CHAPTER XXVII. PANIC.
Christmas Day fell on a Friday that year, and the funeral of that ancient woman took place on the previous afternoon. The Curate had never read the burial-service, before so small an audience. For the weather was bitterly cold, and poor Mrs. Tremlett had outlived all her friends, if she ever had any; no one expected a farthing from her, and no one cared to come and shudder at her grave. Of all her many descendants none, except the child Zip, was present; and she would have stood alone upon the frozen bank, unless Mrs. Muggridge had very kindly offered to come and hold the shivering and streaming little hand.
What was to be done with Zip? Nobody came forward. There were hundreds of kind people in the parish, and dozens to whom the poor waif would have been a scarcely perceptible burden. Yet nobody cared to have a Tremlett at his hearth, and everybody saw the duty marked out for his neighbour.
"Then I will take her;" said Mr. Penniloe with his true benevolence, "but the difficulty is where to place her. She cannot well be among my children yet, until I know more about her. And, although the old family is so reduced, the kitchen is scarcely the place for her." However, that question soon answered itself; and though little Zip was at first a sad puzzle (especially to the staid Muggridge), her grateful and loving nature soon began to win a warm hold and a tranquil home for her.
That winter, although it began rather early, was not of prolonged severity, for the frost broke up on Christmas night, at least in the west of England, with a heavy fall of snow which turned to rain. But Christmas Day itself was very bright and pleasant, with bracing air, hard frozen snow, and firm sunshine throwing long shadows on it, and sparkling on the icicles from thatch and spout and window-frame. As the boys of the Sunday school filed out, at the call of the bells in the tower chiming (after long silence while the arch was being cut) and as they formed into grand procession, under the military eye of Jakes, joyfully they watched their cloudy breath ascending, or blew it in a column on some other fellow's cap. Visions were before them,—a pageantry of joy, a fortnight of holidays, a fortnight of sliding, snow balling, bone-runners, Cooper Baker's double-hoops, why not even skates?
But alas, even now the wind was backing, as the four vanes with rare unanimity proclaimed, a white fog that even a boy could stand out of was stealing up the valley, while the violet tone of the too transparent sky, and the whiteness of the sun (which used to be a dummy fireball), and even the short sharp clack of the bells, were enough to tell any boy with weather eyes and ears, that the nails on his heels would do no cobbler's click again, till the holiday time was over.
But blessed are they who have no prophetic gift, be it of the weather, or of things yet more unstable. All went to church in a happy frame of mind; and the Parson in a like mood looked upon them. Every head was there that he had any right to count, covered or uncovered. Of the latter perhaps more than a Sunday would produce; of the former not so many, but to a Christian mind enough; for how shall a great church-festival be kept without a cook? But the ladies who were there were in very choice attire, happy in having nothing but themselves to dress; all in good smiling condition, and reserving for home use their candid reviews of one another.
There was the genial and lively Mrs. Farrant, whose good word and good sayings everybody valued; close at her side was her daughter Minnie, provided by nature with seasonable gifts—lips more bright than the holly-berry, teeth more pearly than mistletoe, cheeks that proved the hardiness of the rose in Devon, and eyes that anticipated Easter-tide with the soft glance of the Forget-me-not. Then there was Mrs. John Horner, interdum aspera cornu, but fœnum habens for the roast-beef time; and kind Mrs. Anning (quite quit of this tale, though the Perle runs through her orchard), and tall Mrs. Webber with two pretty girls—all purely distinct from the lawyer—and Mrs. James Hollyer, and Mrs. John Hollyer, both great in hospitality; and others of equally worthy order, for whom the kind hearts of Bright and Cobden would have ached, had they not been blind seers.
To return to our own sheep, themselves astray, there was no denying Mrs. Gilham, looking still a Christian, up a fathom of sea-green bonnet; and her daughter Rose, now so demure if ever she caught a wandering eye, that it had to come again to beg pardon; and by her side a young man stood, with no eyes at all for the prettiest girl inside the sacred building!