Songs led to stories, and Dick developed unexpected talents, thrilling them all with legends of Lower Canada, which he had learned no one knew how. Then Mr. Collinson began a long account of an incident in the war of 1812, and when he was fairly in the middle of it, Dick signed to Stephanie, and they both slipped from the room.
Knowing how the Collinsons delighted in the old customs and traditions of an English Christmas, they had resolved to act the waits, and so give a finishing touch to that tender illusion built up in the woods of the New World from the lore and fancy of the Old. Dick dived into his blanket-coat, and Stephanie wrapped a big shawl about her, and then they both hurried out at the kitchen door, and so round to the front of the house again. It was intensely cold and still, so cold that the motionless air seemed to be heavy and painful to breathe, and stepping from the warm house was like entering icy water. The stars shone like steady silver lamps, and the woods were hushed and dark, bound to silence and desolation beneath the weight of frost. A faint white mist showed in the northern sky, and presently it spread and broadened, and the pale green ice-blink began playing and slanting and fading along its edge.
With their young faces held up to the solemn stars, the brother and sister began to sing the quaint old carols their mother had taught them long before. They had good voices, and their hearts were in the words, so the old, old tunes went sweetly enough under that vast arch of sky. Roger softly set the door ajar, and the quietness within showed how the singing was appreciated.
"THEY BEGAN TO SING THE OLD CAROLS
THEIR MOTHER HAD TAUGHT THEM LONG BEFORE."
As they sang, Stephanie felt that it was almost irreverent to break the solemn silence of the wintry world; it was so still that their voices sounded far-off and yet clear. She glanced nervously at the black ring of forest encircling the homestead, and feared it for the first time, not for what it might contain, but for its gloom and emptiness.
The cold was too intense for them to stay out there long, and as the last notes of the last carol died away, Stephanie was glad that the great silence would be no longer disturbed. It seemed more fitting to leave that lonely night to quiet—the utter quiet of snow and windless air—of life held in suspension.
But before they reached the door, another sound, distant, distinct, horrible, cut suddenly through that quiet. Dick involuntarily clasped his sister's hand in his, for, however often one may hear that sound, it never fails to move the nerves. It rose, and sank, and almost died away, and was answered by a dozen throats, all taking up the wild, shrill, menacing notes—the howl of the wolf-pack in full cry.
It was a terrible sound. And though they had heard it a hundred times before, it seemed even more impressive than usual, coming after the warmth and good cheer, the laughter and singing. It was as if the surrounding wilderness had chosen to remind them of its presence by that sad, cruel, awe-inspiring howl—as if their hearts were to be rendered more in tune with the great woods by the knowledge that death was abroad, even at the edges of the fields; Dick and Stephanie were glad to return to the light and cosiness of the house.