When we were boys there was no part of the Christmas festivities to which we looked forward more eagerly than the singing of carols from house to house on Christmas Eve.  If the night fell wild and rainy, we had to abandon our tuneful journey and content ourselves with singing indoors.  But if it was a dry night, we set forth joyfully, even though a disquieted moon and inattentive stars foretold a wet Christmas.  Our hearts were lighter than men’s hearts can be, as we clattered down the lanes, fortified by a hot supper and possibly a scalding tumblerful of mulled claret.  We would always start at the houses of friends, and then, made bold by success, we would sing our glad tidings to any house which had a lit window.  For the credit of human nature it may be said that we were made welcome p. 71wherever we went.  Sometimes people offered us money, which our code forbade us to accept, though we should have liked it well enough; more frequently we were asked to come in and have something to eat or drink, offers with which even the infinite capacity of youth could by no means cope.  If the night was frosty it was pleasant to toast ourselves for a minute or two in front of the fire before going out again into a world of frozen ruts, sparkling hedgerows, and mysterious shadows, wherein we felt ourselves veritable figures of romance.

And, indeed, we ourselves sang better than we knew.  However cheerfully and noisily we might undertake the expedition, it was not long before we became aware that other spirits were abroad.  The simple words and merry tunes which we sang suddenly became wonderfully significant.  Between the verses we heard the sheep calling on far hills while the shepherd kings rode down to Bethlehem with their gifts.  The trees and fields and houses took up the chant, and our noises were blended with that deep song of the Universe which the new ears of the young p. 72hear so often and so clearly.  When our carol was over there would fall a great silence that seemed to our quickened senses to be but a gentler and sweeter music of hope and joy.  As we passed from one house to the next we spoke to each other in whispers for fear we should break the spell that held the night enchanted.  Even as we heard other noises when we sang, so now we heard the sound of other feet that trod the same glad road as our own.  From being a half-dozen of little boys come out to have some fun on Christmas eve, we had become a small section of a great army.  Tramp, tramp, the joyful feet fell before and behind us along the road, and when we stopped to sing, the whole night thrilled into a triumphant ecstasy of song.  On such nights the very earth, it seemed, sang carols.

It is, perhaps, our vivid recollection of the glories of those memorable Christmas Eves that leads us to be gentle with the little boys and girls who sing at our door to-night.  We have all listened to the eloquent persons who can prove that Christmas is not what it used to be.  They point to the decadence p. 73of pantomime, the decay of the waits and mummers, and the democratic impudence of those who demand Christmas-boxes.  Well, it may be—but children do like modern pantomimes in spite of the generalisations of critics; and though a Salvation Army band is an unpicturesque substitute for such a village orchestra as is described in “Under the Greenwood Tree,” it at least satisfies the ear o............