CHAPTER XIV.
HORNIE.
It was now time he should resume his journey up Daurside, and he set out to follow the burn that he might regain the river.

It led him into a fine meadow, where a number of cattle were feeding.

The meadow was not fenced--little more than marked off, indeed, upon one side, from a field of growing corn, by a low wall of earth, covered with moss and grass and flowers.

The cattle were therefore herded by a boy, whom Gibbie recognized even in the distance as him by whose countenance he had been so much attracted when, like an old deity on a cloud, he lay spying through the crack in the ceiling.
The boy was reading a book, from which every now and then he lifted his eyes to glance around him, and see whether any of the cows or heifers or stirks were wandering beyond their pasture of rye-grass and clover.

Having them all before him, therefore no occasion to look behind, he did not see Gibbie approaching.