‘Those poor people who have no roof to shelter them to-night will, most assuredly, not have a dry thread left on their skin,’ said the kind-hearted old man.
‘Oh, open the door! open the door! I am so cold, and quite wet through besides—open the door!’ cried a voice from without. The voice was like a child’s, and seemed half-choked with sobs. ‘Rap, rap, rap!’ it went on knocking at the door, whilst the rain still kept streaming down from the clouds, and the wind rattled among the window-panes.
‘Poor thing!’ said the old poet; and he arose and opened the door. There stood a little boy, almost naked; the water trickled down from his long flaxen hair; he was shivering with cold, and had he been left much longer out in the street, he must certainly have perished in the storm.
‘Poor boy!’ said the old poet again, taking him by the hand, and leading him into his room. ‘Come to me, and we’ll soon make thee warm again, and I will give thee some wine, and some roasted apples for thy supper, my pretty child!’
And, of a truth, the boy was exceedingly pretty. His eyes
shone as bright as stars, and his hair, although dripping with water, curled in beautiful ringlets. He looked quite like a little cherub, but he was very pale, and trembled in every limb with cold. In his hand he held a pretty little cross-bow, but it seemed entirely spoilt by the rain, and the colours painted on the arrows all ran one into another.
The old poet sat down again beside the stove, and took the little boy in his lap; he wrung the water out of his streaming hair, warmed the child’s hands within his own, and gave him mulled wine to drink. The boy soon became himself again, the rosy colour returned to his cheeks, he jumped down from the old man’s lap, and danced around him on the floor.
‘Thou art a merry fellow!’ said the poet. ‘Thou must tell me thy name.’