"Of horrid apparition, tall and ghastly, That walks at dead of night, or takes its stand O'er some new opened grave, and, strange to tell, Evanishes at crowing of the cock;"
and for the more touching ballads which sing of the late repentance of the cruel Barbara Allan,--
"O mither, mither, mak my bed, O mak it saft and narrow; Since my love died for me to-day, I'll die for him to morrow;"
"Pretty babes, with hand in hand, Went wandering up and down; But never more could see the man Returning from the town;"
or how "there came a ghost to Margaret's door," and chilled the life-blood in her veins, by his awful announcement,--
"My bones are buried in a kirk-yard, Afar beyond the sea; And it is but my sprite, Marg'ret, That's speaking now to thee;"
or may have been replaced, in higher quarters, by the improved narrative literature of the present day, and the traditions or memories which haunt all homes. But the spirit of the entertainment itself is still the same, varied only by circumstances in its forms.
[Illustration: STORY TELLING.--_Page 239._]
It is apparently by a group of the latter kind that this branch of the Christmas amusements is illustrated in the plate. The youthful members of a family are listening, in all probability, to some tale of their sires, related by the withered crone, who, grown old in that service, links those young beings with a generation gone by, and stands, as it were, prophesying "betwixt the living and the dead." If we may judge from the aspect of the aged sybil herself, and the pale and earnest faces that surround her, the narrative which she is imparting is one of the fearful class, and not to be listened to beyond the cheering inspirations of that bright fire; although the moving shadows which it flings upon the old walls are amongst the terrors which are born of her story. For the scene of these emotions, the artist has chosen, as artists still love to do, the chamber of an ancient mansion, with its huge chimney and oriel-window. And it may be that for picturesque effects which are to address themselves to the eye, artists are right in so doing. No doubt, the high chronicles of chivalry, and the mysterious traditions of the past, comport well with the gloom of the gothic gallery;--and, certainly, the long rambling passages of an old house afford at once room for the wandering of ghosts, and that dim, shadowy light by which imagination sees them best. But the true poetry of life is not confined to ancient dwellings; and every house, in every crowded thoroughfare of every city, has its own tales to tell around the Christmas fire. The most pert-looking dwelling of them all, that may seem as if it were forever staring out of its sash windows into the street, has its own mysteries, and is, if it have been tenanted sufficiently long, as closely haunted by recollections as the baron's castle, or the squire's old manor-house. Like them,--