hare of the light and the
warmth. Gibbie was so confident with the animals, that they were
already even more friendly with him than with Donal--all except
Hornie, who, being of a low spirit, therefore incapable of
obedience, was friendliest with the one who gave her the hardest
blows.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE BROONIE.

Things had gone on in this way for several weeks--if Gibbie had not
been such a small creature, I hardly see how they could for so
long--when one morning the men came in to breakfast all out of
temper together, complaining loudly of the person unknown who would
persist in interfering with their work. They were the louder that
their suspicions fluttered about Fergus, who was rather overbearing
with them, and therefore not a favourite. He was in reality not at
all a likely person to bend back or defile hands over such labour,
and their pitching upon him for the object of their suspicion,
showed how much at a loss they were. Their only ground for
suspecting him, beyond the fact that there was no other whom by any
violence of imagination they could suspect, was, that, whatever else
was done or left undone in the stable, Snowball, whom Fergus was
fond of, and rode almost every day, was, as already mentioned, sure
to have something done for him. Had he been in good odour with
them, they would have thought no harm of most of the things they
thought he did, especially as they eased their work; but he carried
himself high, they said, doing nothing but ride over the farm and
pick out every fault he could find--to show how sharp he was, and
look as if he could do better than any of them; and they fancied
that he carried their evil report to his father, and that this
underhand work in the stable must be part of some sly scheme for
bringing them into disgrace. And now at last had come the worst
thing of all: Gibbie had discovered the corn-bin, and having no
notion but that everything in the stable was for the delectation of
the horses, had been feeding them largely with oats--a delicacy with
which, in the plenty of other provisions, they were very sparingly
supplied; and the consequences had begun to show themselves in the
increased unruliness of the more wayward amongst them. Gibbie had
long given up resorting to the ceiling, and remained in utter
ignorance of the storm that was brewing because of him.

The same day brought things nearly to a crisis; for the overfed
Snowball, proving too much for Fer