s
kindly as I could desire.

While it was yet scarcely daylight, we all came out into the street
together, and there shook hands. The widow took the little sailor
towards Chatham, where he was to find a steamboat for Sheerness; the
lawyer, with an extremely knowing look, went his own way, without
committing himself by announcing his intentions; two more struck off by
the cathedral and old castle for Maidstone; and the book-pedler
accompanied me over the bridge. As for me, I was going to walk by Cobham
Woods, as far upon my way to London as I fancied.

When I came to the stile and footpath by which I was to diverge from the
main road, I bade farewell to my last remaining Poor Traveller, and
pursued my way alone. And now the mists began to rise in the most
beautiful manner, and the sun to shine; and as I went on through the
bracing air, seeing the hoarfrost sparkle everywhere, I felt as if all
Nature shared in the joy of the great Birthday.

Going through the woods, the softness of my tread upon the mossy ground
and among the brown leaves enhanced the Christmas sacredness by which I
felt surrounded. As the whitened stems environed me, I thought how the
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