Now he took his star on his shoulder, pulled his hood deep over his head and wandered down the little path, all over the snow, to where the lights were burning. It was lonely, lifeless, that white plain under that burnished sky; and he was all alone, the black fellow on the snow. And he saw the world so big, so monotonously bleak; a flat, white wilderness, with here and there a straight, thin poplar and a row of black, lean, knotty willows.
He went down towards the lights.
The village lay still. The street was black with people. Great crowds of womenfolk, tucked and muffled in black hooded cloaks, tramped as in a dream along the houses, over the squeaking snow. They shuffled from door to door, stuck out their bony hands and asked plaintively for their God’s-penny. They disappeared at the end of the street and went trudging into the endless moonlight.
Children went with lights and stars and stood gathered in groups, their black faces glowing in the shine of their lanterns; they made a huge din with their tooting-horns[2] and rumble-pot[3] and sang of
The Babe born in the straw
and
The shepherds they come here.
They’re bringing wood and fire
And this and that and t’other:
Now bring us a pot of beer.
Mad Wanne went alone; she kept on lurching across the street with her long legs, which stuck out far from under her skirt, and held her arms wide open under her hooded cloak, like a demon bat. She snuffled something about:
‘Twas hailing, ‘twas snowing and ‘twas bad weather
And over the roofs the wind it flew.
Saint Joseph said to Mary Maid:
“Mary, what shall we do?”
Top[4] Dras, Wulf and Grendel, three fellows, tall as trees, were also loafing round. They were the three Kings: Top had turned his big jacket and blackened his face; Grendel wore a white sheet over his back and blew the horn; and Wulf had a mitre on and carried a great star with a lantern on a stick. So they dragged along the street, singing at every door: