Dree bushel bags vul!
Pockets vul and awl!
Urrah! Urrah!
Aw ’ess, hats vul, caps vul!
And dree bushel bags vul!
Urrah! Urrah! Urrah!”
THIS strange uncouth song was being chanted by moonlight by two score or more of rough West-Country voices. For half-a-mile the sound was carried by the sea-breeze, and all the cottagers within hearing of the chant had run forth to join, both in the song and in the ceremony which it marked.
For it was Christmas Eve, and Farmer Teazel was “christening his apple-trees,” according to the time-honoured custom of the place. And when the trees were being thus christened, there was cider to be had for the asking; and the farmer’s cider was famed as being the best in all St. Bride’s, or indeed in any of the adjacent parishes.
The moon shone frostily bright in a clear dark sky. A thin white carpet of sparkling frost coated the ground; but the wind blew from the west over the rippling sea, and was neither cruel nor fierce, so that even little children were caught up by their mothers to assist at this yearly ceremony; and Farmer Teazel’s orchard had, by ten o’clock, become the centre of local attraction, fully a hundred voices swelling the rude chant as the largest and best trees in the plantation were singled out as the recipients of the peculiar attentions incident to the ceremony.