"What cheer—O?" the hind called back. His lantern was a spark on the hill-side, and he could not tell the voice at that distance.
"Have you seen him?"
"Wha-a-a-t?"
"The angel of the Lo-o-ord!"
"Wha-a-a-t?"
"I'm afraid we can't make him understand," she whispered. "Hush; don't shout!" For a moment, she seemed to consider; and then her shrill treble quavered out on the frosty air, my own deeper voice taking up the second line—
"The first' Nowell' the angel did say
Was to certain poor shepherds, in fields as they lay,
—In fields as they lay, a-tending their sheep,
On a cold winters night that was so deep—
Nowell! Nowell!
Christ is born in Israel!"
Our voices followed our shadows across the gate and far up the field, where Laban's sheep lay dotted. What Laban thought of it I cannot tell: but to me it seemed, for the moment, that the shepherd among his ewes, the dancers within the house, the sea beneath us, and the stars in their courses overhead moved all to one tune,—the carol of two children on the hill-side.
[1] Cow-house.