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

opened it. 'No one is here,' he said. Tyr lifted his head and gave
utterance to a howl, loud, prolonged, most dismal.

Sweyn, not able to believe that his ears had deceived him, got up
and went to the door. It was a dark night; the clouds were heavy
with snow, that had fallen fitfully when the wind lulled. Untrodden
snow lay up to the porch; there was no sight nor sound of any
human being. Sweyn strained his eyes far and near, only to see
dark sky, pure snow, and a line of black fir trees on a hill brow,
bowing down before the wind. 'It must have been the wind,' he
said, and closed the door.

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.