He had been vicar of Yatton for about thirty years, having been presented to it by the late Mr. Aubrey, with whom he had been intimate at college. He was a delightful specimen of a country parson. Cheerful, unaffected, and good-natured, there was a dash of quaintness or roughness about his manners, that reminded you of the crust in very fine old port. He had been a widower, and childless, for fifteen years. His parish had been ever since his family, whom he still watched over with an affectionate vigilance. He was respected and beloved by all. Almost every man, woman, and child that had died in Yatton, during nearly thirty years, had departed with the sound of his kind and solemn voice in their ears. He claimed a sort of personal acquaintance with almost all the gravestones in his little churchyard; he knew the names of all who slept beneath them; and when he looked at those gravestones, his conscience bore him witness, that he had done his duty by the dust of whom they spoke. He was at the bedside of a sick person almost as soon, and as often, as the doctor—no matter what sort of weather, or at what hour of the day or night. Methinks I see him now, bustling about the village, with healthy ruddy cheek, a clear, cheerful eye, hair white as snow! with a small stout figure, clothed in a suit of somewhat rusty black, (knee-breeches and gaiters all round the year,) and with a small shovel-hat. No one lives in the vicarage with him but an elderly woman, his housekeeper, and her husband, whose chief business is to look after the doctor's old mare and the little garden; in which I have often seen him and his master, with his coat off, digging for an hour or two together. He rises at five in the winter, and four in the summer, being occupied till breakfast with his studies; for he was an excellent scholar, and has not forgotten, in the zealous discharge of his sacred duties, the pursuits of literature and philosophy, in which he had gained no inconsiderable distinction in his youth. He derives a very moderate income from his living; but it is even more than sufficient for his necessities. Ever since Mr. Aubrey's devotion to politics has carried him away from Yatton for a considerable portion of each year, Dr. Tatham has been the right hand counsellor of old Mrs. Aubrey, in all her pious and charitable plans and purposes. Every New-year's day, there come from the Hall to the vicarage six dozen of fine old port wine—a present from Mrs. Aubrey; but the little doctor (though he never tells her so) scarce drinks six bottles of them in a year. Two dozen of them go, within a few days' time, to a poor brother parson in an adjoining parish, who, with his wife and three children—all in feeble health—can hardly keep body and soul together, and who, but for this generous brother, would not probably taste wine throughout the year, except on certain occasions when the very humblest may moisten their poor lips with wine—I mean the Sacrament—the sublime and solemn festival given by One who doth not forget the poor and destitute, however in their misery they may sometimes think to the contrary!—The remainder of his little present Dr. Tatham distributes in small quantities among such of his parishioners as may require it, and may not happen to have come under the immediate notice of Mrs. Aubrey. Dr. Tatham has known Mr. Aubrey ever since he was about five years old. 'Twas the doctor that first taught him Greek and Latin; and, up to his going to college, gave him the frequent advantage of his learned experience.—But surely I have gone into a very long digression, and must return.
While Miss Aubrey, accompanied by her sister-in-law, and followed by a servant carrying a great bag, filled with articles brought from London the day before, went to the school which I have before mentioned, in order to distribute her prizes and presents, Mr. Aubrey and Dr. Tatham set off on a walk through the village.
"I must really do something for that old steeple of yours, Doctor," said Mr. Aubrey, looking up, and shading his eyes with his hands, as, arm in arm, they approached the church; "it looks crumbling away in many parts!"
"If you'd only send a couple of masons to repair the porch, and make it weather-tight, it would satisfy me for some years to come," said the doctor, with exceeding earnestness.
"Well—we'll look at it," replied Aubrey; and, turning aside, they entered the little churchyard.
"How I love this old yew-tree!" he exclaimed, as they passed under it; "it casts a kind of tender gloom around that always makes me pensive, not to say melancholy!" A sigh escaped him, as his eye glanced at the family vault, which was almost in the centre of the shade, where lay his father, three brothers, and a sister, and where, in the course of nature, a few short years would see the precious remains of his mother deposited. But the doctor who had hastened forward alone for a moment, finding the church door open, called out to Mr. Aubrey, who soon stood within the porch. It certainly required a little repairing, which Mr. Aubrey said should be looked to immediately. "See—we're all preparing for to-morrow," said Dr. Tatham, leading the way into the little church, where the grizzle-headed clerk was busy decorating the old-fashioned pulpit, reading-desk, and altar-piece, with the cheerful emblems of the season.
"I never see these," said the doctor, taking up one of the sprigs of mistletoe lying on a form beside them, "but I think of your own Christmas verses, Mr. Aubrey, when you were younger and fresher than you now are—don't you recollect them?"
"Oh—pooh!" quoth Aubrey, somewhat hastily.
"But I remember them," rejoined the doctor; and he began with great emphasis and solemnity—
"Hail! silvery, modest mistletoe,
Wreath'd round winter's brow of snow,
Clinging so chastely, tenderly:
Hail holly, darkly, richly green,
Whose crimson berries blush between
Thy prickly foliage, modestly.
Ye winter-flowers, bloom sweet and fair,
Though Nature's garden else be bare—
Ye vernal glistening emblems, meet
To twine a Christmas coronet!"