III.
The white children were children of earth, not, as Thorwald had imagined, angels from heaven. It is a custom in Norway for the children of the poor to go about on Christmas eve, from house to house, carrying a large canvas star, with one or more lanterns within it, and sing Christmas carols. They are always dressed in white robes, and people call them star-children. Whenever they station themselves in the snow before the front door, and lift up their tiny, shrill voices, old and young crowd to the windows, and the little boys and girls who are born to comfort and plenty, and never have known want, throw pennies to them, and wish them a merry Christmas. When they have finished singing, they are invited in to share in the mirth of the children of the house, and are made to sit down with them to the Christmas table, and perhaps to dance with them around the Christmas tree.
It was a company of these star-children who now found Thorwald lying senseless in the forest, and whose sweet voices he had heard in the distance. The oldest of them, a boy of twelve, hung up his star on the branch of a fir-tree, and stooped down over the pale little face, which, from the force of the fall, was half buried in the snow. He lifted Thorwald’s head and gazed anxiously into his features, while the others stood in a ring about him, staring with wide-open eyes and frightened faces.
“This is Thorwald, the judge’s son,” he said. “Come, boys, we must carry him home. He must have been taken ill while he was running on skees. But let us first make a litter of branches to carry him on.”
The boys all fell to work with a will, cutting flexible twigs with their pocket-knives, and the little girls sat down on the snow and twined them firmly together, for they were used to work, and, indeed, some of them made their living by weaving baskets. In a few minutes the litter was ready, and Thorwald, who was still unconscious, was laid upon it. Then six boys took hold, one at each corner and two in the middle, and as the crust of the snow was very thick, and strong enough to bear them, it was only once or twice that any of them broke through. When they reached the river, however, they were very tired, and were obliged for a while to halt. Some one proposed that they should sing as they walked, as that would make the time pass more quickly, and make their burden seem lighter, and immediately some one began a beautiful Christmas carol, and all the others joined in with one accord. It was a pretty sight to see them as they went marching across the river, one small boy of six walking at the head of the procession, carrying the great star, then the six larger boys carrying the litter, and at last twelve little white-robed girls, tripping two abreast over the shining surface of the ice. But, in spite of their singing, they were very tired by the time they had gained the highway on the other side of the river. They did not like to confess it; but when they saw the light from Wise Marthie’s windows, the oldest boy proposed that they should stop there for a few minutes to rest, and the other five said, in a careless sort of way, that they had no objection. Only the girls were a wee bit frightened, because they had heard that Wise Marthie was a witch. The boys, however, laughed at that, and the little fellow with the star ran forward and knocked at the door, with Thorwald’s skee-staff.
“Lord ha’ mercy on us!” cried Marthie, as she opened the peeping-hole in her door, and saw the insensible form which the boys bore between them; then flinging open both portions of the door, she rushed out, snatched Thorwald up in her arms, and carried him into the cottage.
“Come in, children,” she said, “come in and warm yourselves for a moment. Then hurry up to the judge’s, and tell the folk there that the little lad is here at my cottage. You will not go away empty-handed; for the judge is a man who pays for more than he gets. And this boy, you know, is the apple of his eye. Lord! Lord! I sent his dog, Hector, after him, and I knew the beast would let me know if the boy came to harm; but, likely as not, the wind was the wrong way, and the poor beast could not trace the skee-track on the frozen snow. Mercy! mercy! and he is in a dead swoon.”