THE air bit more keenly, for the afternoon was wearing on; already the dazzling sparkles had vanished from the snow, and rosy sunbeams slipped among the glistening tree shafts and lay with the tall shadows upon the ground of the forest aisles. She nestled closer against him.

“Tell me some more,” she urged.

“Sure, ’tis me hist’ry from the cradle up that I’m afther tellin’ ye, ’tis your turn now. I don’t know so much as your name, though I do be runnin’ away wid ye.”

“Muvver calls me heart-names—I telled you what; and uncle says E-lis-a-beth when he’s cross, uvver times, child, or Betty. I wroted it at the end—Betty Hammond. It was just make b’lieve writing, only I thought you’d know—”

“Aisy, swateheart, aisy! Av coorse I did.”

“You got it, didn’t you?” she demanded, sitting bolt upright, and facing him as the possibility of a dreadful mischance took possession of her whole being.

“What do ye mane, mavourneen?”

“Why, the letter I wroted; oh, ever so long ago,—the letter that went up the chimbly. I saw it fly away. Muvver says that’s the children’s post-box ev’rywheres.”

A light dawned upon him; not, alas, from his own childhood, which had been poor and sordid enough, and held no such golden make-believes, though in other ways he had entered into the beautiful kingdom to the utter forgetting of cold and hunger, want and sorrow, but from what he had heard here and there from little lips in his long journey through life. He had always been the children’s friend. He looked into her anxious eyes, therefore, and winked slowly.

“Whist, now! your Christmas letther,” he said, “an’ that’s what,—the wan that towld me how to set to work. Come, say the list over slow till I see if we both mane the same thing.”

She put up her hand, and dragged his head down until his ear was on a level with her lips; then she poured in the secret, interrupted by happy bursts of laughter.

“Begorra, the stockin’ will have to be made av injy rubber, or’t will burrst intoirely.”

“I’m going to put a chair under,” she confided hurriedly, “and if the things won’t go quite in you can leave them there. Did you ’member ’em all? The little crosses low on the paper I meant for kisses, you know.”

“Howly St. Pathrick! I was afther thinkin’ they was extrys.”

“You must get a most ’normous lot of letters,” she said thoughtfully, a moment later.

“’Twould be aisier countin’ the sands on the sayshore than to count thim,” he answered, entering heartily into his rÔle of the jolly saint, “me secretarries an’ under-secretarries niver rest at all; they do be dhroppin’ wid fatague, the poor fellies! ’Tis entries they have to make, an’ double-entries, an’ charges an’ counter-charges, an’ I must give each wan my speshul suprevision—”

“Do you burn our letters up after you’ve read them?”

“Do I look like a man as wud desthroy his love-letters, alanna, fer that’s what they are? Not me! I’ve the walls av me mansion papered wid thim, an’ I’ve autygraph quilts an’ tablecloths made out av thim, an’ curt’ins to me doors an’ windys, an’ sofy-pillers an’ chair-sates,—oh, ’tis an injaneyus mind I have. Sure, the shtuff av drames makes foine wearin’ material, an’ don’t ye fergit it. I had to build an appindix to me house year before last, an’ last year there was an addenda, an’ this year I’m goin’ to t’row out an L, an’ if things continny the same I’ll have to add the whole alphabet before I know it.”

“Of course it must be a big place to keep all the toys of the world there.”

“Whist, me darlint, no house in the wurrld wud be big enough to howld all the toys an’ all the drames av the childer too; an’ I’d sooner be havin’ the latter than the former anny day. ’Tis as much as I can manage to kape me autygraph collection intacks, so I have workin’ drawin’s av the toys, an’ the big dipartmintal shtores in the cities an’ towns an’ villidges do kape the rale articles. An’ by the same token I’ve me dep-puties stationed iv’rywhere to git things ready forninst me comin’, an’ thin I can make the journey wid the spade av the wind—”

Her head dropped against his arm.

“Not Whitefoot and Danny,” she said drowsily, “but Dancer and Prancer and Vixen,—I like Vixen best in the picture; then there’s On-come-et, and—”

She didn’t finish her sentence, and he, looking down, discovered the reason.

“The darlint,” he said. “Faith, ’tis tired out complately ye are, an’ the slape will refresh ye. Cuddle clost, mavourneen. ’Tis a day fer a notch on the shtick annyway, an’ I’ll niver fergit it.”

He tucked the rugs about her as tenderly as her mother could have done, though his fingers were clumsy, and unused to such offices. Then, after he had seen to her comfort, he bethought himself of his own, and had a merry meeting with that Other,—quite a longish meeting this time,—and he murmured the same toast, repeating the words again and again with funny little nods by way of emphasis. After which he fell to singing, rather loudly, the diverting history of “Kelly’s Cat”:—

He broke off here, his chin falling forward on his chest. Danny and Whitefoot, however, were used to his ways, and knew their own duty too well to stop because the reins fell so slack on their backs; they jogged on quite as steadily as if he were awake. It was a lonely country where there was little travel, so there was no fear of meeting any one and no reason for turning out; all they had to do was to keep on. Presently he stirred and opened his eyes.

“’Tis forty winks I’ve been havin’, an’ they’ve made a new man av me,” he said, with a prodigious yawn. “But begorra, I dramed me arrm was held in the grip av a monsther. ’Tis useless an’ shtiff it is this very minnit. Faith, ’tis as sound aslape as if ould Pickett was tellin’ wan av his wurrld widout ind shtories. Arrah! wake up wid ye—”

He started to jerk his arm free, and glanced down with some impatience; but the sight of what rested there made him pause. So that was the monster he had dreamed was holding him fast! He had forgotten the child for the moment, forgotten, too, the part he was playing; then everything came back with a rush as he gazed at her peaceful little face.

“Sure, ’tis no shtiffness at all, at all,” he muttered. “What’s the weight av a feather fer a man to complain av? ’Tis like the touch av an angel’s wing, so it is, an’ proud I am to fale it,—proud an’ plazed. Lie shtill, Cushla machree, lie shtill.”

But she had been partially aroused by his attempt to ease himself, and very obligingly changed her position, cuddling down on the seat. He helped to fix her anew, murmuring fond little phrases, and as her eyelids fluttered open he bade her go to sleep again. She obeyed without question; the air made her very drowsy, and the steady forward motion of the sleigh was like the lulling of a cradle. He began to sing again almost immediately, though in a subdued key, and still about “Kelly’s Cat.” But he took scant pleasure in the song; half of its fun lay in hearing the laughter it always evoked, and he missed her silvery merriment. To sing a comic song just for one’s own amusement is rather dreary work, after all. Everything is better when it is shared; a laugh is always jollier, and even the heaviest sorrow will grow lighter at a true word of sympathy.

He did not complete the history of the celebrated combat, therefore, but after a few lines brought it to a close and began something else. Then, before he knew it, a song that had lived in the background of his memory for many years found its way, for the little child’s sake, to his lips. Curiously enough it didn’t seem to him that he was singing it, for through the words he could hear his mother’s worn voice carrying the tune forward, and his own voice, the best in all the country round for trolling out a drinking catch or some fantastic rigamarole set to music, grew so tender that the roisterers at Wistar’s, or up at Merle, would never have recognized it. But if they could have heard him they wouldn’t have laughed; the song would have been like a little key unlocking the gates of childhood; even if the words had been unfamiliar to them the sweet sounds would have taken them back.

After he had finished singing he sat very still, one hand holding the reins, the other resting gently on the warm little bundle at his side; but his thoughts were far back in that distant past where, because of his light heart, he only dwelt on the golden spots—and his nature had made many such. Then he began to build some castles in that dear, impossible, ever-true country where one may rear the most beautiful houses and have them ready to be lived in in the wink of an eye; where there are never any vexing questions of rent, or taxes, and one doesn’t have to bother about gas, or electricity (such a wonderful lighting system as they have there, by the way!), and there are never any repairs to be made. Perhaps a prosaically minded architect would never have called Terry’s dream-house a castle, but such sober matter-of-factness is not to be envied. Very much happier are the people who live in the clouds at times, though they do have many a tumble to earth, than the ones who never see things through the rose-colored glasses of fancy, but plod along in the dull light of a common grayness.

Terry belonged to the first kind, and because his mind was still full of the nonsense he had uttered to his companion he began to build a beautiful palace where the dreams of little children could come true. On every side he could see their wishes written plainly, sometimes in copy-book writing, sometimes in big print, and sometimes again in those funny, wavering uphill lines that Santa Claus never fails to read. And everywhere he could hear merry laughter and shouts, and the sounds of scrambling, racing feet. It was a beautiful palace! He chuckled to himself, seeing it so distinctly, and then, suddenly—very suddenly—just in front of him, a trifle at one side of the road, stood a small, square house of the sort that your eminently practical, no-thought-of-beauty contractor would build. Terry’s hand, reins and all, went up to his eyes to clear the mist from before them. Impossible! He knew the country as well as Danny and Whitefoot, and he knew, too, that no such house stood there; the shantymen’s hut, the only human habitation for miles, was still some distance off. He looked again sharply, convinced that in the darkening land some snow-covered tree had taken on the likeness to a building. And he was quite right—there was no house.

The bells smote the air sullenly and soberly as the horses started once more on their patient, even course; they did not merit the sharp flap of the reins on their backs,—they were doing their best. Terry tried to go on with his dreams, but the thread of fancy once broken is hard to recover; he caught bravely at it—and there stood the house again, square, squat, unpicturesque, with the low stable at one side connected by the covered way, as is the custom in cold countries. He rubbed his eyes, and it was gone again—they had driven right through it! He laughed, but not gayly. Two parts of him seemed to be dreaming—the one that built a castle for little children, the other that thought of solemn, elderly folk. He began to sing:

It was no use! The house was quite near him again, with its chimney breathing out a soft little line of smoke, and its tin roof dull in the level light—the roof that had flashed like a reproving eye hours earlier. And then he knew! He turned and looked back fearfully. As far as he could see there was no sign of life; before him it was the same tale—even the house his fancy had conjured up had vanished. It was very still save for the bells on his horses, and they were not clinking merrily just then, only giving out a monotonous jog-trot sound that did not deafen him to the faint voice crying very far away: “Dear my little own, where are you?” He shivered among his furs, still looking back, and sobbingly the words came again: “Dear my little own, where are you?”

Danny and Whitefoot pawed the snow uneasily. Merle was still distant, and they were anxious to be at rest; they even determined to pull more steadily, more swiftly; they had been saving their best wind for that, but the hand on the reins kept them still.

“Och! wurra, wurra, that iver I shtooped to desate,” the old man murmured. “What will I do wid juty sayin’ ‘go forrard,’ an’ juty sayin’ ‘go back’? ’Tis most thirty miles from the shantymen’s hut to that lonely little house, an’ I can’t take the journey over ag’in. Whist there, mither, wid your callin’ to the colleen, or ’tis cracked me heart will be intoirely. Aisy now! the voice av you is far away loike, an’ yet ’tis plain as thunder in me ears. Sure, I thought the fun av the wurrld was in this thing, an’ I meant no harm at all—whist there, mither dear! They do be waitin’ fer me up at Merle,—thim an’ the Christmas fun—an’ Christmas only comin’ wanst a year!—an’ there’s the wager besides. Och! wurra, wurra, what will I do? I must go on, but ’tisn’t wid me the darlint can be goin’.”

He recognized that very clearly now when it was almost too late. His home as the child dreamed of it and his home as it really was were two very different things. He couldn’t take her to the tavern at Merle, with its rough, carousing crowd—such fun was not for her—and he had nowhere else to go. Then he thought of the road ever getting darker and darker, of the frozen lake with its treacherous ice that he must cross, of the night growing colder—he knew how to keep himself warm, but it was another matter where she was concerned. And when he went driving into Merle to claim his bet his hand might not be steady—that had happened so often before! and there was that ugly bit just below the tavern, where even the most careful driver must pick his way warily; but with a little child—the thought made him giddy. No—no—no—he couldn’t take her with him, that was impossible! And equally he saw, because he knew himself so well, he couldn’t take her back to her mother’s longing arms. He couldn’t go back! He sat quite still, turning over different plans in his mind, while the precious minutes slipped by unheeded. Finally his brow cleared a trifle. There was but one solution to the difficulty—the lumbermen might help him—must help him; he would see that they had no choice in the matter. As he reached this decision some of his old reckless daring came back to him; but he bore himself in a shamefaced fashion, and with none of his usual jauntiness, though he straightened his shoulders, and tried to appear unconcerned. He began to whistle, too, as if to silence the wailing cry that still pursued the sleigh—he would not let himself listen.

“Och! child,” he said, looking down at the little maid, “’tis sorry I am fer ye, darlint, but ’twill all come right in the mornin’—throubles always do. Whist now! ’tis sorriest I am fer mesilf, since I can’t help mesilf at all—I bein’ what I am, ye see.”

He put his hand into his coat, and though his fingers came in contact with the flat bottle, they did not draw it forth; they groped farther, past the inner coat and beneath the blouse, to something that hung against his chest suspended from a cord. When he brought out his hand it held a dingy little bag. He stripped off the outer covering, disclosing a cheap gilt locket and the half of a broken sixpence. With shaking fingers he took a wisp of hair from the trinket, and wrapping it up again thrust it back into his breast; but the locket and the coin he folded in a bit of newspaper, and stooped once more to the child.

“Sure, it ain’t a dolly that will shut its eyes, mavourneen, that I do be givin’ ye fer a Christmas gift,” he whispered; “but mebbe ye’ll like it fer the sake av wan as loved it. An’ God Almighty an’ all the howly saints bless ye feriver an’ iver, amin.”

She stirred at his touch and opened her eyes, misty still with sleep. For a moment she looked at him in some doubt, then, as she struggled into a sitting position, she laughed gayly.

“Oh! it’s really and truly you.” Her glance swept their surroundings. “And are we home now—at your very home? Is that it?”

The walls of the lumbermen’s hut showed indistinctly through the clearing. It was almost dark; the night that comes swiftly in the north lands was folding its mantle like a great soft wing over the whole country, though in the west there was still a faint streak of rose, as if the day was sorry to go, and so it lingered in that little tender time between the lights, when one can dream best of all.

“Is that home?” she asked again, very softly.

“Listen, Swateheart. But first take this wee packidge—Aisy, now! ye mustn’t fale the edges—an’ shtow it away in your pocket if ye have wan; ’tis not to be looked at, nor so much as prodded, mind ye, till sunrise to-morry. Remimber! An’ second—faith, me second is hardest fer me, fer ’tis good-by I must be sayin’.”

Her lip trembled.

“But I’m goin’ with you all the way,” she declared stoutly.

“Sure, an’ I wish it from me heart, only ’tis partin’ we must be. Ye see ye can go on, an’ Danny an’ Whitefut will be proud to draw ye; but ’tis ’most night, an’ the way gets bad up yonder, an’ there’s the lake to cross, an’ I’m not always the stiddy driver—to me shame be it said—”

“I’d sit very still—”

“An’ ’twill be cold, bitther cold! Thin I’ve been thinkin’, I didn’t tell ye this afore; but no child has iver seen me house—’tis a thing av drames (an’ sure that’s the truth!). Whisper now, cud ye see it, it wud all split to smither-eens wid a crack like doom. An’ where wud I be thin? The folks wud have to do widout me, I’m thinkin’—”

“The little children—us?” she asked round-eyed.

“That wud be the size av it. Av coorse ye could kape on wid the dep-puties; I’ve trained thim well, an’ the spirit av Christmas niver dies, the givin’ an’ the lovin’, fer the Lord made thim in his own imidge. But ye’d be missin’ me, ye know.”

She was very still, the little pucker showing between her anxious brows.

“I’ve an iligint plan. Yon’s a foine place to spind the night, an’ iv’rything will come right in the mornin’. Oh! ye’ll see. An’ ye’ll hang up your shtockin’ same as usuwil; but first ye must put that bit there down in the toe av it, an’ ’twill be Merry Christmas all ’round. Will ye tell me good-by now, swateheart, an’ let me go on to kape me wurrd that I’ve been afther passin’ sacred-loike?”

“Yes,” she said gravely. “I wanted to see Vixen and Oncome-it close, but I’ll let you go, ’count o’ the children, ev’rywheres.”

He lifted her gently to the ground, and she stood quietly at one side while he tumbled out the barrel and the bags from the back of the sleigh with great caution. He could not stay for a word; already he had much time to make up, and discussion of any sort, hospitality even, would retard him. The light had quite disappeared from the west, and a few pale stars—God’s candles, he called them—were beginning to kindle in the dark above. He stooped to her.

“Whin I’m gone, Cushla machree, ye’ll go to the door an’ they’ll let ye in—they’re foine fellies. ’Tis but a shtep up there annyhow; ye can’t niver miss it—see, where the rid light shows t’rough the cracks. An’ ye’ll not ferget me, little wan?”

“No—no,” she choked.

He caught her in his arms and kissed her; but though he held her very close, he could not see her face well because of the misty curtain that had dropped suddenly before his eyes. In that moment he realized how far, how very far, below her thought of him he really was. He put her down almost roughly, detaching the little clinging fingers with scant tenderness, and sprang into the sleigh. An instant, from that vantage point, he looked her way; then Danny and Whitefoot, surprised into using their best wind by a fierce sting of the whip, dashed into the dark, their bells swinging out a sharp, tremulous cry of bronze that cut the air like a knife.

“Good-by,” she called in a breaking voice.

And back from the distance came the answer:

“Good-by, little swateheart. God love ye an’—”

She stood waiting, listening to the bells that grew faint and fainter until they were like a chime from Fairyland; when at last her loving ears could hear them no longer she turned and trotted obediently to the house. The door was closed, but a narrow thread of light glimmered warmly at the sill, and a tiny fiery eye peeped out half way up the dark surface. She struck the wood with her little clinched fist; struck it once, then again—a twig snapping off in the teeth of the frost would have sounded louder.

From within there came the noise of many voices and great bursts of laughter, but no lessening of the merriment made room for her appeal.