At the command of our excellent host the tables were cleared away, and the butler brought in a splendid old china bowl of steaming punch, decorated with holly and flowers, and then all the servants trooped into the room and were made welcome as part of a united family. On this day of the year they were no mere masters and mistresses and servants and dependants, but friends heart and soul.
But before the punch was handed round, there was to be an old-fashioned country dance. Old Barkston, to her great delight, led out Mrs. Cheevers, who was great at her steps as her grandmother, so she said, had been before her.
The hand of Nan was claimed both by old Cheevers and the venerable butler, but she decided that age should decide the matter, promising an extra turn to the rejected old gentleman.
Nick had to dance with all the girls in the household, who enjoyed the joke keenly, particularly when he set the example of kissing his partners under the mistletoe—an example that the young men were very slow and shy to follow.
“And pray that the parting may not be eternal.” (Page [264])
And then, when the dancing and romping were over, came the punch bowl, with glasses all round and healths and tears and good wishes. Then it was that old Cheevers delivered himself, in reply to the universal toast, “God bless us all,” of the words that still ring in my ears, now that the doors of that happy home are closed behind me, and I walk dreaming of the past towards my solitary home.
“Well, this ’ere is wery wonderful, wery wonderful, my dear! Just to think of our little Nick and Nan, and me and you a standing ’ere and drinking of their ’earty good ’ealth, and the ’ealth of them dear little ones, and a wishing of ’em a Merry Christmas!”
Good, honest souls, they had been present at the two most eventful moments of the lives of Nick and Nan.
And for me, on this never-to-be-forgotten Christmas Eve, there will be but one ceremony more, a faithful and pious pilgrimage, that I have never forgotten since the dead and the living were united on that wind-swept hill within sound of the sea.