File:Old Christmas (1916) (14780836824).jpg

Identifier: oldchristmas00irviuoft (find matches)
Title: Old Christmas
Year: 1916 (1910s)
Authors: Irving, Washington, 1783-1859
Subjects: Christmas stories
Publisher: New York : G.P. Putnam
Contributing Library: Scott - York University Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Ontario Council of University Libraries and Member Libraries

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e favourite heroof ghost stories throughout the vicinity. Hispicture, which hung up in the hall, was thoughtby the servants to have something supernaturalabout it; for they remarked that, in whateverpart of the hall you went, the eyes of the warriorwere still fixed on you. The old porters wife,too, at the lodge, who had been born and broughtup in the family, and was a great gossip amongthe maid servants, affirmed that in her youngdays she had often heard say that on Midsummereve, when it was well known all kinds of ghosts,goblins, and fairies become visible and walkabroad, the Crusader used to mount his horse,come down from his picture, ride about the house,down the avenue, and so to the church to visitthe tomb; on which occasion the church doormost civilly swung open of itself; not that heneeded it; for he rode through closed gates andeven stone walls, and had been seen by one ofthe dairy maids to pass between two bars of thegreat park gate, making himself as thin as asheet of paper.
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Rode through closed gates and even stone walls £be Cbristmas Dinner 109 All these superstitions I found had beenvery much countenanced by the squire, who,though not superstitious himself, was very fondof seeing others so. He listened to every goblintale of the neighbouring gossips with infinitegravity, and held the porters wife in highfavour on account of her talent for the marvel-lous. He was himself a great reader of oldlegends and romances, and often lamented thathe could not believe in them; for a superstitiousperson, he thought, must live in a kind of fairyland. Whilst we were all attention to the parsonsstories, our ears were suddenly assailed by aburst of heterogeneous sounds from the hall,in which were mingled something like the clangof rude minstrelsy, with the uproar of manysmall voices and girlish laughter. The doorsuddenly flew open, and a train came troopinginto the room, that might almost have beenmistaken for the breaking up of the court ofFairy. That indefatigable spi

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