The Were-Wolf | Page 9

courage to guide the frightened search.
Rol was never found, nor any trace of him. Where he had perished was
never known; how he had perished was known only by an awful
guess--a wild beast had devoured him.
Christian heard the conjecture "a wolf"; and a horrible certainty flashed
upon him that he knew what wolf it was. He tried to declare what he
knew, but Sweyn saw him start at the words with white face and
struggling lips; and, guessing his purpose, pulled him back, and kept
him silent, hardly, by his imperious grip and wrathful eyes, and one
low whisper.
That Christian should retain his most irrational suspicion against

beautiful White Fell was, to Sweyn, evidence of a weak obstinacy of
mind that would but thrive upon expostulation and argument. But this
evident intention to direct the passions of grief and anguish to a hatred
and fear of the fair stranger, such as his own, was intolerable, and
Sweyn set his will against it. Again Christian yielded to his brother's
stronger words and will, and against his own judgment consented to
silence.
Repentance came before the new moon, the first of the year, was old.
White Fell came again, smiling as she entered, as though assured of a
glad and kindly welcome; and, in truth, there was only one who saw
again her fair face and strange white garb without pleasure. Sweyn's
face glowed with delight, while Christian's grew pale and rigid as death.
He had given his word to keep silence; but he had not thought that she
would dare to come again. Silence was impossible, face to face with
that Thing, impossible. Irrepressibly he cried out:
"Where is Rol?"
Not a quiver disturbed White Fell's face. She heard, yet remained bright
and tranquil. Sweyn's eyes flashed round at his brother dangerously.
Among the women some tears fell at the poor child's name; but none
caught alarm from its sudden utterance, for the thought of Rol rose
naturally. Where was little Rol, who had nestled in the stranger's arms,
kissing her; and watched for her since; and prattled of her daily?
Christian went out silently. One only thing there was that he could do,
and he must not delay. His horror overmastered any curiosity to hear
White Fell's smooth excuses and smiling apologies for her strange and
uncourteous departure; or her easy tale of the circumstances of her
return; or to watch her bearing as she heard the sad tale of little Rol.
The swiftest runner of the country-side had started on his hardest race:
little less than three leagues and back, which he reckoned to accomplish
in two hours, though the night was moonless and the way rugged. He
rushed against the still cold air till it felt like a wind upon his face. The
dim homestead sank below the ridges at his back, and fresh ridges of
snowlands rose out of the obscure horizon-level to drive past him as the

stirless air drove, and sink away behind into obscure level again. He
took no conscious heed of landmarks, not even when all sign of a path
was gone under depths of snow. His will was set to reach his goal with
unexampled speed; and thither by instinct his physical forces bore him,
without one definite thought to guide.
And the idle brain lay passive, inert, receiving into its vacancy restless
siftings of past sights and sounds: Rol, weeping, laughing, playing,
coiled in the arms of that dreadful Thing: Tyr--O Tyr!--white fangs in
the black jowl: the women who wept on The foolish puppy, precious
for the child's last touch: footprints from pine wood to door: the smiling
face among furs, of such womanly beauty--smiling--smiling: and
Sweyn's face.
"Sweyn, Sweyn, O Sweyn, my brother!"
Sweyn's angry laugh possessed his ear within the sound of the wind of
his speed; Sweyn's scorn assailed more quick and keen than the biting
cold at his throat. And yet he was unimpressed by any thought of how
Sweyn's anger and scorn would rise, if this errand were known.
Sweyn was a sceptic. His utter disbelief in Christian's testimony
regarding the footprints was based upon positive scepticism. His reason
refused to bend in accepting the possibility of the supernatural
materialised. That a living beast could ever be other than palpably
bestial--pawed, toothed, shagged, and eared as such, was to him
incredible; far more that a human presence could be transformed from
its god-like aspect, upright, free-handed, with brows, and speech, and
laughter. The wild and fearful legends that he had known from
childhood and then believed, he regarded now as built upon facts
distorted, overlaid by imagination, and quickened by superstition. Even
the strange summons at the threshold, that he himself had vainly
answered, was, after the first shock of surprise, rationally explained