By this time Gibbie had got well up towards the roots of the hills of Gormgarnet, and the river had dwindled¹ greatly. He was no longer afraid of it, but would lie for hours listening to its murmurs² over its pebbly³ bed, and sometimes even sleep in the hollows of its banks, or below the willows⁴ that overhung it. Every here and there, a brown rivulet⁵ from some peat-bog on a hill—brown and clear, like smoke-crystals molten together, flowed into it, and when he had lost it, guided him back to his guide. Farm after farm he passed, here one widely bordering a valley stream, there another stretching its skirts up the hillsides till they were lost in mere⁶ heather, where the sheep wandered about, cropping what stray grass-blades and other eatables they could find. Lower down he had passed through small towns and large villages: here farms and cottages, with an occasional country-seat and little village of low thatched houses, made up the abodes⁸ of men. By this time he had become greatly reconciled to the loneliness of Nature, and no more was afraid in her solitary⁹ presence.