bare feet, the smile on the boy's face grew more and more sleepy,
but still he smiled and still he trotted, still paused at the
window, and still started afresh.

He was not so much to be pitied as my reader may think. Never in
his life had he yet pitied himself. The thought of hardship or
wrong had not occurred to him. It would have been
difficult -- impossible, I believe -- to get the idea into his head that
existence bore to him any other shape than it ought. Things were
with him as they had always been, and whence was he to take a fresh
start, and question what had been from the beginning? Had any
authority interfered, with a decree that Gibbie should no more scour
the midnight streets, no more pass and repass that far-shining
splendour of red, then indeed would bitter, though inarticulate,
complaint have burst from his bosom. But there was no evil power to
issue such a command, and Gibbie's peace was not invaded.

It was now late, and those streets were empty; neither carriage nor
cart, wheelbarrow nor truck, went any more bumping and clattering
over their stones. They were well lighted with gas, but most of the
bordering houses were dark. Now and then a single foot-farer passed
with loud, hollow-sounding boots along the pavement; or two girls
would come laughing along, their merriment echoing rude in the wide
stillness. A cold wind, a small, forsaken, solitary wind, moist
with a thin fog, seemed, as well as wee Gibbie, to be roaming the
night, for it met him at various corners, and from all directions.
But it had nothing to do, and nowhere to go, and there it was not
like Gibbie, the business of whose life was even now upon him, the
mightiest hope of whose conscious being was now awake.