And my pockets full too! huzza!”
This done, they return to the house, the doors of which they are sure to find bolted by the women. Be the weather what it may, these are inexorable to all entreaties to open them, till some one has named what is on the spit—which is generally some nice little thing, difficult to be guessed. This is the reward of him who first names it. The doors are then thrown open, and the fortunate guesser receives the tit-bit. Some are so superstitious as to believe that if they neglect this custom, the trees will bear no apples the coming year.
Another custom among these people, is to go after supper into the orchard, with a milk-pan full of cider, which has roasted apples pressed into it. Out of this each person in the company takes an earthen cup full, and standing under each of the more fruitful apple-trees, he addresses it thus:—
“Health to thee, good apple-tree,
Well to bear pockets full, hats full,
Pecks full, bushel bags full,”—
and then, drinking up part of the contents, he throws the rest, with the fragments of the roasted apples, at the tree. At each cup the company set up a shout.
Parley pinned to the woman.
On twelfth-day, in London, from morning till night, every pastry-cook in the city is busy, dressing out his windows with cakes of every size and description. These are ornamented with figures of castles, kings, trees, churches, milk-maids, and a countless variety of figures of snow-white confectionary, painted with brilliant colors. At evening the windows are brilliantly illuminated with rows of lamps and wax candles inside; while the outside is crowded with admiring spectators. Among these, are numbers of boys, who take great delight in pinning people together by their coat-tails, and nailing them to the window frames. Sometimes eight or ten persons find themselves united together in this way; and such is the dexterity of the trick, that a piece of the garment is always sacrificed in the struggle for freedom.