Of the sports by which this day was enlivened we doubt if there are any remains. These seem to have consisted in the burning, by the men who had returned from the field, of the flax and tow belonging to the women, as a sort of assertion of the supremacy of the spirit of fun over his laborious rival for this one day more, and a challenge into his court; and this challenge was answered by the maidens, and the mischief retorted, by sluicing the clowns with pails of water. It was, in fact, a merry contest between these two elements of water and of fire; and may be looked upon as typical of that more matter-of-fact extinction which was about to be finally given to the lights of the season when the sports of this day should be concluded. Of these merry proceedings our artist has given a very lively representation; and Herrick's poem on the subject, which we must quote from the "Hesperides," includes all that is known of the ancient observances of St. Distaff's day.
"Partly work and partly play,
You must on S. Distaff's day;
From the plough soone free your teame,
Then come home and fother them,
If the maides a spinning goe,
Burne the flax, and fire the tow;
. . . .
Bring in pailes of water then,
Let the maides bewash the men:—
Give S. Distaffe all the right,
Then bid Christmas sport good-night:
And next morrow, every one
To his own vocation."
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Returning to School.—Page 355.
Our Revels now are ended; and our Christmas prince must abdicate. In flinging down his wand of misrule, we trust there is no reason why he should, like Prospero, when his charms were over and he broke his staff, drown this, his book, "deeper than did ever plummet sound." The spells which it contains are, we believe, all innocent; and, we trust, it may survive to furnish the directions for many a future scheme of Christmas happiness.
And now Father Christmas has at length departed,—but not till the youngsters had got from the merry old man his last bon-bon. The school-boy, too, has clung to the skirts of the patriarch's coat, and followed him as far as he could. And farther had he gone, but for a clear and undoubted vision of a dark object, which has been looming suspiciously through the gloom, for some weeks past. He first caught a glimpse of it, on stepping out from amongst the lights of Twelfth-night; but he turned his head resolutely away, and has since looked as little in that direction as he could. But there is no evading it now! There it stands, right in his way, plain and distinct and portentous! the gloomy portal of this merry season, on whose face is inscribed, in characters which there is no mystifying, its own appropriate and unbeloved name,—Black Monday!
And, behold! at the gloomy gate a hackney coach! (more like a mourning coach!)—Black Monday, visible in all its appointments, and black Friday, looking blacker than ever, this black Monday, frowning from its foot-board!
And lo! through its windows, just caught in the distance, the last flutter of the coat-tails of old Father Christmas!—