in the kingdom of heaven, be high beyond
sight of one who counts himself the broadest of English churchmen.
Truly Gibbie got no fat out of his food, but he got what was far
better. What he carried--I can hardly say under or in, but along
with those rags of his, was all muscle--small, but hard, and
healthy, and knotting up like whipcord. There are all degrees of
health in poverty as well as in riches, and Gibbie's health was
splendid. His senses also were marvellously acute. I have already
hinted at his gift for finding things. His eyes were sharp, quick,
and roving, and then they went near the ground, he was such a little
fellow. His success, however, not all these considerations could
well account for, and he was regarded as born with a special luck in
finding. I doubt if sufficient weight was given to the fact that,
even when he was not so turning his mind it strayed in that
direction, whence, if any object cast its reflected rays on his
retina, those rays never failed to reach his mind also. On one
occasion he picked up the pocket-book a gentleman had just dropped,
and, in mingled fun and delight, was trying to put it in its owner's
pocket unseen, when he collared him, and, had it not been for the
testimony of a young woman who, coming behind, had seen the whole,
would have handed him over to the police. After all, he remained in
doubt, the thing seemed so incredible. He did give him a penny,
however, which Gibbie at once spent upon a loaf.

It was not from any notions of honesty--he knew nothing about
it--that he always did what he could to restore the things he found;
the habit came from quite another cause. When he had no clue to the
owner, he carried the thing found to his father, who generally let
it lie a while, and at length, if it was of nature convertible,
turned it into drink.

While Gibbie thus lived in the streets like a townsparrow--as like a
human bird without storehouse or barn as boy could well be--the
human father of him would all day be sitting in a certain dark
court, as hard at work as an aching head and a bloodless system
would afford. The said court was off the narrowest part of a long,
poverty-stricken street, bearing a name of evil omen, for it was
called the Widdiehill--the place of the gallows. It was entered by
a low archway in the middle of an old house, around which yet clung
a musty fame of departed grandeur and ancient note. In the court,
against a wing of the same hou