of ownership to which he
was accustomed, the idea of property did not come to him; here
everything looked lost, or on the same category with the chips and
parings and crusts that were thrown out in the city, and became
common property. Besides, the love which had hitherto rendered
covetousness impossible, had here no object whose presence might
have suggested a doubt, to supply in a measure the lack of
knowledge; hunger, instead, was busy in his world. I trust there
were few farmers along the road who would have found fault with him
for taking one or two; but none, I suspect, would have liked to see
him with all the turnips he could carry, eating them like a very
rabbit: they were too near a city to look upon such a spectacle with
indifference. Gibbie made no attempt to hide his spoil; whatever
could have given birth to the sense that caution would be necessary,
would have prevented him from taking it. While yet busy he came
upon a little girl feeding a cow by the roadside. She saw how he
ate the turnips, and offered him a bit of oatmeal bannock. He
received it gladly, and with beaming eyes offered her a turnip. She
refused it with some indignation. Gibbie, disappointed, but not
ungrateful, resumed his tramp, eating his bannock. He came soon
after to a little stream that ran into the great river. For a few
moments he eyed it very doubtfully, thinking it must, like the
kennels along the sides of the streets, be far too dirty to drink
of; but the way it sparkled and sang--most unscientific
reasons--soon satisfied him, and he drank and was refreshed. He had
still two turnips left, but, after the bannock, he did not seem to
want them, and stowed them in the ends of the sleeves of his jacket,
folded back into great cuffs.

All day the cold spring weather continued, with more of the past
winter in it than of the coming summer. The sun would shine out for
a few moments, with a grey, weary, old light, then retreat as if he
had tried, but really could not. Once came a slight fall of snow,
which, however, melted the moment it touched the earth. The wind
kept blowing cheerlessly by fits, and the world seemed growing tired
of the same thing over again so often. At length the air began to
grow dusk: then, first, fears of the darkness, to Gibbie utterly
unknown before, and only born of the preceding night, began to make
him aware of their existence in the human world. They seemed to
rise up from his lonely heart;