"Werewolf" - читать интересную книгу автора (Housman Clarence)

shifting of the bright tools. Now and then, minute chips of wood,
puffed off by Sweyn, fell down upon his face. At last he raised
himself, very gently, lest a jog should wake impatience in the
carver, and crossing his own legs round Sweyn's ankle, clasping
with his arms too, laid his head against the knee. Such act is
evidence of a child's most wonderful hero-worship. Quite content
when Sweyn paused a minute to joke, and pat his head and pull his
curls. Quiet he remained, as long as quiescence is possible to limbs
young as his. Sweyn forgot he was near, hardly noticed when his
leg was gently released, and never saw the stealthy abstraction of
one of his tools.

Ten minutes thereafter was a lamentable wail from low on the
floor, rising to the full pitch of Rol's healthy lungs; for his hand
was gashed across, and the copious bleeding terrified him. Then
was there soothing and comforting, washing and binding, and a
modicum of scolding, till the loud outcry sank into occasional
sobs, and the child, tear-stained and subdued, was returned to the
chimney-corner settle, where Trella nodded.

In the reaction after pain and fright, Rol found that the quiet of that
fire-lit corner was to his mind. Tyr, too, disdained him no longer,
but, roused by his sobs, showed all the concern and sympathy that
a dog can by licking and wistful watching. A little shame weighed
also upon his spirits. He wished he had not cried quite so much. He
remembered how once Sweyn had come home with his arm torn
down from the shoulder, and a dead bear; and how he had never
winced nor said a word, though his lips turned white with pain.
Poor little Rol gave another sighing sob over his own faint-hearted
shortcomings.

The light and motion of the great fire began to tell strange stories
to the child, and the wind in the chimney roared a corroborative
note now and then. The great black mouth of the chimney,
impending high over the hearth, received as into a mysterious gulf
murky coils of smoke and brightness of aspiring sparks; and
beyond, in the high darkness, were muttering and wailing and
strange doings, so that sometimes the smoke rushed back in panic,
and curled out and up to the roof, and condensed itself to
invisibility among the rafters. And then the wind would rage after
its lost prey, and rush round the house, rattling and shrieking at
window and door.

In a lull, after one such loud gust, Rol lifted his head in surprise
and listened. A lull had also come on the babel of talk, and thus
could be heard with strange distinctness a sound outside the door
the sound of a child's voice, a child's hands. 'Open, open; let me
in!' piped the little voice from low down, lower than the handle,
and the latch rattled as though a tiptoe child reached up to it, and
soft small knocks were struck. One near the door sprang up and