The Were-Wolf | Page 3

and shrieking at
window and door.
In a lull, after one such loud gust, Rol lifted his head in surprise and
listened. A lull had also come on the babel of talk, and thus could be
heard with strange distinctness a sound outside the door--the sound of a
child's voice, a child's hands. "Open, open; let me in!" piped the little
voice from low down, lower than the handle, and the latch rattled as
though a tiptoe child 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-mistress, then back at
the frightened folk, and gravely, before them all, made the sign of the
cross. There was a flutter of hands as the sign was repeated by all, and
the dead silence was stirred as by a huge sigh, for the held breath of
many was freed as though the sign gave magic relief.
Even the house-mistress was perturbed. She left her wheel and crossed
the room to her son, and spoke with him for a moment in a low tone
that none could overhear. But a moment later her voice was
high-pitched and loud, so that all might benefit by her rebuke of the
"heathen chatter" of one of the girls. Perhaps she essayed to silence
thus her own misgivings and forebodings.
No other voice dared speak now with its natural fulness. Low tones
made intermittent murmurs, and now and then silence drifted over the

whole room. The handling of tools was as noiseless as might be, and
suspended on the instant if the door rattled in a gust of wind. After a
time Sweyn left his work, joined the group nearest the door, and
loitered there on the pretence of giving advice and help to the unskilful.
A man's tread was heard outside in the porch. "Christian!" said Sweyn
and his mother simultaneously, he confidently, she authoritatively, to
set the checked wheels going again. But Tyr flung up his head with an
appalling howl.
"Open, open; let me in!"
It was a man's voice, and the door shook and rattled as a man's strength
beat against it. Sweyn could feel the