CHAPTER IV Jim looks over the brink of the terrible

gulf.

The light had gone down on the last days through which, according to the doctor's prophecy,

Jim Lomax was to live to see that light.

Poor Jim's last son sank to his rest upon such cloud-pillows of purple and red, and

drew a curtain of such gorgeous colors around him in the western sky, as it would have very

much puzzled any earthly monarch to have matched.

Though Ruskin himself had chosen the colors and Turner had been the man to lay them on.

Of course, some of this red sunset flickered and laid upon the chimney-pots and window-pains

rare luxuries, by the by, those window-pains, of blind Peter.

But there it came, in a modified degree-only, this blessed sign-manual of an almighty power,

as all earthly and heavenly blessings should come to the poor.

One ray of the crimson light fell full upon the face of the sick man, and slanted from

him upon the dark care of the girl, who sat on the ground and her old position by the

bedside.

This light, which fell on them, and on no other object in the dusky room, seemed to

unite them, as though were a messenger from the sky that said, they stand alone in the

world, and never have been meant to stand as under.

"'It's a beautiful light-glass,' said the sick man, and I wonder, I never cared more

to notice or to watch it than I have.

Lord, I've seen it many a time, sinking behind the sharp edge of ploughed land, as if

it had dug its own grave, and was glad to go down to it, and I've thought no more of

...