dder and madder as every sense of their
bearings slipped from them. And the bitter cold took their vitals, so as
they saw nothing but a great winding sheet stretched abroad for to wrap
their dead carcasses in.

"At last my grandfather he stopt and pulled hisself together with an
awful face, and says he: 'We're Christmas pie for the carrying-on crows
if we don't prove ourselves human. Let's fetch out our pipes and blow our
trouble into 'em.' So they stood together, like as if they was before a
house, and they played 'Kate of Aberdare' mighty dismal and flat, for
their fingers froze to the keys.

"Now, I tell you, they hadn't climbed over the first stave, when there
come a skirl of wind and spindrift of snow as almost took them off of
their feet; and, on the going down of it, Jem Sloke, as played the
hautboy, dropped the reed from his mouth, and called out, 'Sakes alive!
if we fools ain't been standin' outside a gentleman's gate all the time,
and not knowin' it!'

"You might 'a' knocked the three of 'em down wi' a barley straw, as they
stared and stared, and then fell into a low, enjoyin' laugh. For they was
standin' not six fut from a tall iron gate in a stone wall, and behind
these was a great house showin' out dim, with the winders all lighted up.

"'Lord!' chuckled my grandfather, 'to think o' the tricks o' this
vagarious country! But, as we're here, we'll go on and give 'em a taste
of our quality.'

"They put new heart into the next movement, as you may guess; and they
hadn't fair started on it, when the door of the house swung open, and
down the shaft of light that shot out as far as the gate there come a
smiling young gal, with a tray of glasses in her hands.

"Now she come to the bars; and she took and put a glass through, not
sayin' nothin', but invitin' some one to drink with a silent laugh.

"Did any one take that glass? Of course he did, you'll be thinkin'; and
you'll be thinkin' wrong. Not a man of the three moved. They was struck
like as stone, and their lips was gone the colour of sloe berries. Not a
man took the glass. For why? The moment the gal presented it, each saw
the face of a thing lookin' out of the winder over the porch, and the
face was hidjus beyond words, and the shadder of it, with the light
behind, stretched out and reached to the gal, and made her hidjus, too.

"At last my grandfather give a groan and put out his hand; and, as he did
it, the face went, and the gal was beautiful to se