[TO MISS MARGOT TENNANT -MRS.ASQUITH]
Once upon a time two poor Woodcutters were ****** their way home through a great pine-forest.It was winter,and a night of bitter cold.The snow lay thick upon the ground,and upon the branches of the trees:the frost kept snapping the little twigs on either side of them,as they passed:and when they came to the Mountain-Torrent she was hanging motionless in air,for the Ice-King had kissed her.
So cold was it that even the animals and the birds did not know what to make of it.
'Ugh!'snarled the Wolf,as he limped through the brushwood with his tail between his legs,'this is perfectly monstrous weather.
Why doesn't the Government look to it?'
'Weet!weet!weet!'twittered the green Linnets,'the old Earth is dead and they have laid her out in her white shroud.'
'The Earth is going to be married,and this is her bridal dress,'
whispered the Turtle-doves to each other.Their little pink feet were quite frost-bitten,but they felt that it was their duty to take a romantic view of the situation.
'Nonsense!'growled the Wolf.'I tell you that it is all the fault of the Government,and if you don't believe me I shall eat you.'
The Wolf had a thoroughly practical mind,and was never at a loss for a good argument.
'Well,for my own part,'said the Woodpecker,who was a born philosopher,'I don't care an atomic theory for explanations.If a thing is so,it is so,and at present it is terribly cold.'
Terribly cold it certainly was.The little Squirrels,who lived inside the tall fir-tree,kept rubbing each other's noses to keep themselves warm,and the Rabbits curled themselves up in their holes,and did not venture even to look out of doors.The only people who seemed to enjoy it were the great horned Owls.Their feathers were quite stiff with rime,but they did not mind,and they rolled their large yellow eyes,and called out to each other across the forest,'Tu-whit!Tu-whoo!Tu-whit!Tu-whoo!what delightful weather we are having!'
On and on went the two Woodcutters,blowing lustily upon their fingers,and stamping with their huge iron-shod boots upon the caked snow.Once they sank into a deep drift,and came out as white as millers are,when the stones are grinding;and once they slipped on the hard smooth ice where the marsh-water was frozen,and their faggots fell out of their bundles,and they had to pick them up and bind them together again;and once they thought that they had lost their way,and a great terror seized on them,for they knew that the Snow is cruel to those who sleep in her arms.
But they put their trust in the good Saint Martin,who watches over all travellers,and retraced their steps,and went warily,and at last they reached the outskirts of the forest,and saw,far down in the valley beneath them,the lights of the village in which they dwelt.
So overjoyed were they at their deliverance that they laughed aloud,and the Earth seemed to them like a flower of silver,and the Moon like a flower of gold.
Yet,after that they had laughed they became sad,for they remembered their poverty,and one of them said to the other,'Why did we make merry,seeing that life is for the rich,and not for such as we are?Better that we had died of cold in the forest,or that some wild beast had fallen upon us and slain us.'
'Truly,'answered his companion,'much is given to some,and little is given to others.Injustice has parcelled out the world,nor is there equal division of aught save of sorrow.'
But as they were bewailing their misery to each other this strange thing happened.There fell from heaven a very bright and beautiful star.It slipped down the side of the sky,passing by the other stars in its course,and,as they watched it wondering,it seemed to them to sink behind a clump of willow-trees that stood hard by a little sheepfold no more than a stone's-throw away.
'Why!there is a crook of gold for whoever finds it,'they cried,and they set to and ran,so eager were they for the gold.
And one of them ran faster than his mate,and outstripped him,and forced his way through the willows,and came out on the other side,and lo!there was indeed a thing of gold lying on the white snow.
So he hastened towards it,and stooping down placed his hands upon it,and it was a cloak of golden tissue,curiously wrought with stars,and wrapped in many folds.And he cried out to his comrade that he had found the treasure that had fallen from the sky,and when his comrade had come up,they sat them down in the snow,and loosened the folds of the cloak that they might divide the pieces of gold.But,alas!no gold was in it,nor silver,nor,indeed,treasure of any kind,but only a little child who was asleep.
And one of them said to the other:'This is a bitter ending to our hope,nor have we any good fortune,for what doth a child profit to a man?Let us leave it here,and go our way,seeing that we are poor men,and have children of our own whose bread we may not give to another.'
But his companion answered him:'Nay,but it were an evil thing to leave the child to perish here in the snow,and though I am as poor as thou art,and have many mouths to feed,and but little in the pot,yet will I bring it home with me,and my wife shall have care of it.'
So very tenderly he took up the child,and wrapped the cloak around it to shield it from the harsh cold,and made his way down the hill to the village,his comrade marvelling much at his foolishness and softness of heart.
And when they came to the village,his comrade said to him,'Thou hast the child,therefore give me the cloak,for it is meet that we should share.'
But he answered him:'Nay,for the cloak is neither mine nor thine,but the child's only,'and he bade him Godspeed,and went to his own house and knocked.
And when his wife opened the door and saw that her husband had returned safe to her,she put her arms round his neck and kissed him,and took from his back the bundle of faggots,and brushed the snow off his boots,and bade him come in.