‘What has happened to change the place so?’ he asked. ‘Everybody you meet looks as if bound for a wedding. You are all humming carol tunes wherever you go. I haven’t seen a dirty-faced child for a week. And how the people joke and laugh with each other! It can’t be all because Christmas—’
‘Yes, it is,’ said I, ‘it is all because one old man we love insists on having it so, year by year. He has been into every home in the village, great and small, and fired each man, woman, and child with his own rejoicing spirit. If you stop for the next ten days, you will see things change more thoroughly still. Wait till you see them bringing the Christmas-tree up the hill for the children’s treat! And the committee going round on Boxing-Day to award the prizes for the home decorations! And if you have never heard real old-fashioned carols, nor listened to a real Christmas sermon preached by a holy angel in a white beard—’
He took up his basket hurriedly.
‘If—if I must go,’ he said, as we trudged on towards the quarry where the caravan had made its pitch, ‘I shall think of you all wherever I— It seems rather selfish to press him, don’t you think? But perhaps— Oh! here we are! Do come in and talk to Spelthorne for a bit, will you? He sees so little company, and—’
‘Is that you at last, Grewes? My good fellow, what an unconscionable time to take in procuring no more than one pennyworth of pepper and just a pound of gravy beef! To say that I am excessively annoyed is wholly to understate my— Of course all my carefully-thought-out plans for the meal are entirely upset!’
I drew back into the darkness.
‘No, not to-night. There are times when you cannot stand—I mean, when a call is not convenient, and— Why on earth don’t you tell the selfish old brute to go to smithereens?’
III
This has been a week of undeniably hard work for us all, and one, at least, is by no means sorry that to-morrow is Christmas Eve.
Most of the time I seem to have spent on the top of a rickety step-ladder in the school-room, having tin-tacks and boughs of holly and gaily-coloured flags passed up to me by Mr. Weaverly and the mutually distrustful Miss Sweet and Miss Matilda Coles. Tom Clemmer, helped by half a dozen others, brought the great tree up from Windle Woods, and it stands now in its tub of spangled cotton-wool, a gorgeous sight, every branch weighed down with toy-shop treasures, the queen-doll at its apex brandishing her gilt-starred sceptre high up among the oaken beams of the ceiling. Every available chair or bench in the village has been confiscated, and ranged round the room. The tables at the far end fairly creak and groan under their burden of infantile good cheer. It is all ready for to-morrow. We put in the finishing touches with the last gleam of daylight this evening, Weaverly and I alone together. Then he locked the door, speechlessly tired and happy, and faded away—a black but benevolent ghost in goloshes—down the length of the darkening street.