Christmas came, and the holidays with it. As Miss Plinlimmon sang—
"Welcome, Christmas! Welcome, Yule!
It brings the schoolboy home from school.
[N.B.—Vulgarly pronounced 'schule' in the West of England.]
Puddings and mistletoe and holly,
With other contrivances for banishing melancholy:
Boar's head, for instance—of which I have never partaken,
But the name has associations denied to ordinary bacon."
Dear soul, she had been waiting at the door—so Sally, the cook, informed me—for about an hour, listening for the coach, and greeted me with a tremulous joy between laughter and tears. Before leading me to my father, however, she warned me that I should find him changed; and changed he was, less perhaps in appearance than in the perceptible withdrawal of his mind from all earthly concerns. He seldom spoke, but sat all day immobile, with the lids of his blind eyes half lowered, so that it was hard to tell whether he brooded or merely dozed. On Christmas Day he excused himself from walking to church with us, and upon top of his excuse looked up with a sudden happy smile—as though his eyes really saw us—and quoted Waller's famous lines:
"The soul's dark cottage, battered and decay'd,
Lets in new light through chinks that time hath made. . . ."
To me it seemed rather that, as its home broke up, the soul withdrew little by little, and contracted itself like the pupil of an eye, to shrink to a pinpoint and vanish in the full admitted ray.
This our last Christmas at Minden Cottage was a quiet yet a singularly happy one. It was good to be at home, yet the end of the holidays and the return to Stimcoe's cast no anticipatory gloom on my spirits. To tell the truth, I had a sneaking affection for Stimcoe's; and to Miss Plinlimmon's cross-examination upon its internal economies I opposed a careless manly assurance as hardly fraudulent as Mr. Stimcoe's brazen doorplate or his lady's front-window curtains. The careful mending of my linen, too—for Mrs. Stimcoe with all her faults was a needlewoman—helped to disarm suspicion. When we talked of my studies I sang the praises of Captain Branscome, and told of his past heroism and his sword of honour.
"Branscome? Branscome, of the Londonderry?" said my father. "Ay, to be sure, I remember Branscome—a Godfearing fellow and a good seaman. You may take him back my compliments, Harry—my compliments and remembrances—and say that if Heaven permitted us to meet again in this world, nothing would give me greater pleasure than to crack a bottle with him."
I duly reported this to Captain Branscome, and was taken aback by his reception of it. He began in a sudden flurry to ask a dozen questions concerning my father.
"He keeps good health, I trust? It would be an honour to call and chat with the Major. At what hour would he be most accessible to visitors?"
I stared, for in truth he seemed ready to take me at my word and start off at once, and at my patent surprise he grew yet more nervous and confused.