Looking round him afresh, he saw an open loft, and climbing on the heap in which he had slept, managed to reach it.It was at the height of the walls, and the couples of the roof rose immediately from it.At the farther end was a heap of hay, which he took for another kind of straw.Then he spied something he knew; a row of cheeses lay on a shelf suspended from the rafters, ripening.Gibbie knew them well from the shop windows--knew they were cheeses, and good to eat, though whence and how they came he did not know, his impression being that they grew in the fields like the turnips.He had still the notion uncorrected, that things in the country belonged to nobody in particular, and were mostly for the use of animals, with which, since he became a wanderer, he had almost come to class himself.He was very hungry.He pounced upon a cheese and lifted it between his two hands; it smelled good, but felt very hard.That was no matter: what else were teeth made strong and sharp for? He tried them on one of the round edges, and, nibbling actively, soon got through to the softer body of the cheese.But he had not got much farther when he heard the men returning, and desisted, afraid of being discovered by the noise he made.The readiest way to conceal himself was to lie down flat on the loft, and he did so just where he could see the threshing-floor over the edge of it by lifting his head.This, however, he scarcely ventured to do; and all he could see as he lay was the tip of the swing-bar of one of the flails, ever as it reached the highest point of its ascent.But to watch for it very soon ceased to be interesting; and although he had eaten so little of the cheese, it had yet been enough to make him dreadfully thirsty, therefore he greatly desired to get away.But he dared not go down: with their sticks those men might knock him over in a moment! So he lay there thinking of the poor little hedgehog he had seen on the road as he came; how he stood watching it, and wishing he had a suit made all of great pins, which he could set up when he pleased; and how the driver of a cart, catching sight of him at the foot of the hedge, gave him a blow with his whip, and, poor fellow! notwithstanding his clothes of pins, that one blow of a whip was too much for him! There seemed nothing in the world but killing!
At length he could, unoccupied with something else, bear his thirst no longer, and, squirming round on the floor, crept softly towards the other end of the loft, to see what was to be seen there.
He found that the heap of hay was not in the loft at all.It filled a small chamber in the stable, in fact; and when Gibbie clambered upon it, what should he see below him on the other side, but a beautiful white horse, eating some of the same sort of stuff he was now lying upon! Beyond he could see the backs of more horses, but they were very different--big and clumsy, and not white.They were all eating, and this was their food on which he lay! He wished he too could eat it--and tried, but found it even less satisfactory than the oats, for it nearly choked him, and set him coughing so that he was in considerable danger of betraying his presence to the men in the barn.How did the horses manage to get such dry stuff down their throats? But the cheese was dry too, and he could eat that! No doubt the cheese, as well as the fine straw, was there for the horses! He would like to see the beautiful white creature down there eat a bit of it; but with all his big teeth he did not think he could manage a whole cheese, and how to get a piece broken off for him, with those men there, he could not devise.It would want a long-handled hammer like those with which he had seen men breaking stones on the road.
A door opened beyond, and a man came in and led two of the horses out, leaving the door open.Gibbie clambered down from the top of the hay into the stall beside the white horse, and ran out.He was almost in the fields, had not even a fence to cross.
He cast a glance around, and went straight for a neighbouring hollow, where, taught by experience, he hoped to find water.