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Updated: May 20, 2025
This time a faint prolonged sound like the wailing of a strange sea-creature was heard from within the house. McCurdie turned round, his teeth chattering. "Did ye hear that, Doyne?" "Perhaps it's a dog," said the Professor. Lord Doyne, the man of action, pushed them aside and tried the door-handle.
Look at this insensate welter of fools travelling in wild herds to disgusting places merely because it's Christmas!" "You seem to be travelling yourself, McCurdie," said Lord Doyne. "Yes and why the devil I'm doing it, I've not the faintest notion," replied Sir Angus. "It's going to be a beast of a journey," he remarked some moments later, as the train carried them slowly out of the station.
"I utterly refuse to walk ten miles through a Polar waste with a gouty foot," McCurdie declared wrathfully. The chauffeur offered a solution of the difficulty. He would set out alone for Foullis Castle five miles farther on was an inn where he could obtain a horse and trap and would return for the three gentlemen with another car.
And the three grave men stood over the wisp of flesh that had been born a male into the world. Then, their task being accomplished, reaction came, and even Doyne, who had seen death in many lands, turned faint. But the others, losing control of their nerves, shook like men stricken with palsy. Suddenly McCurdie cried in a high pitched voice, "My God!
"I never wanted to know the modern East," returned the Professor. "What is there in it of interest compared with the mighty civilizations that have gone before?" McCurdie took a pull from his flask. "I'm glad I thought of having a refill at Plymouth," said he. At last, after many stops at little lonely stations they arrived at Trehenna.
"Good Lord," said he, "it's twelve o'clock." "Christmas morning," said Biggleswade. "A strange Christmas," mused Doyne. McCurdie put up his hand. "There it is again! The beating of wings." And they listened like men spellbound.
Then McCurdie rose and met Biggleswade's eyes staring at him through the great round spectacles, and Biggleswade turned and met the eyes of Doyne. A pulsation like the beating of wings stirred the air. The three wise men shivered with a queer exaltation. Something strange, mystical, dynamic had happened. It was as if scales had fallen from their eyes and they saw with a new vision.
To escape from his immediate neighbourhood McCurdie went to the other end of the seat and faced Lord Doyne, who had resumed his gold glasses and his listless contemplation of obscure actresses. McCurdie lit a pipe, Doyne another black cigar. The train thundered on. Presently they all lunched together in the restaurant car.
A porter, laden with an incredible load of paraphernalia, trying to make his way through the press, happened to jostle Sir Angus McCurdie. He rubbed his shoulder fretfully. "Why the whole land should be turned into a bear garden on account of this exploded superstition of Christmas is one of the anomalies of modern civilization.
McCurdie no longer railed, Professor Biggleswade forgot the dangers of bronchitis, and Lord Doyne twisted the stump of a black cigar between his lips without any desire to relight it. A tiny electric lamp inside the hood made the darkness of the world to right and left and in front of the talc windows still darker. McCurdie and Biggleswade fell into a doze. Lord Doyne chewed the end of his cigar.
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