rushed out from the stable yard toward the front of the house.

"What's the matter?" asked Max of a stable boy, whom he seized by the
shoulders and stopped in the act of uttering a wild whoop.

"It's the log, sir," replied the lad, sobered by the sudden appearance
of the young master, who seemed in no hilarious mood.

"The log! What log?"

"Master has ordered one for Christmas, sir, the biggest as could be
got," answered the boy, who then escaped, to rush back and join the
shouting throng.

And Max remembered that his father, in his passionate determination to
have a real old English Christmas, with everything done in the proper
manner, had given this order to the head gardener a few days before.

By this time the group had become a crowd. A swarm of men and boys,
conspicuous among whom were all the idlers and vagabonds of the
neighborhood, came along through the yard in one great, overwhelming
wave, hooting, yelling, trampling down the flower-beds with, their
winter covering of cocoanut fiber, breaking down the shrubs, tearing
away the ivy, and spreading devastation as they went.

Poor Mr. Wedmore had instructed his servants not to prevent the
villagers from joining in the procession. There was something
reminiscent of feudal times, a pleasant suggestion of the cordial
relation between the lord of the manor of the Middle Ages and his
tenants and dependents, in this procession of the Yule log up to the