the men's breakfast, and with hungry
eyes Gibbie watched that process next. The water in the great pot
boiling like a wild volcano, she took handful after handful of meal
from a great wooden dish, called a bossie, and threw it into the
pot, stirring as she threw, until the mess was presently so thick
that she could no more move the spurtle in it; and scarcely had she
emptied it into another great wooden bowl, called a bicker, when
Gibbie heard the heavy tramp of the men crossing the yard to consume
it.

For the last few minutes, Gibbie's nostrils--alas! not Gibbie--had
been regaled with the delicious odour of the boiling meal; and now
his eyes had their turn--but still, alas, not Gibbie! Prostrate on
the ceiling he lay and watched the splendid spoonfuls tumble out of
sight into the capacious throats of four men; all took their
spoonfuls from the same dish, but each dipped his spoonful into his
private caup of milk, ere he carried it to his mouth. A little
apart sat a boy, whom the woman seemed to favour, having provided
him with a plateful of porridge by himself, but the fact was, four
were as many as could bicker comfortably, or with any chance of fair
play. The boy's countenance greatly attracted Gibbie. It was a
long, solemn face, but the eyes were bright-blue and sparkling; and
when he smiled, which was not very often, it was a good and
meaningful smile.

When the meal was over, and he saw the little that was left, with
all the drops of milk from the caups, tumbled into a common
receptacle, to be kept, he thought, for the next meal, poor Gibbie
felt very empty and forsaken. He crawled away sad at heart, with
nothing before him except a drink of water at the burn. He might
have gone to the door of the house, in the hope of a bit of cake,
but now that he had seen something of the doings in the house and of
the people who lived in it--as soon, that is, as he had looked
embodied ownership in the face--he began to be aware of its claims,
and the cheese he had eaten to lie heavy upon his spiritual stomach;
he had done that which he would not have done before leaving the
city. Carefully he crept across the ceiling, his head hanging, like
a dog scolded of his master, carefully along the shelf of the dairy,
and through the opening in the wall, quickly down the ladder, and
through the cat-hole in the barn door. There was no one in the
corn-yard now, and he wandered about among the ricks looking, with
little hope