222 THE MIGHTY DREAD. 
close at hand, a chorus struck up—a chorus of 
human voices: 
‘Mark my footsteps well, my page, 
Tread thou in them boldly. 
Thou shalt feel the winter’s rage 
Freeze thy blood less coldly.’ 
Waits ! 
The young, clear voices, lifted up in song, 
cut the still air with extraordinary distinctness. 
The singing did not frighten him — the 
mouse. Indeed, it attracted him, fascinated 
him, hypnotised him, drawing him round the 
rick, as if by strings, to stand and quake, and 
listen, with all his little elfin ears. And then 
he sat up on his hindlegs, and he sang—his 
funny, little, crooning, mooning song, that 
seemed always meant only for himself, all 
alone there in the snow and the moonlight— 
it had come again now, a cascade of silver 
to turn the world into a white fairyland— 
forgetting, it seemed, the world and its deaths 
around him. 
Finally, the singing ceased, and the mouse 
came to earth again, doubly. He listened, 
but could hear no sound but the rustling of 
the rats inside the rick, towering like a cliff 
above him. For some moments he seemed to 
debate within himself whether he should go 
into that rick or not. In fact, there are worse 
