My name is Samuel Dawkins, and, in my youth, I was apprenticed to Mister Holroyd, over at the Smithery.
As I recollect, one winter’s day, when I had not worked there long, he called out to me across the clanking and the din.
“Boy? Will you be coming on the visiting Wassail a couple of nights hence?”
I remember looking across from my duties and spying this colossus of a man beaming back at me. He was a wonderful master, as strong as any ox. I once saw him lift a laden cart from its broken axle through his labour alone.
“I do not know Mister Holroyd, sir.”
He glided across the cold, stone floor as was by me in an instant. He looked down at my craft.
“You’re doing a good job there, Dawkins. We’ll make a smith of you yet. That’s right, as I showed you. Let the teeth of the file do the work, gentle. As soft as you would with your young lady.”
To my shame, I reddened, cursing my inexperience and callow nature. Holroyd let out a boisterous guffaw.
“Tis such a joy! Being jovial with the apprentice!” A great hand swept down and clapped me playfully on the back. I felt the air rush out of me, as I was simultaneously propelled into my bench. I grimaced, not wanting him to see my suffering.
“But you will come a-wassailing with me the night after the morrow?”
I looked up; there was something persuasive in the kindly face of my master, something playful. I am sure that I saw that glint in his eye that meant there were further frivolities afoot.
“I should have to ask my father, sir.”
“Pah!” He threw a paw into the air. “There is no need for that. I shall square it with your father at the inn this very eve. Fear not. You shall make merry with us on this most joyous of nights.”
“Perhaps I should go to the orchard with my brothers and sisters, sir.”
“Nonsense!” cried the blacksmith. “You are a working man now Master Samuel, and you have obligations to keep! This fine Smithery has been represented on the Wassail for generations! My father and his father, and his father, and his father…”
I laughed! I suspect Mister Holroyd would have continued fathering for many an hour had I not been quick-witted enough to leap in with my mirth. So, he picked up on a different thread.
“We have always given a good show. When have the finest voices in this fine green valley! On either side of the river. Isn’t this right, Albie?”
Albie, older than I, and Holroyd’s nephew, grimaced and hauled a heavy chain across his shoulder.
“Yes, Uncle,” he shouted above the hiss and the groan of cooling metal.
“You see?” said Holroyd, turning back to me once more. “The finest of the county. The country one could even say.”
“I do not sing, sir.”
Holroyd arched a sweat laden brow.
“Not even in church?”
“Only quietly, sir. So as not to spoil the balance of the voices.”
“Ha,” chuckled Holroyd. “Are we not the charitable fellow? Are there not many reasons to sing out with joy upon the Sabbath?”
I shrugged and made to return to my toil.
“Then we shall practice!” bellowed Holroyd, joyously. “Tomorrow, as our hammers strike, our voices shall rise in songs of the season! We’ll make a tenor out of you yet young Samuel. I shall take bass and Albie?” The jolly blacksmith called out to his nephew once more, “Albie, you will render your baritone! A fine trio, we shall be.”
Albie, partially obscured by furnace, chain and anvil, gave a low drone of approval, at least that is how the master saw it.
“Then it is settled,” spake he. “We shall wassail together the night after next, and our singing trio shall be the finest of the company! Now,” he beckoned with a finger like a butcher’s snag, “come with me. I have something to show you. Don your coat. You can finish that tomorrow.”
My master led me through the workshop door and out into the darkening sky. Amber peaked from between the cottages and an icy howl bent around and betwixt the squat grey of the buildings. Dark slate, away in the east, promised an impending sprinkling of snow.
“Keep up!”
Mister Holroyd bounded ahead, carried on long, tree trunk legs that grasped greedily at the cobbles. Just a few yards up the lane, he disappeared into the hedgerow of his own, humble abode before, moments later, his head popped, like the Green Man himself, from betwixt the emerald and the berry red.
“Come on! I don’t want to let all of the warm out.”
I had stood in the kitchen of the Holroyds just once before, back in the spring, when I had first become apprenticed. Then, kindly Mrs Holroyd had offered me plum jam, the first of the season. I had known, on that very spot where I stood now, that my employ would be a harmonious one.
“Mrs Holroyd,” boomed her husband, with heart-warming exuberance. “I am returned from a day of perilous business, and am delivered to you by my young charge himself! Wife! Do tell, Is that it?”
Mrs Holroyd looked up from her yarn with an air of faux weariness and fatigue.
“Yes, that is it.”
My employer leapt across to the range with the agility of an oversize cat. I had heard tales of such creatures, aflame, terrible and striped.
Mrs Holroyd, in a soft voice, like balm, addressed me.
“Young Master Dawkins,” she began. “Two fine pots are bubbling away on that there stove. One contains his lordship’s dinner, a stew that I have spent the day preparing, but that’s not the one he has gone too, look.”
Over at the range, Holroyd had lifted the lid to a heavy-looking pot, holding the scorching cover between his leathery fingers. He hopped from foot to foot, as the aromas corkscrewed around the small, well-furnished room.
I inhaled deeply. I smelled the meat and unctuous gravy of the stew, the frosted root vegetables, now warm, soft and filling, but there was something else, sharp and sweet and scented, like nothing I had experienced before.
“Come, boy,” called Holroyd, “come and draw breath near me. Is it not exquisite? Is it not just the most wondrous thing?”
“What is it?” I asked timidly, stepping deeper into the scent and the warm, soft glow of the oil-lamp.
“It is only the finest wassail brew!” he proudly declared. “Eliza’s grandfather was the finest of brewers. Herein lies a recipe that you must not share!”
I peaked into the simmering pot of cider, in which floated magical muslins of various aroma and hue. I drew in a breath, and immediately my head seemed to explode, I stepped back, coughing and spluttering to the flagstones.
“A-ha! Wonderful, isn’t it! I dare say that you have triumphed again, my good lady wife!”
Holroyd reached to the dresser and drew down a small pewter tankard. “May we Eliza? Just a small draught to take the chill from our bones?”
From the table, draped in a clean, checked cloth, Eliza shrugged. “When it is gone, it is gone.”
I watched as my master picked a ladle from the side. He did not break my gaze as he dipped it into the brew.
“See this ladle? I made this when I was about your age – and now, from it, I will share a drop of this wondrous medicinal infusion with you.”
He emptied the bowl into the tankard. Steam rose from the rim and vanished into the love that he showed. Holroyd held the cup between lip and foot and pointed the handle towards me.
“Here!”
I looked upon their faces, Eliza and Joe. Both were turned towards me, eye sparkling under their infectious smiles. I beamed too.
“Surely, after you, sir,” I said, with courtesy.
The tankard was proferred again, though this time closer and with more urgency.
“Take a sip young Sam,” called over the mistress. “You shall be glad you did.”
Timorously, I took the cup. The section that held this enchanting liquid was warm to the touch, and I folded my tired fingers around it. As each watched, I raised the tankard slowly to my lips and took the briefest of draughts.
“Well?” there was something plaintive in the question.
I swallowed and stood enthralled as the heat traced down my gullet and into my midriff. It seemed to stop, bounce and then surge, through pleasurable waves out from my centre towards my fingers and toes.
Then began the glorious tingling in the back of my throat, as spices of which I had no comprehension commenced a dance of the exotic and unknown. I was stunned. It was as if everything that I had ever known about taste had been forever shown as foolish, naïve and partial.
“It’s” I began, “it’s remarkable!”
Mister Holroyd threw a fist into the air; then himself drew on the tankard.
“My!” he spluttered, drawing a hand across his mouth, “the boy is right! Eliza my dear, you have excelled yourself! This is the finest celebratory brew yet! Our band shall be the heroes of Wassail Night when we add our voices to the wandering choir!”
“Will Samuel be staying to dinner?” asked Eliza, pragmatically, not yet caught up in our revelries.
“I must away to my Mother, thank-you Mrs Holroyd.” There was a part of me that would have liked to have stayed, but you must know, there was a place laid for me at home.
“Well then young sir, said Holroyd, “I shall see you punctually on the morrow. Practice begins at first hammer-strike.”
“Practice?” questioned Mrs Holroyd, drily.
“But of course my darling wife! We must rehearse our singing for the visiting route. You too, my dear, your soprano would be a welcome addition to our sound. But Samuel here must practice especially so – so that he might overcome his reticence and warble manfully for the girl he wishes to court.”
I flushed, with embarrassment and anger. “What do you mean?” I cried, forgetting myself in the company of my betters.
Mister Holroyd, if he did notice my impetuousness, chose the ignore it with another booming chuckle.
“Why? Do you not know? The parsonage is the last stop on our route. You will get the chance to sing for the Reverend’s daughter.”
I began to back away towards the door, studying the tips of my battered shoes.
“Now look here, Joe!” exclaimed Eliza. “You are upsetting the poor boy. Do not speak of him so. He is gentler than you, I should wonder!”
I also was stung by the admonishment. Was I not a man? Must she call me a boy and consider me to be weak?
“I must go now,” I spluttered. “Mother will be wondering where I am.” Then I added, manfully, “thank-you for the sample of the Wassail cider. It is the finest I have ever tasted!”
And with that, I took my leave and scurried out into the now pitch lane.
As I wandered homewards, I drew my coat around me to keep out the wintry blasts. But I did not take note of the cold. I was thinking about her. No, not Mrs Holroyd, but Penelope, the Reverend’s daughter.
What had annoyed me most was that Old Holroyd had been right. I was enamoured of her. Yet he had trampled on that which was pure and true, with the boots of the common man, as kindly as they usually were.
To think of her sent quarrelsome badgers into my gut, which would writhe and scratch and scream. But in my suffering, I was righteous. It was a place that I was going to increasingly often: to enjoy the unique pain of my first, fledgeling and, as yet, unrequited love.
It was Penelope that opened the floodgates to my heart, that inspired me to find solace in deep, lonely reflection. She had long dark hair that shone like the livery of a raven and eyes of jet, that could cut a man in two with a mere glance.
My rag-tag phizog had first won her scrutiny in chapel, when she spied me tugging at the constrictive collar of my Sunday best – if best is how you could describe it! Even in these later years, the spruced-up version of me still looks like a bag of spuds!
But onto her face, my starch-induced troubles drew a smile, so I played the gad, pulling ever more facial contortions, and gurns, that God dare not see. But alas, the organist spotted me, as did Mother, who delivered a short, sharp clip to the side of my ear. As the stinging subsided, I was consoled by noticing her concealed giggles and occasional gander in my general direction.
I saw her only occasionally after that, but each time was accompanied by a feeling of nauseousness that, at first, jolted me into severe introspection. What was it, this sensation in the pit of my being? At first, I attributed it to an illness, a reaction against something foul that I had consumed. But each time it recurred, even the dormant scientist in me began to awaken to the presence of a singular girl on each occurrence.
My soul had been pricked, and it was leaking the sickly treacle of love into my blood. I was smitten but knew not how to cure myself, excepting the overwhelming desire to gain increased exposure to the source. My heart was no longer mine, and I did not mind.
If Wassail Night was to present a reason to go to her house, I then determined to embrace the enthusiasm of the Holroyd’s. I would practice, and I would sing straight into the arms of my beloved: Samuel Dawkins, a true, tuneful, troubadour.
It snowed in the ensuing days, and the village was immersed in its icy down. Albie, Holroyd and I donned costumes by the warmth of the fire. It appeared that Mrs Holroyd had been busy indeed in constructing them from slithers of discarded material. Her husband, in his excitement, had not been idle either. From a dark corner, he threw back a tarpaulin and produced a small, but finely appointed cart. Around the edge of its uppermost shelf where an array of hooks, designed to hold the wassail mugs we were to collect, along with a fresh vat of the mulled cider itself.
“Look lively, dear chaps” cried the blacksmith. “We are to be outside the tavern by six-strike to meet with our fellow wassailers, with cart a fully laden. Albie, draw it along, we leave to collect Mrs Holroyd and the brew at once!”
I did not need a second invitation. I had been pushing against the boredom of my toil since lunchtime and, while my yoke had now lifted, the temporary thrill of freedom came with the realisation of what lay ahead.
It was bitterly cold when the company left the inn. It was the type of cold that cracks at you like a switch, if you are not looking, and it was not long before I was beginning to lose feeling in my hands and feet.
“Here.” We were at the third of our calls when kindly Mr Holroyd offered me a mug of the now cool cider. “Drink this. It will revive your spirits.”
I gulped at it eagerly, draining the cup in a few, swift swallows – handing it back to my approving employer.
“You can have another in a few songs,” he said, more fatherly than my father had ever been.
I nodded, and my costume began to flutter as we wandered away from the light of the clerk’s home and back into the treacherous lane. The butcher, already three sheets to the wind and up ahead, fell into the dark serenaded by a chorus of pleasant guffaws. He could have broken his neck for all they cared, but he bounced up, like a jack, and wended merrily on his way. I found myself laughing at this, and began to notice an emboldening warmth flowing throughout my body. I smiled to myself. I had not sung well at any of our previous recitals, but I knew that my time was approaching. I would force myself to the front and sing lustily. Though first, I might need some more of that delicious concoction.
I had drained my second mug when we finally passed beneath the gate of the Rectory. To my shame, I felt my courage leave me, and I hung back and let some others through, watching as they formed a crescent before the thick oak door.
“Coming through!” a booming, bass shout coincided with me being scooped up bodily and delivered to the front, at the right of the throng. A voice, thick with booze, came close and whispered into my ear.
“This is it, lad. Don’t let yourself down. Sing like the man I know you are!”
Here we come a-wassailing,
Among the leaves so green;
Here we come a-wand’ring
So fair to be seen.
Slowly, the door was eased back, and the Reverend appeared in silhouette. He muttered something about “heathen traditions,” then drew his heavy cloak about him and placed a wide-brimmed hat upon his balding pate.
Our wassail cup is made
Of the rosemary tree,
And so is your beer
Of the best barley.
His wife joined the good preacher, and soon they both came out into the chill, offering small pies that were accepted with good grace and Christian gratitude. But where was she? My voice fell into a whisper, as the next refrain began. Where was she?
We are not daily beggars
That beg from door to door;
But we are neighbours’ children,
Whom you have seen before.
The cold of the snowfall smashed into my body with a chill mocking laughter. My feet were again strangers to me, as my hands began to shake. Afeared, I glanced up to the warmth of the doorway, but her figure was not there to greet my melancholy eyes. All of this, the rehearsals, the costume, had it been just waste? Had my dreams of the two nights last, been merely spectral visitations designed to torture and mock in equal measure? Perhaps the words that my dreams had found come from the devil himself, merely to render all future utterances into ash. The next verse stuck in the dry of my craw.
Call up the butler of this house,
Put on his golden ring.
Let him bring us up a glass of beer,
And better we shall sing.
From the depths of my disconsolation, I barely registered the shove in my back, but I heard the cider-full voice that returned to shake me.
“Look there!”
A thick sausage finger came over my shoulder and extended before me, pointing away from the slowly advancing Reverend and his wife.
“Go!”
I followed the wondrous digit to see that, towards the furthest extreme of the house, a small ground floor window had opened, from which was exuding the halo of candlelight. From the casement, a small, porcelain hand was extended, cradling a single sample of pie.
Now in silence, as the other singers reached their conclusion, I pointed, disbelieving at my own chest. For me?
The face, more beautiful than all of the ascended angels, smiled, nodded, and broke into a broad grin.
I looked back, to see Old Mister Holyroyd grinning down at me.
“Well, what are you waiting for, Samuel, my man?”
My face broke into mirth, and I bounded across to the open window where Penelope could be seen. With a deep, gallant bow, I thanked her and excepted the wassail gift from her fair hand.
To this very day, as old as I am now, I have never tasted food that came near to the perfection I experienced that Wassail Night. It was hot, sweet, moist, and so incredibly fulfilling, and it came with the honey of her presence that accompanied my every bite.
Sated and emboldened, I drew her hand to my blood-red lips, and place a single, gentle kiss thereupon. Penelope smiled and, though no words had been said, all was understood. I bowed again as the candle was gently picked and the window drawn to a silent close.
I am not sure how long I stood in the very spot, hoping that the candlelight to return, but eventually, Holroyd himself place an arm about my shoulder and led me slowly away. The celebration, once anticipated and longed for, had come to an end.
I never knew what became of my dear Penelope, and I probably never will. But I always think of her as the winter thickens and the ground becomes steel. Upon the renewal of each Wassail Night, I give thanks for all those that I have loved, and those that loved me. It is a night and a tradition that I shall ever mark. And though the traditions of men and the beauty of her face have all faded in time, I will always remember that exquisite, youthful love.
From the first to the last, I am ready.