And that reminded him: why was he alone? and where was Alan?
The thought of the festal morning and the due salutations
reawakened his desire for his friend, and he began to call
for him by name. As the sound of his voice died away, he was
aware of the greatness of the silence that environed him.
But for the twittering of the sparrows and the crunching of
his own feet upon the frozen snow, the whole windless world
of air hung over him entranced, and the stillness weighed
upon his mind with a horror of solitude.
Still calling at intervals, but now with a moderated voice,
he made the hasty circuit of the garden, and finding neither
man nor trace of man in all its evergreen coverts, turned at
last to the house. About the house the silence seemed to
deepen strangely. The door, indeed, stood open as before;
but the windows were still shuttered, the chimneys breathed
no stain into the bright air, there sounded abroad none of
that low stir (perhaps audible rather to the ear of the
spirit than to the ear of the flesh) by which a house
announces and betrays its human lodgers. And yet Alan must
be there - Alan locked in drunken slumbers, forgetful of the
return of day, of the holy season, and of the friend whom he
had so coldly received and was now so churlishly neglecting.
John's disgust redoubled at the thought, but hunger was
beginning to grow stronger than repulsion, and as a step to
breakfast, if nothing else, he must find and arouse this
sleeper.
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