We were chatting quietly, after we had left her, full of good resolutions, and we were climbing Pine Street, the deep snow making the passage difficult, when we heard the strange sound of the rejoicing in New York, twenty miles away. And it was without any thought of coming peril, without any thought of our neighbours, that we paused at the top of the ridge and looked across the valley. Indeed, we spoke of a previous New Year when we had sallied out from our flat and joined the tumultuous citizens in the streets. Above us was the dark blue sky of a wintry midnight, obscured here and there by indeterminate blotches of moving cloud, and far away to the eastward lay a long, low glare pierced by a single white light, the lantern of the Metropolitan Tower in New York.

We paused and stood close together upon the immediate edge of the vacant plot, now several feet deep in snow, our figures throwing long shadows upon the ghostly purity of the covering. And we became aware that we were not watching so much as listening, for on the freshening easterly wind there was borne such a rumour as men are not often permitted to make or to hear. It could scarcely be called a noise; it was rather a terrible and confusing presence translated into sound. So enormous was it, and so distant, that it enfolded us like a foreboding of disaster. It was as though one were listening to the cheering of innumerable myriads on another planet. There was neither cessation to it nor paroxysm, neither surging up nor dying away. It was a continuous and prodigious drone. And the wonder of it was driven, if possible, a notch higher when it was known that this uproar was caused, not by the moans of a lost world falling down through inconceivable spaces to Gehenna, but by the million tin horns which the people of New York deemed a fitting tribute to the New Year. It was a fan-fare in excelsis, defying criticism and distance. It was the apotheosis of Manhattan, a sky-scraper of dizzy sound. It was, moreover, the expression of a primal and singularly innocent joy, the joy of a young nation on beholding a New Year. It was almost as though, in the cataclysm of hideous and unlooked-for calamities, in the vanishing of cities and kingdoms, in the irruption of mountains and the sinking of titanic ships beneath the waves, even the recurrence of the seasons had become an adventure and a matter of supreme wonder.

A million tin horns!

I suppose it was our preoccupation with the solemnity of the hour and the stupendous accompaniment of it that prevented our seeing at first a strange and disquieting signal. My friend suddenly grasped my arm and pointed to a black bank of cloud over Newark, where there shone a tiny constellation of three green lights. And the sound of New York's jubilation was forgotten. With murmured exclamations we stood with our faces raised towards this new yet familiar portent. And as we gazed the green rays were borne beyond the cloud bank and were seen moving more and more rapidly against the dark blue of the star-lit heavens. Moved as by one impulse, we plunged into the snow and took a few steps, as though to gain a nearer view of this strangely beautiful object. Almost immediately it was above us and the thuttering roar of its machinery came dully to our ears in waves and sharp gusts of sound. And we cried "Oh!" involuntarily, for we could see the dark spread of the vans plunging frantically in the air. I remember I stretched out my arms in an impotent gesture of aid, for with the speed of a bird of prey the dark mass lurched in a flat swaying parabola towards the earth, spinning the while upon itself, and striking the deep bed of snow, burst into a mass of blinding flame.

So sudden was the catastrophe that we stood there in the brilliantly illuminated snow, rigid with stupefaction, staring at the intense glare. A patrolman rushed up to us and asked in a scared way what it was. Receiving no reply, he ran forward a few steps, throwing us into temporary shadow, looked round uncertainly, and then struck with a fresh idea, plunged into the road and made for the fire call-box at the corner. And almost as though his presence had been the cause of the fire, it dimmed, flickered, flared and went out, leaving us in darkness. Slowly we moved towards it. The patrolman came back. We reached a black hole in the snow and tripped over twisted snarls of wire. We heard the patrolman asking urgently what had happened.

"It is finished, all finished," I said vaguely.

"Sure," he said, "but what was it anyhow?"

"I think," I replied, "that it was an aeroplane. It came down, you know, and the gasoline caught fire, and...." I found a box of matches and struck a light, but the wind blew it out.

And then other people began to arrive.

* * * * *

The following day was memorable to us, as I have hinted, for it revealed to us the enterprise of a modern free and enlightened press. Bill said no husband of her's should ever take assignments to interview people if that was the way of it. But the day after that was memorable, to me especially. The hue and cry was gone, our little happenings were forgotten and some other home was besieged by the reporters. I had started out on the frozen snow to go to the post-office with some manuscript when I met Beppo and Ben with the sled, bound for a certain slope which they credited with famous tobogganing virtues. They greeted me as if I were one of them; seriously they turned their faces up to mine as they expounded their plans. I was aware of an inward fluttering of pride, for it is no small matter to win the confidence of small children. I went with them towards the hill they spoke of. It lay at the end of an avenue of superb trees whose black, leafless twigs bore their frosting of snow like strings of jewels in the glittering air. The wind blew up the avenue keenly in our faces as we trudged. And then, where the trees ended, the hill fell away at our feet, the valley lay far and wide, the steel-blue river winding below, and in the distance the domes and towers of the Metropolis.

"Look!" I said, stooping down to them and pointing. "Do you know what that is?" They nodded and looked at me smiling. "N'York," they whispered.

"When is father coming home?" I asked.

"Soon," said Beppo. "Ma was cryin' this morning."

"Why," I said in astonishment. "And does she cry when he comes home?"

"Oh, no," he replied slowly. "She cheers up when he comes home. It's the storm, I guess. When the wind blows she cries a good bit."

And the next moment they were flying, face forward, down the hill.

I was roused from the study into which this plunged me by Miss Fraenkel's interest in the catastrophe. As I bought my stamps and posted my letters she continued to discuss its possibilities.

"What a story it would make!" she observed. "A thing like that coming down here, of all places, and nobody expecting it. Like Sherlock Holmes."

"Very," I said. "I must try my hand at it some day."

"And of course," she went on, "you'll have to fix up a love interest. You remember you told me it was absolutely necessary to have one."

"Yes, I'll try that too," I assured her. "And the post-mistress as well. All the best stories have one."

"Don't you dare," she called after me, laughing.

My friend was busy at his easel, blocking out a poster for a breakfast-food.

"Where's Bill?" I asked. With a movement of his head as he reached for his matches, he indicated next door.

Presently she returned, rather pale and at first reluctant to say very much. It came out slowly as she arranged it in her mind.

"She has seen him," she said. "And he wrote to her. It put notions in her head. But she can't explain—in English, you know. She kept saying, 'My heart! Oh, my heart!...' And yet she's glad in a way. It would have been splendid and awful if he had—don't you think? Just fancy!... He was one of those men—I did what I could to soothe her ... He will be home to-morrow, too, if all is well.... Poor thing!"

* * * * *

It is on the point of dusk as we stand at the studio-window and watch him coming up the hill, seeking vaguely for the foot path in the snow. He is wrapped up warmly, and his Derby hat is set firmly upon his down-bent head. The corn-cob pipe smokes on as ever, and he pauses to shake out the ash as he steps down upon the road. At this there is a sudden rush across the street of two small men in scarlet jerseys and caps. He stands and looks down at them, a quizzical smile on his face. Then he looks up and seeing us, makes a grave gesture of salutation. His glance sweeps over to his house, his own inviolate home, and drops once again to his children tugging at his hands. And then, with a reflective air, he steps across to the sidewalk, and walks sedately up to his door.

THE END

FOOTNOTES:

[A: The word "Kill" is Dutch in origin and signifies very much the same as Kyle (Scot), meaning a deep arm of the sea.]