At the
foot of this tree sat Tibbie Dyster; and from her red cloak the level
sun-tide was thrown back in gorgeous glory; so that the eyeless woman,
who only felt the warmth of the great orb, seemed, in her effulgence of
luminous red, to be the light-fountain whence that torrent of
rubescence burst. From her it streamed up to the stem and along the
branches of the glowing fir; from her it streamed over the radiant
grass of the up-sloping field away towards the western sun. But the
only one who saw the splendour was a shoemaker, who rubbed his rosiny
hands together, and felt happy without knowing why.
Alec would have found it difficult to say whether or not he had seen
the red cloak. But from the shadowy side of it there were eyes shining
upon him, with a deeper and truer, if with a calmer, or, say, colder
devotion, than that with which he regarded Kate. The most powerful rays
that fall from the sun are neither those of colour nor those of
heat.--Annie sat by Tibbie's side--the side away from the sun. If the
East and the West might take human shape--come forth in their Oreads
from their hill-tops, and meet half-way between--there they were seated
side by side: Tibbie, old, scarred, blind Tibbie, was of the west and
the sunset, the centre of a blood-red splendour; cold, gentle Annie,
with her dark hair, blue eyes, and the sad wisdom of her pale face, was
of the sun-deserted east, between whose gray clouds, faintly smiling
back the rosiness of the sun's triumphal death, two or three cold stars
were waiting to glimmer.
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