CHAPTER XVI.
APPRENTICESHIP.
He scrambled out on the top of the hay, and looked down on the beautiful creature below him, dawning radiant again with the morning, as it issued undimmed from the black bosom of the night.
He was not, perhaps, just so well groomed as white steed might be; it was not a stable where they kept a blue-bag for their grey horses; but to Gibbie's eyes he was so pure, that he began, for the first time in his life, to doubt whether he was himself quite as clean as he ought to be.

He did not know, but he would make an experiment for information when he got down to the burn.

Meantime was there nothing he could do for the splendid creature?
From above, leaning over, he filled his rack with hay; but he had eaten so much grass the night before, that he would not look at it, and Gibbie was disappointed.

What should he do next?
The thing he would like best would be to look through the ceiling again, and watch the woman at her work.

Then, too, he would again smell the boiling porridge, and the burning of the little sprinkles of meal that fell into the fire.