evelled hair, whom, prostrate on
the ground, they were beating to death with great sticks. His
tongue clave to the roof of his mouth, not a sound could he utter,
not a finger could he move; he had no choice but to lie still, and
witness the fierce enormity. But it is good that we are compelled
to see some things, life amongst the rest, to what we call the end
of them. By degrees Gibbie's sight cleared; the old man faded away;
and what was left of him he could see to be only an armful of straw.
The next sheaf they threw down, he perceived, under their blows,
the corn flying out of it, and began to understand a little. When
it was finished, the corn that had flown dancing from its home, like
hail from its cloud, was swept aside to the common heap, and the
straw tossed up on the mound that harboured Gibbie. It was well
that the man with the pitchfork did not spy his eyes peering out
from the midst of the straw: he might have taken him for some wild
creature, and driven the prongs into him. As it was, Gibbie did not
altogether like the look of him, and lay still as a stone. Then
another sheaf was unbound and cast on the floor, and the blows of
the flails began again. It went on thus for an hour and a half, and
Gibbie although he dropped asleep several times, was nearly stupid
with the noise. The men at length, however, swept up the corn and
tossed up the straw for the last time, and went out. Gibbie,
judging by his own desires, thought they must have gone to eat, but
did not follow them, having generally been ordered away the moment
he was seen in a farmyard. He crept out, however, and began to look
about him--first of all for something he could eat. The oats looked
the most likely, and he took a mouthful for a trial. He ground at
them severely, but, hungry as he was, he failed to find oats good
for food. Their hard husks, their dryness, their instability, all
slipping past each other at every attempt to crush them with his
teeth, together foiled him utterly. He must search farther.
Looking round him afresh, he saw an open loft, and climbing on the
heap in which he had slept, managed to reach it. It was at the
height of the walls, and the couples of the roof rose immediately
from it. At the farther end was a heap of hay, which he took for
another kind of straw. Then he spied something he knew; a row of
cheeses lay on a shelf suspended from the rafters, ripening. Gibbie
knew them well from the shop window