“Yah!  There ’e is at last!” “’Ow are you, old un?” “Don’t put your nose out too fur this cold night!”

These and similar ribald remarks greeted Mr. Wedmore as he appeared at the window, telling him only too plainly that the merry days of old were gone, never to be restored, and that the feudal feeling which bound (or is supposed to have bound) rich and poor, gentle and simple, in one great tie of brotherhood had disappeared forever.

Doreen and Queenie were secretly enjoying the fun, though they had the sense to be very quiet; but Mrs. Wedmore was in an agony of sympathy with her husband, and of fear for the results of his enterprise.  He began a speech of thanks, but the noise below was too great for him to be heard.  Indeed, it was his own servants who did the most toward drowning his voice by their well-meant endeavors to shout down the interrupting cries.

“They’re most of them tipsy, I think,” whispered Doreen to her mother, who said, “Sh-sh!” in shocked remonstrance, but secretly agreed with her daughter’s verdict.

“Throw them some coppers, papa,” suggested the sage and practical Queenie.

Mr. Wedmore turned out his pockets, taking care to disperse his largesse as widely as possible.  The girls helped him, hunting high and low for coins, among which, urged by the crowd in no subdued voice to “come down handsome,” sixpences and shillings presently made their welcome appearance.

“Oh, the hollies!” whispered Doreen to her sister.

“Thank goodness, the look of the garden to-morrow morning will be an object-lesson to papa!”

For the invaders, well aware of the value of such wares at Christmas time, filled out the pauses by slashing at the berry-bearing trees with their pocket-knives, secure in the safety of numbers.

By the time the shower of money ceased the crowd had begun to thin; those members of it who had been lucky enough to secure silver coins had made off in the direction of the nearest public-house, and those who had cut down the holly had taken themselves off with their booty.

There remained in front of the door, when this clearance had been effected, the Yule log itself, the laborers who had drawn it along and a group of manageable size.

Max, who had been watching the proceedings from the study, after turning out the light, judged that the moment had come for negotiations to commence.  So he told the butler to throw open the front door, and he himself invited the unwelcome guests to enter.  He had taken the precaution to have all portable articles removed from the hall and all the doors locked except that which led to the servants’ hall and the staircases.

In they came, a little subdued, and with their first disastrous energy sufficiently exhausted for them to be able to listen and to do as they were told.

The oaken center-table had been pushed on one side, and there was a clear space, wide, carpetless, from the front door to the big stone fireplace opposite.