Speaker 1: A Christmas reverie by Aliph Chim. To morrow, elas I
am booked to go and dine with our Colonel and
missus coe O. I hate to depart from my usual way,
and to morrow, by Jove will be Christmas Day. One
feels now one hasn't a regular mess. It's a boar
to go out, and a nuisance to dress and to
feed at the Commandant's bungalow. Is a dreary attempt at Christmas,
you know, the punker instead of the Christmas fire, the
colonel instead of the dear old Squire, the lizard and
withering noonday glow instead of the robin, and frost and snow.
I know, after all that my lot isn't bad, But
somehow or other it makes me sad at a season
like this, when the thoughts will roam to think what
they're doing just now at home? I fancy I see them,
the Squire and all in the breakfast room in the
dear old hall. There's snow on the drive and the
grove of birch, and they're ringing the chimes in the
village church. Yes yonder, he sits in his wonted place
with a smile on his fresh, benignant face. And the
mother she's there at the other end. And Harry and
Jack and Jane and a friend. I wonder whether they're
altered much. The dad's crisp hair had a silvery touch
when I said good bye, and he bore up so
and that why it's nearly ten years ago. The mother too,
She was tall and erect, but she's stooping a little now,
I expect. And her hair, in its rich and glossy bands,
has been fingered, perhaps by time's rough hands, but it
cannot alter her look so kind it robs, but it
leaves the heart behind. And I see her beam happily
round in the way that she always beamed upon Christmas Day.
There's Harry, who taught me fine esque pards. He's got
his majority now in the guards, and they say that
he's leading a steady life and thinking of looking about
for a wife. There's Jack, why I left him a
rollicking lad, and now he's a mate on an ironclad
And Jane, a mere baby in frock and curl. If
her photograph's true, is a beautiful girl. They're sitting all
round the family spread. There's a pasty of game and
a big boar's head. There's holly on window and picture frame,
and the fire burn up with a crackling flame. Then
the quiet old rector looks in on his way and
bids them a blithesome Christmas Day, and together they walk
through the grove of birch over the stile to the
village church. At the graveyard gate, the churchwardens stand with
a merry Christmas and hat in hand. The grocer, the
smithy and farmer ball, and the squire has a kindly
word for all. Then when the shadows of night descend,
the hall is lighted from end to end. There's a
bonfire huge on the lawn outside and within. The mother
is in her pride, for she loves this night the
best of the year, and loads her board with the
Christmas cheer, the mincemeat pies and the loin of beef,
and the grand plum pudding with holly leaf. There's happiness
too in the old Squire's face as he rises and
says the Christmas Grace. He chuckles and laughs and cracks
his joke, and the party's a party of merry folk.
Then he fills a bumper up to the brim. He
toasts them all and they all toast him a Merry
Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone who is near
and dear. But I fancy the mother's eyes are wet
when the old man says there is one toast yet
him absent, the youngster who's far away. God give him
a merry Christmas day. Ah me. I know that my
lot's not bad, but the reverie somehow makes me sad.
And this is a time when the thoughts will roam
wherever we are to the scenes of home. End of
a Christmas revere by by Aliph Cheam, a pseudonym of
Walter Yeldham,