She could not recall having ever heard of a Sir in the family; but ghosts of things forgotten kept rising formless and thin in the sky of her memory: had she never heard of a Sir Somebody Galbraith somewhere?
And still she stared at the child, trying to grasp what she could not even see.

By this time Gibbie was standing quite still, staring at her in return: he could not think what made her stare so at him.
"Wha ca'd ye that ?" said Janet at length, pointing to the slate.
Gibbie took the slate, dropped upon his seat, and after considerable cogitation and effort, brought her the words, gibyse fapher.

Janet for a moment was puzzled, but when she thought of correcting the p with a t, Gibbie entirely approved.
"What was yer father, cratur ?" she asked.
Gibbie, after a longer pause, and more evident labour than hitherto, brought her the enigmatical word, asootr, which, the Sir running about in her head, quite defeated Janet.

Perceiving his failure, he jumped upon a chair, and reaching after one of Robert's Sunday shoes on the crap o' the wa', the natural shelf running all round the cottage, formed by the top of the wall where the rafters rested, caught hold of it, tumbled with it upon his creepie, took it between his knees, and began a pantomime of the making or mending of the same with such verisimilitude of imitation, that it was clear to Janet he must have been familiar with the processes collectively called shoemaking; and therewith she recognized the word on the slate--a sutor.

She smiled to herself at the association of name and trade, and concluded that the Sir at least was a nickname.