tree-trolls; they bowed
their heads so that their wicked eyes were no longer visible, and
drew in their claws under spruce needles and snow. When the last
measure of the first stanza died away, no one could have told that
there was anything besides ordinary old spruce trees on the forest
heights.

The torches that had lighted the Ashdales folk through the woods
were burned out when they came to the highroad; but here they went
on, guided by the lights from peasant huts. When one house was out
of sight, they glimpsed another in the distance, and every house
along the road had candles burning at all the windows, to guide the
poor wanderers on their way to church.

At last they came to a hillock, from which the church could be
seen. There stood the House of God, like acme gigantic lantern,
light streaming out through all Its windows. When the foot-farers
saw this, they held their breath. After all the little,
low-windowed huts they had passed along the way, the church looked
marvellously big and marvellously bright.

At sight of the sacred edifice Jan fell to thinking about some poor
folk in Palestine, who had wandered In the night from Bethlehem to
Jerusalem with a child, their only comfort and joy, who was to be
circumcised in the Temple of the Holy City. These parents had to
grope their way in the darkness of night, for there were many who
sought the life of their child.

The people from the Ashdales had left home at an surly hour, so as
to reach the church ahead of those who drove thither. But when they
were quite near the church grounds, sleighs, with foaming horses
and jingling bells, went flying past, forcing the poor foot-farers
to fake to the snow banks, at the edge of the road.

Jan now carried the child. He was continually dodging vehicles, for
the tramp along the road had become very difficult. But before them
lay the shining temple; if they could only get to it they would be
sheltered, and safe from harm.

Suddenly, from behind, there came a deafening noise of clanging
bells and clamping hoofs. A huge sledge, drawn by two horses, was
coming. On the front seat sat a young gentleman, in a fur coat and
a high fur cap, and his young wife. The gentleman was driving;
behind him stood his coachman, holding a burning torch so high that
the draft blew the flame backward, leaving in its wake a long trail
of smoke and flying sparks.

Jan, with the child in his arms, stood at the edge of the snowbank.
All at