An excerpt from "Rather Suspicious: A Story of Some Christmas Minstrels" by Robert Hudson, in London Society: The Christmas Number for 1867, page 652:

'Eh, what is this?' said he; 'a carol? Pray begin again, and let me take it down.' For Mr. Sebright was busy just then on an article for the 'Oxbridge Review' on this special subject of Christmas carols, upon which he held himself specially great.

Then having got 'The Sunny Bank' into his note-book, 'Now, boy,' he asked, 'have you any more?'

'Oh yes, sir,' said Jemmy, 'as many as ever you like. Will you have John Collier?'

'By all means,' said Sebright, 'whatever it may be.' And the piping trebles began—

'One Christmas Day it did befel.'

'Stop a minute,' said Sebright; 'is not it "did befal?" '

'No,' said Jemmy, decisively, 'befel;' for which a reason was soon apparent in the ensuing rhyme:—

'One Christmas Day it did befel,
It is as true as tongue can tell,'

[Jemmy nodded at Sebright, triumphant]:—

'That one John Collier, a farmer there,'

[Sebright asked 'Where?' but was simply answered 'There,' and could get no better address. The singer repeated the line emphatically]:—

'That one John Collier, a farmer there,
Out of his house he did repair.
Went in the meadows for to plough,
And as he were a ploughing along so fast—'

[The note-taker stopped the singer again, read this last line over too, and was assured he had got it down quite correctly]:

'Our Saviour Christ come by at last.
"O man, O man, what makes you plough,
So fast upon our Lord's birthday?"
The man made answer the Lord in speed,
"To plough this day I have good need."
And his hands did tremble through and through,
He could scarcely hold the plough;
And the ground it opened and let him in,
Before he could repent of his sin.
And all his sheep and cattle were lost,
His wife and family out of place,
And all his corn was consumed away,
By breaking of our Lord's birthday.
And all his corn was consumed away,
By breaking of a Christmas Day.'

Sebright asked which of the last two couplets was the right one, and was told both of them. Jemmy, indeed, under the influence of soup and fire, began to show some little tendency to patronise. 'Now,' he said, 'this is it:—

'And all his corn was consumed away,
By breaking of our Lord's birthday.'

'Have you got that?' Sebright said he had. 'Then write again' (speaking with a persuasive emphasis, as if it put tho matter in an entirely new light)—

'And all his corn was consumed away,
By breaking of a Christmas Day.'

Then Lady Diana asked if he knew which was our Lord's birthday, and Jemmy, somewhat crestfallen, had to answer 'No,' and was told that Christmas Day was generally so reputed.

Jemmy's repertoire proved inexhaustible. It was true he repeated the verses he had learnt only as a parrot repeats her task, and knew but little more than the parrot of the meaning of what he repeated. But Sebright enriched, or thought he enriched, his note-book with several curious pieces at the lad's dictation, and partly out of idleness, partly out of vanity, partly out of a wish to do the lads some service, he set to work devising how he could introduce Jemmy and Bob to Sir Felix, and how he himself could air his new hobby in public at the same time.