reached
up to it, and soft small knocks were struck. One near the door
sprang up and opened it. "No one is here," he said. Tyr lifted his
head and gave utterance to a howl, loud, prolonged, most dismal.

Sweyn, not able to believe that his ears had deceived him, got up
and went to the door. It was a dark night; the clouds were heavy
with snow, that had fallen fitfully when the wind lulled.
Untrodden snow lay up to the porch; there was no sight nor sound
of any human being. Sweyn strained his eyes far and near, only to
see dark sky, pure snow, and a line of black fir trees on a hill
brow, bowing down before the wind. "It must have been the wind,"
he said, and closed the door.

Many faces looked scared. The sound of a child's voice had been so
distinct--and the words "Open, open; let me in!" The wind might
creak the wood, or rattle the latch, but could not speak with a
child's voice, nor knock with the soft plain blows that a plump
fist gives. And the strange unusual howl of the wolf-hound was an
omen to be feared, be the rest what it might. Strange things were
said by one and another, till the rebuke of the house-mistress
quelled them into far-off whispers. For a time after there was
uneasiness, constraint, and silence; then the chill fear thawed by
degrees, and the babble of talk flowed on again.

Yet half-an-hour later a very slight noise outside the door
sufficed to arrest every hand, every tongue. Every head was
raised, every eye fixed in one direction. "It is Christian; he is
late," said Sweyn.

No, no; this is a feeble shuffle, not a young man's tread. With
the sound of uncertain feet came the hard tap-tap of a stick
against the door, and the high-pitched voice of eld, "Open, open;
let me in!" Again Tyr flung up his head in a long doleful howl.

Before the echo of the tapping stick and the high voice had fairly
died away, Sweyn had sprung across to the door and flung it wide.
"No one again," he said in a steady voice, though his eyes looked
startled as he stared out. He saw the lonely expanse of snow, the
clouds swagging low, and between the two the line of dark
fir-trees bowing in the wind. He closed the door without a word of
comment, and re-crossed the room.

A score of blanched faces were turned to him as though he must be
solver of the enigma. He could not be unconscious of this mute
eye-questioning, and it disturbed his resolute air of composure.
He hesitated, glanced towards his mother, the house-mi