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There, far from the village street, and except at very long intervals, from the jingle of sleigh-bells, I slid and skated, as in a vast moose-yard well trodden, overhung by oak woods and solemn pines bent down with snow or bristling with icicles.
After the merry din the house seemed very still, with only a light step now and then, the murmur of voices not far away, or the jingle of sleigh-bells from without, and the little girl rested easily among the pillows, thinking over the pleasures of the day, too wide-awake for sleep.
At that instant a sound of voices broke on the stillness of the night; it came from behind the mansion in the direction of the pine woods. "Kitty is ill," faltered Betty. "I am taking her home do not, I pray you, detain me oh, there is Pompey" as the welcome sound of sleigh-bells rang out on the frosty air. "Geoffrey, Geoffrey, let me go!"
'Where is the labourer whom I saw working on the farm? 'Gone away; discharged last week. Papa said he couldn't afford to pay him any longer. That's why Reginald went out to chop to-day. Oh, Linda, I wish somebody came. He is lying so white and still: are you sure he is not dead? His head was on the little sister's lap, and Linda chafed the temples with snow. Would the sleigh-bells ever be heard?
'A nobleman does not give up a dance for a business interview. 'Then he will sell without it. 'Or put you off. 'I have no time for that. The facade of the manor-house glowed as in a bengal light; the sleigh-bells were still tinkling in the yard, where the coachmen were quarrelling over accommodation for their horses.
The snow on the road caught the muffled rays of light, and she could see her way quite well after her eyes grew accustomed to the darkness. There was a close, protecting feeling about the gray darkness that suited her mood. It was a comfortable, companionable night, with a soft air full of pleasant sounds of dogs barking, and sleigh-bells, and with the lights in the neighbors' houses for company.
The sleigh-bells began to jingle again and never ceased, turning into that infernal ringing that had become firmly fixed in Frederick's head since the shipwreck. "I am dying," he thought when he reached his room. "I am dying, or else I am going crazy." The clock on the wall came into his vision and receded again. He saw his bed and clutched for the post.
The Little Chemist looked at him nervously again and again, listened towards the door, fingered with his tumbler, and at last hearing the sound of sleigh-bells, suddenly came to his feet, and said: "Voila, I will go to my wife." And catching up his cap, and forgetting his overcoat, he trotted away home in a fright. What Medallion did or said to Secord that night neither ever told.
It seemed as if every blade of grass must hide a cigale; and the fields rang merrily with their music, jingling far and near as with the sleigh-bells of the fairy queen. From their station on the slope the eye embraced a large space of poplar'd plain upon the one hand, the waving hill-tops of the forest on the other, and Gretz itself in the middle, a handful of roofs.
Along the turnpike sleigh-bells were borne hither and thither by rushing horses; and the shouts of young men on fire to their marrow went echoing across the shining valleys. Christmas Day! Christmas Day! Christmas Day!
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