Willing hands, regardless of the loss of skin from knuckles and arms, wrought at the task; but so stoutly did the case resist their efforts that it was long before they had stripped off the stout planking and revealed an air-tight lining of thick tin. This was attacked with sheath-knives, and, after much hacking and breaking of cutlery, yielded and exposed a number of queer-looking parcels most carefully packed. On the top was a letter. It ran as follows:—
“Dear Jack,
“In full recollection of your curious Scottish prejudice against any celebration of Christmas, and also of that awful time when you and I were stranded on the Campbells, and compelled to suck raw sea-birds’ eggs for our Christmas fare, I have sent you the materials for a good old-fashioned Christmas dinner, as I understand it, being a Cockney of the Cockniest. I also send you Dickens’s ‘Christmas Carol’ to read after dinner, and if you don’t do justice to my loving Christmas Box, I solemnly swear that I will never regard you as a chum again. Here’s wishing you a Merry Christmas, and as jolly a Hogmanay as ever you can get after.
“Most affectionately yours,
“John Brown.”
“Em, ehmm” (no written words can adequately represent the peculiar Scottish exclamation that stands for anything you like, being strictly non-committal), “that reads no sae bad. We’ll juist investigate. Fat hae we here? Et’s a duff, mahn, ou ay, bit et’s a boeny wan.”
And as he spoke he pulled out of its nest a gorgeous Christmas pudding weighing some twenty-five pounds. Next came an enormous oblong tin case, labelled, “Fortnum and Mason. Special Christmas turkey, stuffed with capon, tongue, and forcemeat,” upon reading which the skipper murmured again, “Ou ay, that’s no sae dusty, ye ken.” Next came a layer of bottles of green peas, alternated with bottles labelled “Turtle soup.” Other queer tin cases followed, bearing inscriptions such as “Special mince-pies,” “Scotch shortbread,” “American biscuits”—like foam-flakes—“Dessert fruits,” “York ham, best quality, ready cooked,” and “Boar’s head.” Finally, on the ground floor, as it were, was displayed a compact array of bottles, of which six were labelled, “Extra special Scotch whisky,” six “Special port, bin 50,” two corpulent ones bore the signature “D.O.M.,” and twelve had big-headed corks with gold foil adorning them. Followed at last two boxes of fat-looking cigars, and the book.
That grim assembly looked down upon this tempting array with their hard features perceptibly softening, while the skipper said—
“Weel a’weel. A’am no’ an advocate for specializin’ Chrismuss masel, altho’ Ah laik fine tae keep up Hogmanay. But A’am no a bigot, ye ken, an’ A’am thenkin’ that unner th’ circumstances ’twad juist be flytin’ Proeveedence no tae accept in a speerut o’ moderashun sichn a Chrismuss Boex as thon. Bit I’ll not coairce ony man. Them ’at disna approve o’ keepin’ Chrismuss ava can juist daunder awa’. ’S far as A’am consairned”—here he deftly knocked the top off one of the special Scotch bottles, and, looking round benignantly, said—“Here’s tae wersels, boys, a blessin’ on the giver o’ th’ feast, an’ a Merry Chrismuss tae us a’.”
Why particularize the proceedings that ensued? Should it not be sufficient to say that no conscientious scruples were entertained by any of those hard-grained men at this almost compulsory wrecking of their principles? Scarcely; yet passing notice may be given to the difficulties attendant upon drinking champagne out of bottle-necks, of eating concentrated turtle-soup warmed in the bottle like Pommard, of the total want of order and routine evidenced in dealing with the assorted provisions so providentially to hand—and mouth. Especially was this the case with the rotund bottles of Benedictine. One and all agreed that while the contents were “gey an’ oily-like,” they were “vara seductiv’,” and had the effect of making the partakers thereof curiously unreserved and open to conviction as to the general satisfactoriness of things in general.
When at last, with long-drawn sighs, the unwonted Christmas-keepers sank down upon their stony seats and lit up their aromatic smokes with brands passed from hand to hand, it evidently needed no keen judge of human nature to prophesy that a unanimous vote would be given if asked for as to the desirability of keeping up Christmas English fashion.