The first shadow of light was stealing across the white undulating common and creeping through the bare trees of the desolate garden when four dark figures, one tall, two fat, and one small, stole softly up the garden path. They halted beneath the windows of the house; the snow had ceased falling, and their breath rose in clouds above their heads. They danced a little in the snow and drove their hands together, and then the tall figure said:
“Now, Tom Prother, out with thy musick.” One of the fat figures felt in his coat and produced four papers, and these were handed round.
“Bill, my son, it's for thee to lead off at thy brightest, mind ye. Let 'em have it praper.”
The small figure came forward and began; at first his voice was thin and quavering, but in the second line it gathered courage and rang out full and bold:
As oi sat under a sicymore tree
A sicymore tree, a sicymore tree,
Oi looked me out upon the sea
On Christ's Sunday at morn.
“Well for thee, lad,” said the tall figure approvingly, “but the cold is creepin' from the tips o' my fingers till my singin' voice is most frozen. Now, altogether.”
And the birds in the silent garden woke amongst the ivy on the distant wall and listened:
Oi saw three ships a-sailin' there—
A sailin' there, a-sailin' there,
Jesu, Mary, and Joseph they bare
On Christ's Sunday at morn.
A small boy curled up, like the birds, under the roof stirred uneasily in his sleep and then slowly woke. He moved, and gave a little cry because his back hurt him, then he remembered everything. The voices came up to him from the garden:
Joseph did whistle and Mary did sing,
Mary did sing, Mary did sing,
And all the bells on earth did ring
For joy our Lord was born.
O they sail'd in to Bethlehem,
To Bethlehem, to Bethlehem;
Saint Michael was the steersman,
Saint John sate in the horn.
And all the bells on earth did ring,
On earth did ring, on earth did ring;
“Welcome be thou Heaven's King,
On Christ's Sunday at morn.”