Up and
down they darted, and away and back--and always in the direction he did
not expect them to take. He thought he heard them crackle, and he stood
still to listen; but he could not be sure that it was not the snow
sinking and _crisping_ beneath his feet. All around him was still as a
world too long frozen: in the heavens alone was there motion. There
this entrancing dance of colour and shape went on, wide beneath, and
tapering up to the zenith! Truly there was revelry in heaven! One might
have thought that a prodigal son had just got home, and that the music
and the dancing had begun, of which only the far-off rhythmic shine
could reach the human sense; for a dance in heaven might well show
itself in colour to the eyes of men.--Alec went on till the lights from
the windows of the town began to throw shadows across the snow. The
street was empty. From end to end nothing moved but an occasional
shadow. As he came near to Macwha's shop, he had to pass a row of
cottages which stood with their backs to a steep slope. Here too all
was silent as a frozen city. But when he was about opposite the middle
of the row, he heard a stifled laugh, and then a kind of muffled sound
as of hurrying steps, and, in a moment after, every door in the row was
torn open, and out bolted the inhabitants--here an old woman, halting
on a stick as she came, there a shoemaker, with last and awl in his
hands, here a tailor with his shears, and there a whole family of
several trades and ages.
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