Three Kings with a star
Came travelling from afar,
Over mountains, hills and dale,
To go and look
In every nook,
To go and look for the Lord of All.
Their rough voices droned and three great shadows walked far ahead of them on the white street-snow. All those people came and went and twisted and turned and came and went again. Each sang his own little song and fretted his whining prayer. Above all this rose the dull toot of the baker’s horn, as he kept on shouting:
“Hot bread! Hot bread!”
High hung the moon and blinked the stars; and fine white shafts fell through the air, upon everything around, like silver pollen.
“Maarten of the mountain!” whispered the children behind the window. “Maarten the Freezyman!”[5]
And they crept back into the kitchen, beside the fire.
And the black man stood outside the door, tugging at the string of his twirling star, and sang through his nose:
Come, star, come, star, you must not so still stand!
You must go with me to Bethlehem Land,
To Bethlehem, that comely city,
Where Mary sits with her Babe on her knee....
Along the country-roads, the farmhouses stood snowed in, with black window-shutters, which showed dark against the walls and shut in the light, and stumpy chimneys, with thick smoke curling from them. Indoors, there was no seeing clearly: the lamp hung from the ceiling in a ring of steam and smoke and everything lay black and tumbled. In the hearth, the yule-log lay blazing. The farmer’s wife baked waffles and threw them in batches on the straw-covered floor.
In one corner, under the light and wound from head to foot in tobacco-smoke, were the farm-hands, playing cards. They sat wrapped up in their game, bending over their little table, very quiet. Now and then came a half-oath and the thud of a fist on the table and then again peaceful shuffling and stacking and playing of their cards.