I take the liberty of saying that in our little hamlet there is peace and goodwill ’twixt rich and poor at Christmas-time.

     “Now is the ancient feud forgot,
      The growing grudge is laid aside.”

Our humble rejoicings during this last Christmas were very similar to those of a hundred years ago.  They included a grand smoking concert at the club, during which the mummers gave an admirable performance of their old play, of which more anon; then a big feed for every man, woman, and child of the hamlet (about a hundred souls) was held in the manor house; added to which we received visits from carol singers and musicians of all kinds to the number of seventy-two, reckoning up the total aggregate of the different bands, all of whom were welcomed, for Christmas comes but once a year, after all, and “the more the merrier” should be our motto at this time.  So from villages three and four miles away came bands of children to sing the old, old songs.  The brass band, including old grey-haired men who fifty years ago with strings and wood-wind led the psalmody at Chedworth Church, come too, and play inside the hall.  We do not brew at home nowadays.  Even such old-fashioned Conservatives as old Mr. Peregrine, senior, have at length given up the custom, so we cannot, like Sir Roger, allow a greater quantity of malt to our small beer at Christmas; but we take good care to order in some four or five eighteen-gallon casks at this time.  Let it be added that we never saw any man the worse for drink in consequence of this apparent indiscretion.  But then, we have a butler of the old school.

When we held our Yuletide revels in the manor house, and the old walls rang with the laughter and merriment of the whole hamlet (for farmers as well as labourers honoured us), it occurred to me that the bigotphones, which had been lying by in a cupboard for about a twelvemonth, might amuse the company.  Bigotphones, I must explain to those readers who are uninitiated, are delightfully simple contrivances fitted with reed mouthpieces—­exact representations in mockery of the various instruments that make up a brass band—­but composed of strong cardboard, and dependent solely on the judicious application of the human lips and the skilful modulation of the human voice for their effect.  These being produced, an impromptu band was formed:  young Peregrine seized the bassoon, the carter took the clarionet, the shepherd the French horn, the cowman the trombone, and, seated at the piano, I myself conducted the orchestra.  Never before have I been so astonished as I was by the unexpected musical ability displayed.  No matter what tune I struck up, that heterogeneous orchestra played it as if they had been doing nothing else all their lives.  “The British Grenadiers,” “The Eton Boating Song,” “Two Lovely Black Eyes” (solo, young Peregrine on the bassoon), “A Fine Hunting Day,”—­all and sundry were performed in perfect time and without a false note.