“It’s the log, sir,” replied the lad, sobered by the sudden appearance of the young master, who seemed in no hilarious mood.

“The log!  What log?”

“Master has ordered one for Christmas, sir, the biggest as could be got,” answered the boy, who then escaped, to rush back and join the shouting throng.

And Max remembered that his father, in his passionate determination to have a real old English Christmas, with everything done in the proper manner, had given this order to the head gardener a few days before.

By this time the group had become a crowd.  A swarm of men and boys, conspicuous among whom were all the idlers and vagabonds of the neighborhood, came along through the yard in one great, overwhelming wave, hooting, yelling, trampling down the flower-beds with, their winter covering of cocoanut fiber, breaking down the shrubs, tearing away the ivy, and spreading devastation as they went.

Poor Mr. Wedmore had instructed his servants not to prevent the villagers from joining in the procession.  There was something reminiscent of feudal times, a pleasant suggestion of the cordial relation between the lord of the manor of the Middle Ages and his tenants and dependents, in this procession of the Yule log up to the great house.  And Mr. Wedmore, full of his fancy for the grand old medieval Christmas festivities, hugged to his heart the thought of holding such revels as should make Christmas at The Beeches an institution in the countryside.

But, alas! the London merchant had become a country gentleman too late in life to appreciate the great gulf which lies between the sixteenth-century peasant (of the modern imagination) and the nineteenth-century villager of actual fact.  His own small army from the stable and the garden were powerless to cope with the disorderly mob they had been encouraged to invite in this interesting celebration.  And those most mischievous and conspicuous roughs whom the coachman had driven off with the whip on the way up, revenged themselves for this drastic treatment by coming in through the front gate of the park, breaking down the fence between park and garden, and every obstacle to their barbaric progress.

It was “Poaching Wilson” who pulled the bell, after some difficulty in finding the handle, owing to the liberality with which he had “treated himself” as a preparation for the journey.

Max, alarmed at the invasion, had made his way round to the billiard-room door at the back, bolted it on the inside, and hastened to give directions to the servants to lock all the other doors, and to secure the ground-floor windows.

Then he rushed into the hall, just as his father had come out from the dining-room, serviette in hand, to learn the cause of the noise outside.

“Hello, Max!  Is it you back again?  And have you brought down half the population of London with you?”

“No, sir, they didn’t come with me.  They are guests of yours, I understand.  And they expect to be treated to unlimited beer, so I gather from their remarks.  They’ve brought some firewood, I believe.”