The Carol

by Arthur Quiller-Couch

　　

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I was fourteen that Christmas:--all Veryan parish knows the date ofthe famous "Black Winter," when the Johann brig came ashore onKibberick beach, with a dozen foreigners frozen stiff and staring onher fore-top, and Lawyer Job, up at Ruan, lost all his lambs but two.There was neither rhyme nor wit in the season; and up to St. Thomas'seve, when it first started to freeze, the folk were thinking thatsummer meant to run straight into spring. I mind the ash being inleaf on Advent Sunday, and a crowd of martins skimming round thechurch windows during sermon-time. Each morning brought blue sky,warm mists, and a dew that hung on the brambles till ten o'clock.The frogs were spawning in the pools; primroses were out by scores,and monthly roses blooming still; and Master shot a goat-sucker onthe last day in November. All this puzzled the sheep, I suppose, andgave them a notion that their time, too, was at hand. At any ratethe lambs fell early; and when they fell, it had turned to perishingcold.That Christmas-eve, while the singers were up at the house and thefiddles going like mad, it was a dismal time for two of us. LabanPascoe, the hind, spent his night in the upper field where the sheeplay, while I spent mine in the chall[1] looking after Dinah, ourAlderney, that had slipped her calf in the afternoon--being promisedthe castling's skin for a Sunday waistcoat, if I took care of themother. Bating the cold air that came under the door, I kept prettycosy, what with the straw-bands round my legs and the warm breath ofthe cows: for we kept five. There was no wind outside, but moonlightand a still, frozen sky, like a sounding board: so that every note ofthe music reached me, with the bleat of Laban's sheep far up thehill, and the waves' wash on the beaches below. Inside the chall theonly sounds were the slow chewing of the cows, the rattle of atethering-block, now and then, or a moan from Dinah. Twice theuproar from the house coaxed me to the door to have a look at Laban'sscarlet lantern moving above, and make sure that he was worse offthan I. But mostly I lay still on my straw in the one empty stallstaring into the foggy face of my own lantern, thinking of thewaistcoat, and listening.I was dozing, belike, when a light tap on the door made me start up,rubbing my eyes."Merry Christmas, Dick!"A little head, bright with tumbled curls, was thrust in, and a pairof round eyes stared round the chall, then back to me, and rested onmy face."Merry Christmas, little mistress.""Dick--if you tell, I'll never speak to you again. I only wanted tosee if 'twas true."She stepped inside the chall, shutting the door behind her.Under one arm she hugged a big boy-doll, dressed like a sailor--fromthe Christmas-tree, I guessed--and a bright tinsel star was pinned onthe shoulder of her bodice. She had come across the cold town-placein her muslin frock, with no covering for her shoulders; and themanner in which that frock was hitched upon her made me stare."I got out of bed again and dressed myself," she explained. "Nurseis in the kitchen, dancing with the young man from Penare, who can'tafford to marry her for ever so long, father says. I saw themtwirling, as I slipped out--""You have done a wrong thing," said I: "you might catch your death."Her lip fell:--she was but five. "Dick, I only wanted to see if'twas true.""What?" I asked, covering her shoulders with the empty sack that hadbeen my pillow."Why, that the cows pray on Christmas-eve. Nurse says that at twelveo'clock to-night all the cows in their stalls will be on their knees,if only somebody is there to see. So, as it's near twelve by thetall clock indoors, I've come to see," she wound up."It's quig-nogs, I expect. I never heard of it.""Nurse says they kneel and make a cruel moan, like any Christianfolk. It's because Christ was born in a stable, and so the cows knowall about it. Listen to Dinah! Dick, she's going to begin!"But Dinah, having heaved her moan, merely shuddered and was stillagain."Just fancy, Dick," the little one went on, "it happened in a challlike ours!" She was quiet for a moment, her eyes fixed on the glossyrumps of the cows. Then, turning quickly--"I know about it, and I'llshow you. Dick, you must be Saint Joseph, and I'll be the VirginMary. Wait a bit--"Her quick fingers began to undress the sailor-doll and fold hisclothes carefully. "I meant to christen him Robinson Crusoe," sheexplained, as she laid the small garments, one by one, on the straw;"but he can't be Robinson Crusoe till I've dressed him up again."The doll was stark naked now, with waxen face and shoulders, andbulging bags of sawdust for body and legs."Dick," she said, folding the doll in her arms and kissing it--"St. Joseph, I mean--the first thing we've got to do is to let peopleknow he's born. Sing that carol I heard you trying over last week--the one that says 'Far and far I carry it.'"So I sang, while she rocked the babe:--

　　'Naked boy, brown boy,In the snow deep,Piping, carollingFolks out of sleep;Little shoes, thin shoes,Shoes so wet and worn'--'But I bring the merry news--Christ is born!Rise, pretty mistress,In your smock of silk;Give me for my good newsBread and new milk.Joy, joy in Jewry,This very morn!Far and far I carry it--Christ is born!'

　　She heard me with a grave face to the end; then pulling a handful ofstraw, spread it in the empty manger and laid the doll there. No, Iforget; one moment she held it close to her breast and looked down onit. The God who fashions children can tell where she learnt thatlook, and why I remembered it ten years later, when they let me lookinto the room where she lay with another babe in her clay-cold arms."Count forty," she went on, using the very words of Pretty Tommy, ourparish clerk: "count forty, and let fly with 'Now draw around--'"

　　"Now draw around, good Christian men,And rest you worship-ping--"

　　We sang the carol softly together, she resting one hand on the edgeof the manger."Dick, ain't you proud of him? I don't see the spiders beginning,though.""The spiders?""Dick, you're very ig-norant. Everybody knows that, when Christwas laid in a manger, the spiders came and spun their webs over Himand hid Him. That's why King Herod couldn't find Him.""There, now! We live and learn," said I."Well, now there's nothing to do but sit down and wait for the wisemen and the shepherds."It was a little while that she watched, being long over-tired.The warm air of the chall weighed on her eyelids; and, as theyclosed, her head sank on my shoulder. For ten minutes I sat,listening to her breathing. Dinah rose heavily from her bed and laydown again, with a long sigh; another cow woke up and rattled herrope a dozen times through its ring; up at the house the fiddlinggrew more furious; but the little maid slept on. At last I wrappedthe sack closely round her, and lifting her in my arms, carried herout into the night. She was my master's daughter, and I had not thecourage to kiss so much as her hair. Yet I had no envy for thedancers, then.As we passed into the cold air she stirred. "Did they come? Andwhere are you carrying me?" Then, when I told her, "Dick, I willnever speak to you again, if you don't carry me first to the gate ofthe upper field."So I carried her to the gate, and sitting up in my arms she calledtwice:"Laban--Laban!""What cheer--O?" the hind called back. His lantern was a spark onthe hill-side, and he could not tell the voice at that distance."Have you seen him?""Wha-a-a-t?""The angel of the Lo-o-ord!""Wha-a-a-t?""I'm afraid we can't make him understand," she whispered."Hush; don't shout!" For a moment, she seemed to consider; and thenher shrill treble quavered out on the frosty air, my own deeper voicetaking up the second line--

　　"The first' Nowell' the angel did sayWas to certain poor shepherds, in fields as they lay,--In fields as they lay, a-tending their sheep,On a cold winters night that was so deep--Nowell! Nowell!Christ is born in Israel!"

　　Our voices followed our shadows across the gate and far up the field,where Laban's sheep lay dotted. What Laban thought of it I cannottell: but to me it seemed, for the moment, that the shepherd amonghis ewes, the dancers within the house, the sea beneath us, and thestars in their courses overhead moved all to one tune,--the carol oftwo children on the hill-side.[1] Cow-house.

　　THE END.

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