II.
The world was cold and white round about him. The tall pines stood wrapped in cloaks of snow, which looked like great white ulsters, and they were buttoned straight up to the chin—only a green finger-tip and a few tufts of dark-green hair showed faintly, at the end of the sleeves and above the collar. The alders and the birches, who had no such comfortable coats to keep out the cold, stood naked in the keen light of the stars and the aurora, and they shivered to the very marrow. To Thorwald it seemed as if they were stretching their bare, lean hands against the heavens, praying for warmer weather. A family of cedar-birds, who had lovely red caps on their heads and gray uniforms of the most fashionable tint, had snugged close together on a sheltered pine-branch, and they were carrying on a subdued twittering conversation just as Thorwald passed the river-bank, pushing himself rapidly over the snow by means of his skee-staff. But it was strictly a family matter they were discussing, which it would be indiscreet in me to divulge. They did, however, shake down a handful of loose snow on Thorwald’s head, just to let him know that he was very impolite to take so little notice of them. They did not know, of course, that his mother was ill; otherwise, I am sure, they would have forgiven him.
Hush! What was that? Thorwald thought he heard distant voices behind him in the snow. He looked all about him, but saw nothing. Then, following the guidance of the star, he still pressed onward. He quitted the river-bed and traversed a wide sloping meadow; he had to take a zigzag course, like a ship that is tacking, because the slope was too steep to ascend in a straight line. He was beginning to feel tired. The muscles in his legs ached, and he often shifted the staff from hand to hand, in order to rest the one or the other of his arms. He gazed now fixedly upon the snow, taking only an occasional glance at the sky, to see that he was going in the right direction; the strange hum of voices in the air yet haunted his ears, and he sometimes imagined he heard words moving to a wonderful melody. Was it the angels that were singing, inspiring him with courage for his quest? He dared hardly believe it, and yet his heart beat joyously at the thought. Ah! what is that which glitters so strangely in the snow? A starry gleam, a twinkling, like a spark gathering its light into a little glittering point, just as it is about to be quenched. Thorwald leaps from his skees and plunges his hand into the snow. The frozen crust cuts his wrist cruelly; and he feels that he is bleeding. With a wrench he pulls his hand up; his heart throbs in his throat; he gazes with wild expectation, but sees—nothing. His wrist is bleeding, and his hand is full of blood. Poor Thorwald could hardly trust his eyes. He certainly had seen something glittering on the snow. He felt a great lump in his throat, and it would have been a great relief to him, at that moment, to sit down and give vent to the tears that were crowding to his eyelids. But just then a clear, sweet strain of music broke through the air, and Thorwald heard distinctly these words, sung by voices of children:
“Lead, O Star of Bethlehem,
Me through death and danger,
Unto Christ, who on this night
Lay cradled in a manger.”
Thorwald gathered all his strength and again leaped into his skees; he was now on the border of a dense pine-forest, and as he looked into it, he could not help shuddering. It was so dark under the thick, snow-burdened branches, and the moon only broke through here and there, and scattered patches of light over the tree-tops and on the white carpet of the snow. Yet, perhaps it was within this very wood that the heavenly blossom had fallen. He must not lose heart now, when he was perhaps so near his goal. Thrusting his staff vigorously into the snow-crust, he pushed himself forward and glided in between the tall, silent trunks; at the same moment the air again quivered lightly, as with the breath of invisible beings, and he heard words which, as far as he could afterward recollect them, sounded as follows:
“Make my soul as white and pure
As the heavenly blossom—
As the flower of grace and truth
That blooms upon Thy bosom.”
Thorwald hardly felt the touch of the snow beneath his feet; he seemed rather to be soaring through the air, and the trunks of the huge dark trees marched in close columns, like an army in rapid retreat, before his enraptured vision. Christ did see him! Christ would send him the heavenly flower! All over the snow sparkling stars were scattered, and they gleamed and twinkled and beckoned to him, but whenever he stretched out his hand for them they suddenly vanished. The trees began to assume strange, wild shapes, and to resemble old men and women, with long beards and large hooked noses. They nodded knowingly to one another, and raised up their gnarled toes from the ground in which they were rooted, and tried to trip up the little boy who had dared to interrupt their solemn conversation. One old fir shook the snow from her shoulders, and stretched out a long, strangely twisted arm, and was on the point of seizing Thorwald by the hair, when fortunately he saw the coming danger, and darted away down the hill-side at quickened speed. A long, bright streak of light suddenly illuminated the eastern sky, something fell through the air, and left a golden trail of fire behind it; surely it was the heavenly flower that was thrown down by an angel in response to his prayer! Forward and ever forward—over roots and stumps and stones—stumbling, rising again, sinking from weariness and exhaustion, kneeling to pray on the frozen snow, crawling painfully back and tottering into the skee-bands; but only forward, ever forward! The earth rolls with a surging motion under his feet, the old trees join their rugged hands and dance, in wild, senile glee, around him, lifting their twisted limbs, and sometimes, with their talons, trying to sweep the stars from the sky. Thorwald struggled with all his force to break through the ring they had made around him. He saw plainly the flower, beaming with a pale radiance upon the snow, and he strove with all his might to reach it, but something held him back, and though he was once or twice within an inch of it, he could never quite grasp it with his fingers. Then, all of a sudden, the strange song again vibrated through the air, and he saw a huge star glittering among the underbrush; a flock of children clad in white robes were dancing about it, and they were singing Christmas carols in praise of the new-born Saviour. As they approached nearer and nearer, the hope revived in Thorwald’s heart. Ah, there the flower of healing was, lying close at his feet. He made a desperate leap and clutched it in his grasp—then saw and felt no more.