The Children's Book of Christmas Stories Part 37

Christmas morning rose bright and glorious. A light h.o.a.rfrost whitened the ground and the keen December air nipped the noses as it hurried the song-notes of the score of little waifs who, gathered beneath the windows of the big palace, sung for the happy awaking of the young Prince Charles their Christmas carol and their Christmas noel:

A child this day is born, A child of great renown; Most worthy of a sceptre.

A sceptre and a crown.

_Noel, noel, noel, Noel, sing we may Because the King of all Kings Was born this blessed day._

These tidings shepherds heard in field watching their fold, Were by an angel unto them At night revealed and told.

_Noel, noel, noel, Noel sing we may Because the King of all Kings Was born this blessed day._

He brought unto them tidings Of gladness and of mirth, Which cometh to all people by This holy infant's birth.

_Noel noel, noel, Noel sing we may Because the King of all Kings Was born this blessed day._

The "blessed day" wore on. Gifts and sports filled the happy hours. In the royal banqueting hall the Christmas dinner was royally set and served, and King and Queen and Princes, with attendant n.o.bles and holiday guests, partook of the strong dishes of those old days of hearty appet.i.tes.

"A shield of brawn with mustard, boyl'd capon, a chine of beef roasted, a neat's tongue roasted, a pig roasted, chewets baked, goose, swan and turkey roasted, a haunch of venison roasted, a pasty of venison, a kid stuffed with pudding, an olive-pye, capons and dowsets, sallats and fricases"--all these and much more, with strong beer and spiced ale to wash the dinner down, crowned the royal board, while the great boar's head and the Christmas pie, borne in with great parade, were placed on the table joyously decked with holly and rosemary and bay. It was a great ceremony--this bringing in of the boar's head. First came an attendant, so the old record tells us,

"attyr'd in a horseman's coat with a Boares-speare in his hande; next to him another huntsman in greene, with a b.l.o.o.d.y faulchion drawne; next to him two pages in tafatye sarcenet, each of them with a messe of mustard; next to whom came hee that carried the Boares-head, crosst with a greene silk scarfe, by which hunge the empty scabbard of the faulchion which was carried before him."

After the dinner--the boar's head having been wrestled for by some of the royal yeomen--came the wa.s.sail or health-drinking. Then the King said:

"And now, Baby Charles, let us hear the boon ye were to crave of us at wa.s.sail as the guerdon for the holder of the lucky raisin in Master Sandy's snapdragon."

And the little eleven-year-old Prince stood up before the company in all his brave attire, glanced at his brother Prince Henry, and then facing the King said boldly:

"I pray you, my father and my liege, grant me as the boon I ask--the freeing of Walter Raleigh."

At this altogether startling and unlooked-for request, amazement and consternation appeared on the faces around the royal banqueting board, and the King put down his untasted tankard of spiced ale, while surprise, doubt and anger quickly crossed the royal face. For Sir Walter Raleigh, the favourite of Queen Elizabeth, the lord-proprietor and colonizer of the American colonies, and the sworn foe to Spain, had been now close prisoner in the Tower for more than nine years, hated and yet dreaded by this fickle King James, who dared not put him to death for fear of the people to whom the name and valour of Raleigh were dear.

"Hoot, chiel!" cried the King at length, spluttering wrathfully in the broadest of his native Scotch, as was his habit when angered or surprised. "Ye reckless fou, wha hae put ye to sic a jackanape trick?

Dinna ye ken that sic a boon is nae for a laddie like you to meddle wi'?

Wha hae put ye to't, I say?"

But ere the young Prince could reply, the stately and solemn-faced amba.s.sador of Spain, the Count of Gondemar, arose in the place of honour he filled as a guest of the King.

"My Lord King," he said, "I beg your majesty to bear in memory your pledge to my gracious master King Philip of Spain, that naught save grave cause should lead you to liberate from just durance that arch enemy of Spain, the Lord Raleigh."

"But you did promise me, my lord," said Prince Charles, hastily, "and you have told me that the royal pledge is not to be lightly broken."

"Ma certie, lad," said King James, "ye maunay learn that there is nae rule wi'out its aicciptions." And then he added, "A pledge to a boy in play, like to ours of yester-eve, Baby Charles, is not to be kept when matters of state conflict." Then turning to the Spanish amba.s.sador, he said: "Rest content, my lord count. This recreant Raleigh shall not yet be loosed."

"But, my liege," still persisted the boy prince, "my brother Hal did say----"

The wrath of the King burst out afresh.

"Ay, said you so? Brother Hal, indeed!" he cried. "I thought the wind blew from that quarter," and he angrily faced his eldest son. "So, sirrah; 'twas you that did urge this foolish boy to work your traitorous purpose in such coward guise!"

"My liege," said Prince Henry, rising in his place, "traitor and coward are words I may not calmly hear even from my father and my king. You wrong me foully when you use them thus. For though I do bethink me that the Tower is but a sorry cage in which to keep so grandly plumed a bird as my Lord of Raleigh, I did but seek----"

"Ay, you did but seek to curry favour with the craven crowd," burst out the now thoroughly angry King, always jealous of the popularity of this brave young Prince of Wales. "And am I, sirrah, to be badgered and browbeaten in my own palace by such a thriftless ne'er-do-weel as you, ungrateful boy, who seekest to gain preference with the people in this realm before your liege lord the King? Quit my presence, sirrah, and that instanter, ere that I do send you to spend your Christmas where your great-grandfather, King Henry, bade his astrologer spend his--in the Tower, there to keep company with your fitting comrade, Raleigh, the traitor!"

Without a word in reply to this outburst, with a son's submission, but with a royal dignity, Prince Henry bent his head before his father's decree and withdrew from the table, followed by the gentlemen of his household. But ere he could reach the arrased doorway, Prince Charles sprang to his side and cried, valiantly: "Nay then, if he goes so do I!

'Twas surely but a Christmas joke and of my own devising. Spoil not our revel, my gracious liege and father, on this of all the year's red-letter days, by turning my thoughtless frolic into such bitter threatening. I did but seek to test the worth of Master Sandy's lucky raisin by asking for as wildly great a boon as might be thought upon.

Brother Hal too, did but give me his advising in joke even as I did seek it. None here, my royal father, would brave your sovereign displeasure by any unknightly or unloyal scheme."

The gentle and dignified words of the young prince--for Charles Stuart, though despicable as a king, was ever loving and loyal as a friend--were as oil upon the troubled waters. The ruffled temper of the amba.s.sador of Spain--who in after years really did work Raleigh's downfall and death--gave place to courtly bows, and the King's quick anger melted away before the dearly loved voice of his favourite son.

"Nay, resume your place, son Hal," he said, "and you, gentlemen all, resume your seats, I pray. I too did but jest as did Baby Charles here--a sad young wag, I fear me, is this same young Prince."

But as, after the wa.s.sail, came the Christmas mask, in which both Princes bore their parts, Prince Charles said to Archie Armstrong, the King's jester:

"Faith, good Archie; now is Master Sandy's snapdragon but a false beast withal, and his lucky raisin is but an evil fruit that pays not for the plucking."

And wise old Archie only wagged his head and answered, "Odd zooks, Cousin Charlie, Christmas raisins are not the only fruit that burns the fingers in the plucking, and mayhap you too may live to know that a mettlesome horse never stumbleth but when he is reined."

Poor "Cousin Charlie" did not then understand the full meaning of the wise old jester's words, but he did live to learn their full intent. For when, in after years, his people sought to curb his tyrannies with a revolt that ended only with his death upon the scaffold, outside this very banqueting house at Whitehall, Charles Stuart learned all too late that a "mettlesome horse" needed sometimes to be "reined," and heard, too late as well, the stern declaration of the Commons of England that "no chief officer might presume for the future to contrive the enslaving and destruction of the nation with impunity."

But though many a merry and many a happy day had the young Prince Charles before the dark tragedy of his sad and sorry manhood, he lost all faith in lucky raisins. Not for three years did Sir Walter Raleigh--whom both the Princes secretly admired--obtain release from the Tower, and ere three more years were past his head fell as a forfeit to the stern demands of Spain. And Prince Charles often declared that naught indeed could come from meddling with luck saving burnt fingers, "even," he said, "as came to me that profitless night when I sought a boon for s.n.a.t.c.hing the lucky raisin from good Master Sandy's Christmas snapdragon."

FOOTNOTE:

[V] This story was first published in _Wide Awake_, vol. 26.

x.x.xI

A CHRISTMAS FAIRY[W]

JOHN STRANGE WINTER

IT was getting very near to Christmas time, and all the boys at Miss Ware's school were talking about going home for the holidays.

"I shall go to the Christmas festival," said Bertie Fellows, "and my mother will have a party, and my Aunt will give another. Oh! I shall have a splendid time at home."

"My Uncle Bob is going to give me a pair of skates," remarked Harry Wadham.

"My father is going to give me a bicycle," put in George Alderson.

"Will you bring it back to school with you?" asked Harry.

"Oh! yes, if Miss Ware doesn't say no."

"Well, Tom," cried Bertie, "where are you going to spend your holidays?"