"Dick, ain't you proud of him? I don't see the spiders beginning,
though."
"The spiders?"
"Dick, you're very ig-norant. _Everybody_ knows that, when Christ
was laid in a manger, the spiders came and spun their webs over Him
and hid Him. That's why King Herod couldn't find Him."
"There, now! We live and learn," said I.
"Well, now there's nothing to do but sit down and wait for the wise
men and the shepherds."
It was a little while that she watched, being long over-tired.
The warm air of the chall weighed on her eyelids; and, as they
closed, her head sank on my shoulder. For ten minutes I sat,
listening to her breathing. Dinah rose heavily from her bed and lay
down again, with a long sigh; another cow woke up and rattled her
rope a dozen times through its ring; up at the house the fiddling
grew more furious; but the little maid slept on. At last I wrapped
the sack closely round her, and lifting her in my arms, carried her
out into the night. She was my master's daughter, and I had not the
courage to kiss so much as her hair. Yet I had no envy for the
dancers, then.
As we passed into the cold air she stirred. "Did they come? And
where are you carrying me?" Then, when I told her, "Dick, I will
never speak to you again, if you don't carry me first to the gate of
the upper field."
So I carried her to the gate, and sitting up in my arms she called
twice:
"Laban--Laban!"
"What cheer--O?" the hind called back.
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