Founder of the time had never raised his benignant hand, save to bless
and heal, except in the case of one unconscious tree. By Cobham Hall, I
came to the village, and the churchyard where the dead had been quietly
buried, "in the sure and certain hope" which Christmas time inspired.
What children could I see at play, and not be loving of, recalling who
had loved them! No garden that I passed was out of unison with the day,
for I remembered that the tomb was in a garden, and that "she, supposing
him to be the gardener," had said, "Sir, if thou have borne him hence,
tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away." In time,
the distant river with the ships came full in view, and with it pictures
of the poor fishermen, mending their nets, who arose and followed him,--of
the teaching of the people from a ship pushed off a little way from
shore, by reason of the multitude,--of a majestic figure walking on the
water, in the loneliness of night. My very shadow on the ground was
eloquent of Christmas; for did not the people lay their sick where the
more shadows of the men who had heard and seen him might fall as they
passed along?

Thus Christmas begirt me, far and near, until I had come to Blackheath,
and had walked down the long vista of gnarled old trees in Greenwich
Park, and was being steam-rattled through the mists now closing in once
more, towards the lights of London. Brightly they shone, but not so
brightly as my own fire, and the brighter faces around it, when we came
together to celebrate the day. And there I told of worthy Master Richard
Watts, and of my supper with the Six Poor Travellers who were neither
Rogues nor Proctors, and from that hour to this I have never seen one of
them again.