Heather and Snow | Page 7

in
her person, appeared in her hair and the covering of her neck. Of one of
the many middle shades of brown, with a rippling tendency to curl in it,
her hair was parted with nicety, and drawn back from her face into a net
of its own colour, while her neckerchief was of blue silk, covering a
very little white skin, but leaving bare a brown throat. She wore a blue

print wrapper, nowise differing from that of a peasant woman, and a
blue winsey petticoat, beyond which appeared her bare feet, lovely in
shape, and brown of hue. Her dress was nowise trim, and suggested
neither tidiness nor disorder. The hem of the petticoat was in truth a
little rent, but not more than might seem admissible where the rough
wear was considered to which the garment was necessarily exposed:
when a little worse it would receive the proper attention, and be
brought back to respectability! Kirsty grudged the time spent on her
garments. She looked down on them as the moon might on the clouds
around her. She made or mended them to wear them, not think about
them.
Her forehead was wide and rather low, with straight eyebrows. Her
eyes were of a gentle hazel, not the hazel that looks black at night. Her
nose was strong, a little irregular, with plenty of substance, and
sensitive nostrils. A decided and well-shaped chin dominated a neck by
no means slender, and seemed to assert the superiority of the face over
the whole beautiful body. Its chief expression was of a strong repose, a
sweet, powerful peace, requiring but occasion to pass into
determination. The sensitiveness of the nostrils with the firmness in the
meeting of the closed lips, suggested a faculty of indignation unsparing
toward injustice; while the clearness of the heaven of the forehead gave
confidence that such indignation would never show itself save for
another.
I wish, presumptuous wish! that I could see the mind of a woman grow
as she sits spinning or weaving: it would reveal the process next highest
to creation. But the only hope of ever understanding such things lies in
growing oneself. There is the still growth of the moonlit night of
reverie; cloudy, with wind, and a little rain, comes the morning of
thought, when the mind grows faster and the heart more slowly; then
wakes the storm in the forest of human relation, tempest and lightning
abroad, the soul enlarging by great bursts of vision and leaps of
understanding and resolve; then floats up the mystic twilight eagerness,
not unmingled with the dismay of compelled progress, when, bidding
farewell to that which is behind, the soul is driven toward that which is
before, grasping at it with all the hunger of the new birth. The story of

God's universe lies in the growth of the individual soul. Kirsty's growth
had been as yet quiet and steady.
Once more as she shifted her needle her glance went flitting over the
waste before her. This time there was more life in sight. Far away
Kirsty descried something of the nature of man upon horse: to say how
far would have been as difficult for one unused to the flat moor as for a
landsman to reckon distances at sea. Of the people of the place, hardly
another, even under the direction of Kirsty, could have contrived to see
it. At length, after she had looked many times, she could clearly
distinguish a youth on a strong, handsome hill-pony, and remained no
longer in the slightest doubt as to who he might be.
They came steadily over the dark surface of the moor, and it was clear
that the pony must know the nature of the ground well; for now he
glided along as fast as he could gallop, now made a succession of short
jumps, now halted, examined the ground, and began slowly picking his
way.
Kirsty watched his approach with gentle interest, while every
movement of the youth indicated eagerness. Gordon had seen her on
the hillside, probably long before she saw him, had been coming to her
in as straight a line as the ground would permit, and at length was out
of the boggy level, and ascending the slope of the hillfoot to where she
sat. When he was within about twenty yards of her she gave him a little
nod, and then fixed her eyes on her knitting. He held on till within a
few feet of her, then pulled up and threw himself from his pony's back.
The creature, covered with foam, stood a minute panting, then fell to
work on the short grass.
Francis had grown considerably, and looked almost a young man. He
was a little older than Kirsty, but did not appear so, his