The Greatest Christmas Tales & Poems in One Volume (Illustrated). О. Генри

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Chapter IV.

       Elder Brewster's Christmas Sermon

       Table of Contents

      Sunday morning found the little company gathered once more on the ship, with nothing to do but rest and remember their homes, temporal and spiritual--homes backward, in old England, and forward, in Heaven. They were, every man and woman of them, English to the back-bone. From Captain Jones who commanded the ship to Elder Brewster who ruled and guided in spiritual affairs, all alike were of that stock and breeding which made the Englishman of the days of Bacon and Shakespeare, and in those days Christmas was knit into the heart of every one of them by a thousand threads, which no after years could untie.

      Christmas carols had been sung to them by nurses and mothers and grandmothers; the Christmas holly spoke to them from every berry and prickly leaf, full of dearest household memories. Some of them had been men of substance among the English gentry, and in their prosperous days had held high festival in ancestral halls in the season of good cheer. Elder Brewster himself had been a rising young diplomat in the court of Elizabeth, in the days when the Lord Keeper of the Seals led the revels of Christmas as Lord of Misrule.

      So that, though this Sunday morning arose gray and lowering, with snow- flakes hovering through the air, there was Christmas in the thoughts of every man and woman among them--albeit it was the Christmas of wanderers and exiles in a wilderness looking back to bright home-fires across stormy waters.

      The men had come back from their work on shore with branches of green pine and holly, and the women had, stuck them about the ship, not without tearful thoughts of old home-places, where their childhood fathers and mothers did the same.

      Bits and snatches of Christmas carols were floating all around the ship, like land-birds blown far out to sea. In the forecastle Master Coppin was singing:

      "Come, bring with a noise,

       My merry boys,

       The Christmas log to the firing;

       While my good dame, she

       Bids ye all be free,

       And drink to your hearts' desiring.

       Drink now the strong beer,

       Cut the white loaf here.

       The while the meat is shredding

       For the rare minced pie,

       And the plums stand by

       To fill the paste that's a-kneading."

      "Ah, well-a-day, Master Jones, it is dull cheer to sing Christmas songs here in the woods, with only the owls and the bears for choristers. I wish I could hear the bells of merry England once more."

      And down in the cabin Rose Standish was hushing little Peregrine, the first American-born baby, with a Christmas lullaby:

      "This winter's night

       I saw a sight--

       A star as bright as day;

       And ever among

       A maiden sung,

       Lullay, by-by, lullay!

       "This lovely laydie sat and sung,

       And to her child she said,

       My son, my brother, and my father dear,

       Why lyest thou thus in hayd?

       My sweet bird,

       Tho' it betide

       Thou be not king veray;

       But nevertheless

       I will not cease

       To sing, by-by, lullay!

       "The child then spake in his talking,

       And to his mother he said,

       It happeneth, mother, I am a king,

       In crib though I be laid,

       For angels bright

       Did down alight,

       Thou knowest it is no nay;

       And of that sight

       Thou may'st be light

       To sing, by-by, lullay!

       "Now, sweet son, since thou art a king,

       Why art thou laid in stall?

       Why not ordain thy bedding

       In some great king his hall?

       We thinketh 'tis right

       That king or knight

       Should be in good array;

       And them among,

       It were no wrong

       To sing, by-by, lullay!

       "Mary, mother, I am thy child,

       Tho' I be laid in stall;

       Lords and dukes shall worship me,

       And so shall kinges all.

       And ye shall see

       That kinges three

       Shall come on the twelfth day;

       For this behest

       Give me thy breast,

       And sing, by-by, lullay!"

      "See here," quoth Miles Standish, "when my Rose singeth, the children gather round her like bees round a flower. Come, let us all strike up a goodly carol together. Sing one, sing all, girls and boys, and get a bit of Old England's Christmas before to-morrow, when we must to our work on shore."

      Thereat Rose struck up a familiar ballad-meter of a catching rhythm, and every voice of young and old was soon joining in it:

"Behold a silly,¹ tender Babe, In freezing winter night, In homely manger trembling lies; Alas! a piteous sight, The inns are full, no man will yield This little Pilgrim bed; But forced He is, with silly beasts In crib to shroud His head. Despise Him not for lying there, First what He is inquire: An orient pearl is often found In depth of dirty mire. "Weigh not His crib, His wooden dish, Nor beasts that by Him feed; Weigh not His mother's poor attire, Nor Joseph's simple weed. This stable is a Prince's court, The crib His chair of state, The beasts are parcel of His pomp, The wooden dish His plate. The persons in that poor attire His royal liveries wear; The Prince Himself is come from Heaven, This pomp is prized there. With joy approach, O Christian wight, Do homage to thy King; And highly praise His humble pomp, СКАЧАТЬ