The dusk was all about them and clear starlight over head; and soon silence fell upon the wondering little ones who seemed to themselves to be on the edge of some strange beautiful unknown other world.
Pincher brought the horses to a walk, and drove them so carefully that there was hardly a tinkle of harness or bells as they climbed the steep snowy way. Far off and softly came the silvery peal from the tower of the little church below them. They wound round a projecting wall of the mountain—and there on the side of the great cliff, blazing with a myriad colored lights that hung on its huge boughs like some wonderful fruit, was the ancient fir-tree that had weathered centuries of storm and shine, holding up all its splendor to the dark skies, and answering the distant stars with emerald and ruby and topaz and sapphire sparks.
There was a shout from every voice, and then silence again. Essie burst into tears.
“What in gracious you crying for?” asked Will, leaning back to whisper.
“Oh! it’s so beautiful,” said Essie. “I can’t bear it.”
“It is so beautiful,” said Ally, hugging her. “Oh, Essie! look again! and look again!”
And they looked again, and again; and they drove slowly up the way to see it from all sides, making night glorious, and turned and drove slowly back. And all the time the Christmas bells rang out below, and the great tree held out its proud branches clad in living rainbows. Then, with many cries of joy, they went down and left its last sparkle round the cliff behind them.
“Hold on!” cried a voice they knew. “If you would hear something to your advantage, hold on!” And after a little delay, Uncle Billy and Charlie came round the cliff, lugging a big box along, with as much of the paraphernalia of the battery as they could bring, and got it in one of the sleighs. Then after going back up the height for the rest, they piled into the sleigh with the children, and Uncle Billy took the reins and drove down the hill, as Will said, as if a comet were after them, while all of them sang at the top of their sweet shrill voices, “When shepherds watched their flocks by night.”
“Oh! do you suppose,” said Janet, when they had finished singing, “that what the shepherds saw was more beautiful than that tree full of jewels?”
“Of course it was,” said Essie; “angels are more beautiful than anything—up in the dark sky—angels that the glory shone round!”