DELINQUENTS IN THE SNOWVOICES 'OFF', OUTSIDE THE FRONT DOOR, ANNUALLY REmind us (usually at the most inconvenient moment
DELINQUENTS IN THE SNOW
VOICES 'OFF', OUTSIDE THE FRONT DOOR, ANNUALLY REmind us (usually at the most inconvenient moment) that the season of carols has come again. At my front door they are, once every year, the voices of the local choir; on the fortyfive other annual occasions they are those of boys or children who have not even tried to learn to sing, or to memorize the words of the piece they are murdering. The instruments they play with real conviction are the door-bell and the knocker; and money is what they are after.I am pretty sure that some of them are the very same hooligans who trespass in my garden, rob my orchard, hack down my trees and scream outside my windows, though everyone in the neighbourhood knows that there is serious illness in my family. I am afraid I deal with them badly in the capacity of `waits'. I neither forgive like a Christian nor turn the dog on them like an indignant householder. I pay the blackmail. I give, but give ungraciously, and make the worst of both worlds.It would be silly to publish this fact (more proper for a confessor's ear) if I did not think that this smouldering resentment, against which I win so many battles but never win the war, was at present very widely shared by law-abiding people. And Heaven knows, many of them have better cause to feel it than I. I have not been driven to suicide like Mr Pilgrim. I am not mourning for a raped and murdered daughter whose murderer will be kept (partly at my expense) in a mental hospital till he gets out and catches some other child. My greatest grievance is trivial in comparison. But, as it raises all the issues, I will tell it.This may be judged an article unfit for the season of peace and goodwill. Yet there is a connection. Not all kinds of peace are compatible with all kinds of goodwill, nor do all those who say `Peace, peace' inherit the blessing promised to the peacemakers.'
There! They're at it again. `Ark, the errol hygel sings.' They're knocking louder. Well, they come but fifty times a year. Boxing Day2