It was a pretty sight,
and a seasonable one, that met their eyes when they flung the door open. In the
fore-court, lit by the dim rays of a horn lantern, some eight or ten little
field mice stood in a semicircle, red worsted comforters round their throats, their
fore-paws thrust deep into their pockets, their feet jigging for warmth. With
bright beady eyes they glanced shyly at each other, sniggering a little,
sniffing and applying coat- sleeves a good deal. As the door opened, one of the
elder ones that carried the lantern was just saying, 'Now then, one, two,
three!' and forthwith their shrill little voices uprose on the air, singing one
of the old-time carols that their forefathers composed in fields that were
fallow and held by frost, or when snow-bound in chimney corners, and handed
down to be sung in the miry street to lamp-lit windows at Yule-time.
Kenneth Graham
