Imagine, then, the moon that arose on the boy when, having pulled a ragged and thumb-worn book from among those of James Hewson the cottar, he, for the first time, found himself in the midst of The Arabian Nights.

I shrink from all attempt to set forth in words the rainbow-coloured delight that coruscated in his brain.

When Jessie Hewson returned, she found him seated where she had left him, so buried in his volume that he did not lift his head when she entered.
'Ye hae gotten a buik,' she said.
'Ay have I,' answered Robert, decisively.
'It's a fine buik, that.

Did ye ever see 't afore ?' 'Na, never.' 'There's three wolums o' 't about, here and there,' said Jessie; and with the child on one arm, she proceeded with the other hand to search for them in the crap o' the wa', that is, on the top of the wall where the rafters rest.
There she found two or three books, which, after examining them, she placed on the dresser beside Robert.
'There's nane o' them there,' she said; 'but maybe ye wad like to luik at that anes.' Robert thanked her, but was too busy to feel the least curiosity about any book in the world but the one he was reading.

He read on, heart and soul and mind absorbed in the marvels of the eastern skald; the stories told in the streets of Cairo, amidst gorgeous costumes, and camels, and white-veiled women, vibrating here in the heart of a Scotch boy, in the darkest corner of a mud cottage, at the foot of a hill of cold-loving pines, with a barefooted girl and a baby for his companions.
But the pleasure he had been having was of a sort rather to expedite than to delay the subjective arrival of dinner-time.