And he felt the white-washed walls even more desolate than if they had been smoke-begrimed.
Looking about him, he found over his head something which he did not understand.

It was as big as the stump of a great tree.

Apparently it belonged to the structure of the cottage, but he could not, in the imperfect light, and the dazzling of the sun-spot at which he had been staring, make out what it was, or how it came to be up there--unsupported as far as he could see.

He rose to examine it, lifted a bit of tarpaulin which hung before it, and found a rickety box, suspended by a rope from a great nail in the wall.

It had two shelves in it full of books.
Now, although there were more books in Mr.Lammie's house than in his grandmother's, the only one he had found that in the least enticed him to read, was a translation of George Buchanan's History of Scotland.
This he had begun to read faithfully, believing every word of it, but had at last broken down at the fiftieth king or so.