Charles Dickens - The Pickwick Papers

‘This,’ said Mr. Pickwick, looking round him, ‘this is, indeed, comfort.’

‘Our invariable custom,’ replied Mr. Wardle. ‘Everybody sits down with us on Christmas Eve, as you see them now — servants and all; and here we wait, until the clock strikes twelve, to usher Christmas in, and beguile the time with forfeits and old stories. Trundle, my boy, rake up the fire.’

Up flew the bright sparks in myriads as the logs were stirred. The deep red blaze sent forth a rich glow, that penetrated into the farthest corner of the room, and cast its cheerful tint on every face.

‘Come,’ said Wardle, ‘a song — a Christmas song! I’ll give you one, in default of a better.’

‘Bravo!’ said Mr. Pickwick.

‘Fill up,’ cried Wardle. ‘It will be two hours, good, before you see the bottom of the bowl through the deep rich colour of the wassail; fill up all round, and now for the song.’

Thus saying, the merry old gentleman, in a good, round, sturdy voice, commenced without more ado—

This song was tumultuously applauded — for friends and dependents make a capital audience — and the poor relations, especially, were in perfect ecstasies of rapture. Again was the fire replenished, and again went the wassail round.

‘How it snows!’ said one of the men, in a low tone.

‘Snows, does it?’ said Wardle.

‘Rough, cold night, Sir,’ replied the man; ‘and there’s a wind got up, that drifts it across the fields, in a thick white cloud.’

‘What does Jem say?’ inquired the old lady. ‘There ain’t anything the matter, is there?’

‘No, no, mother,’ replied Wardle; ‘he says there’s a snowdrift, and a wind that’s piercing cold. I should know that, by the way it rumbles in the chimney.’

‘Ah!’ said the old lady, ‘there was just such a wind, and just such a fall of snow, a good many years back, I recollect — just five years before your poor father died. It was a Christmas Eve, too; and I remember that on that very night he told us the story about the goblins that carried away old Gabriel Grub.’

‘The story about what?’ said Mr. Pickwick.

‘Oh, nothing, nothing,’ replied Wardle. ‘About an old sexton, that the good people down here suppose to have been carried away by goblins.’

‘Suppose!’ ejaculated the old lady. ‘Is there anybody hardy enough to disbelieve it? Suppose! Haven’t you heard ever since you were a child, that he was carried away by the goblins, and don’t you know he was?’

‘Very well, mother, he was, if you like,’ said Wardle laughing. ‘He was carried away by goblins, Pickwick; and there’s an end of the matter.’

‘No, no,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘not an end of it, I assure you; for I must hear how, and why, and all about it.’

Wardle smiled, as every head was bent forward to hear, and filling out the wassail with no stinted hand, nodded a health to Mr. Pickwick, and began as follows—

But bless our editorial heart, what a long chapter we have been betrayed into! We had quite forgotten all such petty restrictions as chapters, we solemnly declare. So here goes, to give the goblin a fair start in a new one. A clear stage and no favour for the goblins, ladies and gentlemen, if you please.

In an old abbey town, down in this part of the country, a long, long while ago — so long, that the story must be a true one, because our great–grandfathers implicitly believed it — there officiated as sexton and grave–digger in the churchyard, one Gabriel Grub. It by no means follows that because a man is a sexton, and constantly surrounded by the emblems of mortality, therefore he should be a morose and melancholy man; your undertakers are the merriest fellows in the world; and I once had the honour of being on intimate terms with a mute, who in private life, and off duty, was as comical and jocose a little fellow as ever chirped out a devil–may–care song, without a hitch in his memory, or drained off a good stiff glass without stopping for breath. But notwithstanding these precedents to the contrary, Gabriel Grub was an ill–conditioned, cross–grained, surly fellow — a morose and lonely man, who consorted with nobody but himself, and an old wicker bottle which fitted into his large deep waistcoat pocket — and who eyed each merry face, as it passed him by, with such a deep scowl of malice and ill–humour, as it was difficult to meet without feeling something the worse for.

‘A little before twilight, one Christmas Eve, Gabriel shouldered his spade, lighted his lantern, and betook himself towards the old churchyard; for he had got a grave to finish by next morning, and, feeling very low, he thought it might raise his spirits, perhaps, if he went on with his work at once. As he went his way, up the ancient street, he saw the cheerful light of the blazing fires gleam through the old casements, and heard the loud laugh and the cheerful shouts of those who were assembled around them; he marked the bustling preparations for next day’s cheer, and smelled the numerous savoury odours consequent thereupon, as they steamed up from the kitchen windows in clouds. All this was gall and wormwood to the heart of Gabriel Grub; and when groups of children bounded out of the houses, tripped across the road, and were met, before they could knock at the opposite door, by half a dozen curly–headed little rascals who crowded round them as they flocked upstairs to spend the evening in their Christmas games, Gabriel smiled grimly, and clutched the handle of his spade with a firmer grasp, as he thought of measles, scarlet fever, thrush, whooping–cough, and a good many other sources of consolation besides.