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.