s weary;
and my own heart wearies also for the home in England, where those I
love are keeping feast this Christmas-eve. But we have work to do before
we feast to-night. For this is the Yuletide, and the heathen people of
the forest are gathered at the thunder-oak of Geismar to worship their
god, Thor. Strange things will be seen there, and deeds which make the
soul black. But we are sent to lighten their darkness; and we will teach
our kinsmen to keep a Christmas with us such as the woodland has never
known. Forward, then, and stiffen up the feeble knees!"

A murmur of assent came from the men. Even the horses seemed to take
fresh heart. They flattened their backs to draw the heavy loads, and
blew the frost from their nostrils as they pushed ahead.

The night grew broader and less oppressive. A gate of brightness was
opened secretly somewhere in the sky. Higher and higher swelled the
clear moon-flood, until it poured over the eastern wall of forest into
the road. A drove of wolves howled faintly in the distance, but they
were receding, and the sound soon died away. The stars sparkled merrily
through the stringent air; the small, round moon shone like silver;
little breaths of dreaming wind wandered across the pointed fir-tops,
as the pilgrims toiled bravely onward, following their clew of light
through a labyrinth of darkness.

After a while the road began to open out a little. There were spaces of
meadow-land, fringed with alders, behind which a boisterous river ran
clashing through spears of ice.

Rude houses of hewn logs appeared in the openings, each one casting a
patch of inky shadow upon the snow. Then the travellers passed a larger
group of dwellings, all silent and unlighted; and beyond, they saw a
great house, with many outbuildings and inclosed courtyards, from which
the hounds bayed furiously, and a noise of stamping horses came from
the stalls. But there was no other sound of life. The fields around lay
naked to the moon. They saw no man, except that once, on a path that
skirted the farther edge of a meadow, three dark figures passed them,
running very swiftly.

Then the road plunged again into a dense thicket, traversed it, and
climbing to the left, emerged suddenly upon a glade, round and level
except at the northern side, where a hillock was crowned with a huge
oak-tree. It towered above the heath, a giant with contorted arms,
beckoning to the host of lesser trees. "Here," cried Winfried, as
his ey