obeyed, trying to wink at us as he went, to show that he didn’t care for what was going to happen. But it was rather an unhappy wink.

The rest of us waited in great suspense for about ten minutes, wondering what would be done to Jack, and if we ourselves would escape punishment. A sudden damper had been cast on our mirth. We all knew the Doctor’s cane too well to feel happy while we were expecting to have an interview with it

At length the Doctor came back, and made us a speech:—

“I am very sorry to find, boys, that you have been resorting to deception of this kind. If you had known something which I wished to be a surprise for you, I don’t think you would have cared to take all this trouble on the sly. Come here with me, all of you.”

We followed him, looking at each other in surprise, and quite unable to make out what he meant. Was he angry with us? Was he going to punish us? Was he taking us to his study, which was to Upton House what the torture-chamber was to the Tower of London! No; he led the way past the study door, and over the hall, and into his private dining-room, at the door of which we all hung back, like a brood of chickens, reluctant to follow into the pond the duck that has hatched them.

“Come along,” said the Doctor, encouraging us; and, taking courage to venture inside, we saw the table spread out for dinner, and the sideboard loaded with apples, oranges, and nuts.

“We are just going to dine,” said the Doctor, in the same grave voice, but with a merry twinkle in his eye. “Mrs. Lickemwell and I had intended to ask you to take your Christmas dinner with us—it is a pity we did not issue our invitation sooner. However, if you think you could eat a little bit, although you have dined, perhaps you will sit down and join us. You see Somers has kindly consented to favour us with his company.”

We looked at the Doctor, and at the table, and at each other, in perfect amazement. Was the Doctor speaking seriously? We felt quite uncomfortable. But there was that cool fish, Jack Somers, sitting at the head of the table, beside Mrs. Lickemwell, making himself agreeable, and grinning at us like a porpoise. Seeing our perplexity, the Doctor burst into a laugh, and cried out—

“Poor fellows! Did you really think we weren’t going to give you a Christmas dinner? We meant it to be a surprise, but perhaps I should have told you, and then we shouldn’t have had you wasting your money on bad pastry, and bothering Mr. Porbury with your culinary operations. Well, we’ll say no more about it, but sit down and see if you can’t find room for another dinner.”

Then the Doctor laughed louder than before, and Mrs. Lickemwell laughed, and Jack laughed, and we all laughed, and finally we sat down, and Sally Primus, and Sally Secundus, appeared with a splendid turkey, and a roast joint of beef, at the sight of which we discovered that the duck and the apple tarts had been mere trifles that had only whetted our appetites.

In short, we had a splendid dinner, and glorious fun afterwards. The young Lickemwells were all there in their best bibs and tuckers, and some other boys and girls came in to tea, and we had a snap-dragon, and a Christmas tree, and charades, and no end of games. And, when we had said good night, and gone back to the school-room to gather up the remnants of our own despised feast, which were now preserved for another time, we agreed that the Doctor was a much jollier fellow than we had ever before thought him, and that we were great fools for having wasted our money. And that is the story of our Christmas dinner, the only one, I am glad to say, I ever ate at school, for Ned got all right again very soon, and, as he came to school himself next half, took good care not to catch any more scarlet fevers about Christmas time.