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Speaker 1: A Christmas Pudding by Charles Knight. Mister Oldnow had been

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romping with his children on Christmas Eve. At last they

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had gone to bed with flushed faces and disordered curls,

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and the drawing room was deserted. Missus oldnow a careful matron,

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looked thoughtful as she saw that the pride of the

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sponge cake was utterly fallen, and that unquestionably another must

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be procured for the next day's festival. Mister Oldnow, on

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hospitable thoughts, intent half soliloquising, said, my dear, we must

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have a second pudding to morrow. Indeed, how is it

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to be made? Replied the lady. How made? Why? Of course,

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with plums and flour and plenty of brandy. Oh you

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are a precious cook, said missus Oldnow you think a

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Christmas pudding can be made as easily as a pancake?

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Do you why? Our pudding is made already? Come into

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the kitchen. The cook is gone to bed, and I

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will show it you. The kitchen mantle was radiant with

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the brightness of brass candlesticks that were never used but

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were duly cleaned. Pewter water plates also for ornament, gleamed

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over the dresser, an ancient clock, something too big for

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the corner in which he stood, stretched up from the

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floor to the ceiling, with the crown of his respectable

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old head pressed against its whitewashed surface, and his vigorous

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pendulum passing and repassing behind its own peculiar little window

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like a sentry always on guard. A walnut tree bureau

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was still smart in another and larger recess, under the

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polishing of half a century. Mister old Nose sighed as

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he recollected that in his father's time he had often

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taken his frugal meals in that kitchen, and when the

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family home had acknowledged him as master for twenty years,

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the refinement of our days had banished him from a

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room where his father used to sit in patriarchal dignity.

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There was the identical armchair, the fine, old high backed chair, which,

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to his boyish imagination, was a king's throne. Missus Oldna

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took out her family receipt book from the polished bureau

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and then read aloud for her husband's edification. A pound

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Christmas pudding, one pound raisins, one pound currants, one pound suet,

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one pound bread crumbs, quarter pound orange peel, two antces

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citron peel, two antces lemon peel, one nutmeg, one teaspoonful

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powdered ginger, one teaspoonful powdered cinnamon, one wineglassful brandy, seven eggs,

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one teaspoonful salt, quarter pound raw sugar milk enough to

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liquefy the mass. If the eggs and brandy be not

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sufficient for this purpose, and why, my love, can't we

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have two pound Christmas puddings or four half pound puddings,

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said mister Oldno, I want the porters to have a pudding,

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And old Nurse Franklin and the corderies fruit is cheap,

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And why not, my dear old No, they always do

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have a pudding, every one of them. Look here, missus

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oldnow then lifted a cloth off a vast earthen pan,

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and behold a rich, semi liquefied mass, speckled throughout with

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plums and currants, presented itself to her husband's view. He

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was content. He learned that at the peep of dawn,

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the copper fire would be lighted, and the fruity treasure

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would be divided into several portions, the mightiest of which

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would be for the home table, and the others for

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the porters, and the Franklins and the corderies. My love,

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said the contented mister Oldknow, As I am in the

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old kitchen for the first time these dozen years, I

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think our light a cigar, for there is a fire

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I see in this new fashioned cooking range. And rest

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for a quarter of an hour after all the pulking

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and blind man's buff we have had. And so missus

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Oldknow went to bed. Now. Mister Oldknow was a great

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reader of travels, ancient and modern, a kind of social antiquarian. Also,

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he read the travelers, partly for commercial information and general

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views of life, and partly with an imaginative taste for

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unfamiliar scenes. The moving panoramas, the Niles and Mississippis and

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overland roots had given a new intensity to these studies.

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The vast pudding dish was before him, and he mused

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and mused over the mercantile history of the various substances

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of which that pudding was composed. The light wreath of

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the cigar crept round the old kitchen, forming fantastic shapes

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before it melted in the dim distance. More and more

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obscure became the well remembered room, As old nose sent

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forth feebler and feebler puffs from the weed, its dying

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fragrance mingled with thoughts of nutmeg and cinnamon, and became

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severe odors from the spicy shore of Araby. The blessed

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The walls of the kitchen then gradually expanded. The bright

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pewter plates became mirrors in which landscapes of every climb

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were reflected at length. All the other mirrors were absorbed

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by one central mirror of vast proportions, upon whose vivid

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pictures the contemplative mister oldno long gazed with a blissful serenity.

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And first the shores of Malaga floated before his vision.

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Groves of orange trees clustered around secluded convents. The sugar

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cane and the cotton plant covered the plains. Vineyards creeping

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up the bright mountain slopes basked in the autumnal sun,

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and their ponderous fruitage grew browner and browner, as the

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white or red skin of the delicious muscat shriveled in

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the noontide heat. Ruins of Moorish towers and mosques were

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studied amidst whitewashed houses, and the brilliant columns of the

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Alhambra glittered as in mockery amidst its fallen roofs. By

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the side of the tributaries of the guadal Quivere, the Carmenes,

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the vineyard gardens of the Arabs formed in chanting walks,

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and as are traveler heard the night breeze, laden with

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a thousand perfumes, whispering amidst the orange groves. An articulate

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sound gradually dropped upon his ear, and he saw the

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genius of the raisin, with the fresh vine wreaths of

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a Greek pecante on the head, and the cashmere shawl

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of an Arabian sultana round the waste sun of a

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vine less land, said the form, Behold, how I labor

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for THEE. I gather the sunbeams in my hand, and

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range over the salt wave of the Mediterranean to scatter

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ripeness wherever the vineyards bow beneath the pulpy clusters which

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are too rich for the wine press. Your ships throng

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my Andalusian ports of Malagar and Valencia, ranging onward to

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the eastern Chisme, and they bear to your cold and

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cloudy land, the richest gifts of our sunny south. Why

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come ye every year more and more with your linens

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and your woolens, your glass and your pottery, to exchange

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with our native fruit. Why strip ye the gardens which

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the faithful planted, of the grapes which ought to be

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reserved for the unfermented wine which the prophet delighted to drink.

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Immortal child of the Arab, replied the son of the

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wineless land. Your nation gave us the best element of

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commerce when you gave us your numerals, your learning, and

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your poetry. Your science, and your industry no longer fructify

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in heaven favored and lucia. The sun which ripens your

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grapes and your oranges makes the people lazy and the

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priests rapacious. We come to your ports with the products

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of our looms and our furnaces, and we induce a

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taste for comfort that will become the habit. When our

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glass and our porcelain shall find its way into your

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peasant's hut, then will your olives be better tended and

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your grapes more carefully dried. Man only worthily labors when

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he labors for exchange. With other labor. Behold that pudding.

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It is our England's annual luxury. It is the emblem

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of our commercial eminence. The artisan of Birmingham and Manchester,

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the seamen of London and Liverpool, whose festive board will

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be made joyous tomorrow with that national dish, has contributed

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by his labor to make the raisins of Malagar and

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the currents of Zante, the oranges of our garve, the

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cinnamon of Ceylon, and the nutmegs of the Maloccas of

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commercial value. And he has thus called them into existence

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as effectually as the labor of the native cultivator, child

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of the Arab civilizer. Be great. Mister Oldno looked for

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an approving answer, But the genius of the raisin had fled.

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The hillsides of Andalusia rapidly change into the great plain

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of Zante. No longer is it the woodies a synthus

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of Homer, but a land of olives and vines. There

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lies the flower of the Levant before our home traveler,

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with its gardens of pomegranates and peaches, and oranges and melons,

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and its fields of vines and currants. The genius of

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the current arose a diminutive figure, winged like the Pegasus

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of Corinth, and having the rows of England en twined

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with the olive leaf amongst his hair. The Genius smiled

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upon the listener. Welcome is your Christmas, said he to

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Zanti and Cephalonia. We have twelve thousand acres of our

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little grapes under culture for your festivities, and your ships

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have this year carried off our fifty million pounds of

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currants for your puddings and your cakes. Welcome, I ye

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with your sugar and your coffee, your rice and your cheese. Welcome,

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I ye with your gold. Our corn crops are gone,

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and without ye the maria would not yield us the

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wheat and the maize which we shall need till the

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next harvest. It is better to grow currants in the

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soil which they delight in, and buy our wheat, than

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plow up our little vines for a bread producing crop.

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We are sure of our bread for our currants, whilst

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England demands plum puddings, as England is sure of her puddings,

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whilst she weaves calico and forges steel. So are happy

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Christmas to you, and good night the same to you,

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and bravo my little free trader, cried mister Oldnow to

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the genius of the current. An English scene, It is

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harvest time all over the wide chalkfields of Kent, wherever

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the eye can stretch. In land, the golden corn is

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bending under the sea breeze, or the sheaves are patiently

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waiting for the coming wagon. On every side, a visible

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plenty smiles upon the traveler. The genius of bread arises.

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He is a stalwart figure in a white smock frock.

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From his straw hat to his laced boots, all is

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tight and trim about him. He is slow of speech,

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but he, ever and anon mutters the word protection. Protection,

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exclaimed mister Oldna, who taught you that song? Do you

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want protection against cheap bread, my friend? Against warm and

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clean clothing, against a sound roof with windows, against a

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coal fire, Against your tea, your sugar, your butter, your cheese,

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your bacon, and your Christmas pudding? What are you thinking

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of anything? Call up the ghost of your grandfather, show

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him your wheat and bread, and ask him to compare

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it with his black loaf of rye. You have small wages,

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it is true, But your wages do not depend upon

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the cheapness of your produce. Your real wages are as

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great as you ever got in the protection days, and

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they go twice as far. You stand up now as

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a man, instead of breaking stones upon the road at

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the bidding of the parish, leave the beer shop, cultivate

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your garden, have a pig in the stye, send your

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children to school, and believe me, you will be better

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off than any other laborer of Europe. Mister Oldno was excited,

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but he was fairly angry when the genius of Suet

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presented himself in the guise of a smithfield drover with

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an over driven ox falling upon his knees in a

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crowded street, as if imploring for rest. Mister old No

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groaned and was wicked enough to wish that the drover's

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dog was scattering the court of Aldermen. The Banda Islands

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now filled the scene. Grouped in the Indian Archipelago, they

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reared their volcanic peaks abruptly from the ocean, their mountain

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sides clothed with timber trees and the sago palms, yielding

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sustenance to the people of the plains. In the covert

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of the forest, trees sat the brilliant birds of paradise

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occasional visitants. But the great feature of the landscape was

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contributed by the nutmeg trees. It is the gathering time

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the Bandonese mingled with their Dutch masters, applucking the peachlike

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fruit from their shelter of green and gray leaves. The

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ripe fruit has split in half as it hangs on

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the tree, and there is the kernel surrounded by the mace.

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But the precious nutmeg has a second protection, its shell.

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The mace is removed, the kernel is dried in the sun.

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The shell splits, and there is the nutmeg of commerce.

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The genius of the nutmeg appeared. He was a fantastic figure,

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half man, half bird, a Dutchman's head on a woodpigeon's body.

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Englishman said he, you have wrestled with me for the

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spice islands, but they are mine. You have taken from

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me the cinnamon groves of Ceylon, they are yours. In

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the sea traditions of your country. You have the flying Dutchman.

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I am he. We of the Zayderzey built up our

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commerce upon restrictions and anapolis. When we drove the Portuguese

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from the archipelago. We rooted up all the clove trees

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but those of Amboyna, and all the nutmeg trees but

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those of Banda. We limited the world to a fixed

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quantity of cloves and nutmegs, as we limited also the

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commerce of cinnamon. Rather than fill the market and lower

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the price, we have thrown our nutmegs into the deep

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and made a bonfire of our cinnamon in the streets

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of Amsterdam. When in the Indian seas, in the dim

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twilight or under the hazy moon, a figure has been

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seen flying along the still waters in which the keel

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left no furrow. I was that navigator. I was pursuing

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the woodpigeon who defied all the rigors of my unsocial

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laws and carried the nutmeg seed to lands which owed

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Holland no tribute. I have given up the contest against nature.

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My spice monopoly was ruin us to myself and injury

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us to my colonists in Ceylon. I saw your English

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diffusing comfort and equal laws, opening roads, encouraging industry, destroying

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forced labor, and selling cinnamon to all the world. I

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have made an alliance with the woodpigeon. I have planted

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the nutmeg in Java, and there will I contest with

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you the commerce of cinnamon. I have learnt that a

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small demand at high prices for any useful commodity is

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neither so safe nor so profitable as a large demand

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at moderate prices. I have learnt further that the end

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of commerce is not to make individuals rich and support

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public expenditure by heavy duties, but to diffuse all the

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productions of nature and art amongst all the inhabitants of

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the globe. You have taught me a lesson. The old

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trade of the United Provinces has died under monopolies and restrictions.

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We may once more be your honest rivals under a

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wiser code. You want two hundred thousand pounds weight of nutmegs, yelly,

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we will deal like merchant princes and good men and

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true ergreed, said mister Oldner. A West Indian sugar plantation

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is now mirrored, with its canes ripening under a tropical sun,

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and its mills with their machinery of cylinders and boilers.

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The genius of sugar is a freed negro. It was

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said that in freedom he would not work. He has

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vindicated his privileges in his industry and his obedience. The

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grand experiment has succeeded in all moral effects. But the

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nation that demanded cheap corn would not be content with

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deer sugar. We must buy our sugar wherever the cane ripens.

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We use seven hundred millions of pounds of sugar annually,

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which yield a duty of four millions sterling. Mister oldno

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thought this, but was silent when he saw the negroes

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sitting under his own figtory. For the political questions which

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his freedom involved were somewhat complicated. He would trust to

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the ultimate power of a noble example, and in the

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meantime rejoice that the great body of the British people

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could buy their sugar at half the price that their

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fathers paid. Mister oldknow being somewhat at fault upon the

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sugar question, grew confused as new forms flitted before him.

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The solitary egg collector of Cork was there, in her

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blue cloak and her kit on her back. Her step

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was brisker than in the famine years, and her light

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gray eye was once more laughing under her long black eyelashes.

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She had walked from cottage to cottage some twenty miles

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and her kish was to form part of the many

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hundred egg crates that England required for her Christmas puddings.

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May the daughters and sons of erin soliloquized mister Oldner,

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never again suffer as they have suffered. May plenty smile

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upon their fields and comfort in their cottages. May they

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have just masters and wise rulers. May they rely upon

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industry and not upon agitation. May they the blue cloak

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was gone. A figure started up, half gnome, half ne reared.

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Mister Oldno was thinking of his evening gambols of yes

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and no, So with half consciousness he asked animal kingdom,

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no vegetable, no mineral Yes in England. Yes. Here continued

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the figure, I am free. I fly through the land,

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scattering blessings as widely as the dews of heaven. I

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bring my treasures out of the bowels of the earth

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and from the depths of the sea. I make the

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fields fruitful. I forbid your food to perish without me.

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The sustenance of man and beast is imperfect. The herds

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of unfathomable forests wander to the plains in search of me.

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The child that loves me not loses the bloom of

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its cheek and the odor of its breath. I am

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the universal friend. And yet kings have impiously dared to

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deny me to their subjects. And though they should perish,

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their crimes have been punished. Even now. The Hindu, whom

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you have benefited in so many things, is deprived of

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me by your fiscal injustice. Learn to be wiser. You

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have freed me from the burdens of your home taxation,

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and your industrial wealth is quadrupled. I am salt, guessed

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mister Oldknow. To salt succeeded a singular figure as the

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Milky Genius. It seemed one half dairy woman, with her

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pale and stool, decently clad in woolen petticoat and black stockings.

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But above was a Naiad of the Thames, with dripping

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locks held loosely together with a wreath of rushes. Mister

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Oldknow was about to harangue when a brisk power loom

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weaver stepped forth with pudding cloth in hand. The water boils,

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said he. The ingredients are mixed, be it mine to

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bind them together? Right, cried mister Oldner again. Our country's emblem,

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the bundle of sticks and the pudding cloth, have each

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the same moral. Our ancestors, in their civil dudgeon made

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plum porridge, we, in our united interests, well bound together,

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produce Christmas pudding. There was a silence and a pause.

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Mister Oldknow peered out. The mirror had lost its brilliancy.

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But suddenly the great pudding bowl expanded into a mighty

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flat dish. The puddings swelled into an enormous globe, black

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with plums and odorous with streaming sauce. A holly tree

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with its prickly leaves at bottom, its smooth leaves on high,

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and its bright red berries grew up under a crystal dough.

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On the edge of the dish were grouped the Andalucian

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with the cashmere shawl, the Ionian islander with the wings

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of Corinth, the Kentish plowman in the smock frock, the

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flying Dutchman, the Negro without the chains, the Irish market woman,

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the Gnome Nereered, the London Naiad, and the weaver with

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the cloth. And they all took hands, and thrice danced

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round the edge of the dish, and lo out of

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the holly tree dropped a mustached denizen of the Palais royal.

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He had a flask of brandy in one hand and

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a huge silver bowl in the other, Oh, nation of

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anti chemical cooks, He cried, you put the cognac into

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the pudding, and nine hours boiling drives off all the

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spirit into unprofitable gas. Look at me, it is the

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genius of our nation to flare up with that. He

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emptied the flask into the bowl and set it on fire,

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and poured it over the pudding. And the makers of

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the pudding again danced round it in the blue flame.

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And the pudding was nothing hurt by the flare up,

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but remained as sound and unscathed as the land itself

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after a month's polemical fire. And then mister Oldknow volunteered

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a song, of which four lines remained in his memory,

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for he had learnt it as a child. When England

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was threatened with invasion. Britain to peaceful arts inclined, where

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commerce opens all her stores in social bands shall lead

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mankind and join the sea divided shores. Mister Oldno opened

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his eyes. The kitchen was in darkness, and his cigar

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smoked out. Bless my heart, said he. The weights are

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playing the wooden walls, and the clock strikes two end

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of a Christmas Pudding by Charles Knight