There was scarce a sound save the riot
of the winds down the passages as they tossed the creaking signs and
shook the tall lamp-irons.
So many passers-by had trodden through and through the snow, so many
diverse paths had crossed and re-crossed each other, that the dog had a
hard task to retain any hold on the track he followed. But he kept on
his way, though the cold pierced him to the bone, and the jagged ice cut
his feet, and the hunger in his body gnawed like a rat's teeth. He kept
on his way, a poor gaunt, shivering thing, and by long patience traced
the steps he loved into the very heart of the burgh and up to the steps
of the great cathedral.
"He is gone to the things that he loved," thought Patrasche: he could
not understand, but he was full of sorrow and of pity for the
art-passion that to him was so incomprehensible and yet so sacred.
The portals of the cathedral were unclosed after the midnight mass. Some
heedlessness in the custodians, too eager to go home and feast or sleep,
or too drowsy to know whether they turned the keys aright, had left one
of the doors unlocked. By that accident the foot-falls Patrasche sought
had passed through into the building, leaving the white marks of snow
upon the dark stone floor. By that slender white thread, frozen as it
fell, he was guided through the intense silence, through the immensity
of the vaulted space,--guided straight to the gates of the chancel, and,
stretched there upon the stones, he found Nello.
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