Explore "Heather and Snow" by George MacDonald on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The sleeping youth began at length to stir: it was more than an hour / before he quite woke up. Then all at once he started to his feet with / his eyes wide open, putting back from his forehead the long hair which / fell over them, and revealing a face not actually looking old, but / strongly suggesting age. His eyes were of a pale blue, with a hazy, / mixed, uncertain gleam in them, reminding one of the shifty shudder and / shake and start of the northern lights at some heavenly version of the / game of Puss in the Corner. His features were more than good; they / would have been grand had they been large, but they were peculiarly / small. His head itself was very small in proportion to his height, his / forehead, again, large in proportion to his head, while his chin was / such as we are in the way of calling strong. Although he had been all / day acting a dog in charge of sheep, and treating the collie as his / natural companion, there was, both in his countenance and its / expression, a remarkable absence of the animal. He had a kind of / exaltation in his look; he seemed to expect something, not at hand, but / sure to come. His eyes rested for a moment, with a love of absolute / devotion, on the face of his sister; then he knelt at her feet, and as / if to receive her blessing, bowed his head before her. She laid her / hand upon it, and in a tone of unutterable tenderness said, / 'Man-Steenie! ' Instantly he rose to his feet. Kirsty rose also, and / they went out of the hut.
The sunlight had not left the west, but had crept round some distance / toward the north. Stars were shining faint through the thin shadow of / the world. Steenie stretched himself up, threw his arms aloft, and held / them raised, as if at once he would grow and reach toward the infinite. / Then he looked down on Kirsty, for he was taller than she, and pointed / straight up, with the long lean forefinger of one of the long lean arms / that had all day been legs to the would-be dog -- into the heavens, and / smiled. Kirsty looked up, nodded her head, and smiled in return. Then / they started in the direction of home, and for some time walked in / silence. At length Steenie spoke. His voice was rather feeble, but / clear, articulate, and musical.