phrases and sonorous voice rolling after them all the way home.
But poor Phoebe felt that the main issues as to conscience were now only
too clear; her last anchor was wrenched from its hold, and that night,
through a mist of unhappy tears, she succumbed, promised to marry John
Grimbal and be queen of the red castle now rising under Cranbrook's
distant heights.

That we have dealt too scantily with her tragic experiences may be
suspected; but the sequel will serve to show how these circumstances
demand no greater elaboration than has been accorded to them.

CHAPTER VII

LIBATION TO POMONA

A WINTER moon threw black shadows from stock and stone, tree and cot in
the valley of the Teign. Heavy snow had fallen, and moor-men, coming
down from the highlands, declared it to lie three feet deep in the
drifts. Now fine, sharp weather had succeeded the storm, and hard frost
held both hill and vale.

On Old Christmas Eve a party numbering some five-and-twenty persons
assembled in the farmyard of Monks Barton, and Billy Blee, as master of
the pending ceremonies, made them welcome. Some among them were aged,
others youthful; indeed the company consisted mostly of old men and
boys, a circumstance very easily understood when the nature of their
enterprise is considered. The ancients were about to celebrate a
venerable rite and sacrifice to a superstition, active in their boyhood,
moribund at the date with which we are concerned, and to-day probably
dead altogether. The sweet poet[2] of Dean Prior mentions this quaint,
old-time custom of "christening" or "wassailing" the fruit-trees among
Christmas-Eve ceremonies; and doubtless when he dwelt in Devon the use
was gloriously maintained; but an adult generation in the years of this
narrative had certainly refused it much support. It was left to their
grandfathers and their sons; and thus senility and youth preponderated
in the present company. For the boys, this midnight fun with lantern and
fowling-piece was good Christmas sport, and they came readily enough; to
the old men their ceremonial possessed solid value, and from the musty
storehouse of his memory every venerable soul amongst them could cite
instances of the sovereign virtue hid in such a procedure.

[2] _The sweet poet._

"Wassaile the trees, that they may beare
You many a Plum, and many a Peare;
For more or lesse fruites they will bring,
As you doe give them Wassailing."

_Hesperides._

"