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Sir Gibbie

G >> George MacDonald >> Sir Gibbie




The rest of the day Ginevra talked of little else than the serpent
lady and the brave knight, saying now and then what a nice boy that
Donal of Nicie's was. Nor was more than the gentlest hint necessary
to make Nicie remark, the next morning, that perhaps, if they went
down again to the Lorrie, Donal might come, and bring the book. But
when they reached the bank and looked across, they saw him occupied
with Gibbie. They had their heads close together over a slate, upon
which now the one, now the other, seemed to be drawing. This went
on and on, and they never looked up. Ginny would have gone home,
and come again in the afternoon, but Nicie instantly called Donal.
He sprang to his feet and came to them, followed by Gibbie. Donal
crossed the burn, but Gibbie remained on the other side, and when
presently Donal took his "buik o' ballants" from his pocket, and the
little company seated themselves, stood with his back to them, and
his eyes on the nowt. That morning they were not interrupted.

Donal read to them for a whole hour, concerning which reading, and
Ginevra's reception of it, Nicie declared she could not see what for
they made sic a wark aboot a wheen auld ballants, ane efter
anither.--"They're no half sae bonnie as the paraphrases, Donal,"
she said.

After this, Ginevra went frequently with Nicie to see her mother,
and learned much of the best from her. Often also they went down to
the Lorrie, and had an interview with Donal, which was longer or
shorter as Gibbie was there or not to release him.

Ginny's life was now far happier than it had ever been. New
channels of thought and feeling were opened, new questions were
started, new interests awaked; so that, instead of losing by Miss
Machar's continued inability to teach her, she was learning far more
than she could give her, learning it, too, with the pleasure which
invariably accompanies true learning.

Little more than child as she was, Donal felt from the first the
charm of her society; and she by no means received without giving,
for his mental development was greatly expedited thereby. Few weeks
passed before he was her humble squire, devoted to her with all the
chivalry of a youth for a girl whom he supposes as much his superior
in kind as she is in worldly position; his sole advantage, in his
own judgment, and that which alone procured him the privilege of her
society, being, that he was older, and therefore knew a little more.
So potent and genial was her influence on his imagination, that,
without once thinking of her as their object, he now first found
himself capable of making verses--such as they were; and one day,
with his book before him--it was Burns, and he had been reading the
Gowan poem to Ginevra and his sister--he ventured to repeat, as if
he read them from the book, the following: they halted a little, no
doubt, in rhythm, neither were perfectly rimed, but for a beginning,
they had promise. Gibbie, who had thrown himself down on the other
bank, and lay listening, at once detected the change in the tone of
his utterance, and before he ceased had concluded that he was not
reading them, and that they were his own.

Rin, burnie! clatter;
To the sea win:
Gien I was a watter,
Sae wad I rin.

Blaw, win', caller, clean!
Here an' hyne awa':
Gien I was a win',
Wadna I blaw!

Shine, auld sun,
Shine strang an' fine:
Gien I was the sun's son,
Herty I wad shine.

Hardly had he ended, when Gibbie's pipes began from the opposite
side of the water, and, true to time and cadence and feeling,
followed with just the one air to suit the song--from which Donal,
to his no small comfort, understood that one at least of his
audience had received his lilt. If the poorest nature in the world
responds with the tune to the mightiest master's song, he knows, if
not another echo should come back, that he has uttered a true cry.
But Ginevra had not received it, and being therefore of her own
mind, and not of the song's, was critical. It is of the true things
it does not, perhaps cannot receive, that human nature is most
critical.

"That one is nonsense, Donal," she said. "Isn't it now? How could a
man be a burn, or a wind, or the sun? But poets are silly. Papa
says so."

In his mind Donal did not know which way to look; physically, he
regarded the ground. Happily at that very moment Hornie caused a
diversion, and Gibbie understood what Donal was feeling too well to
make even a pretence of going after her. I must, to his praise,
record the fact that, instead of wreaking his mortification upon the
cow, Donal spared her several blows out of gratitude for the
deliverance her misbehaviour had wrought him. He was in no haste to
return to his audience. To have his first poem thus rejected was
killing. She was but a child who had so unkindly criticized it, but
she was the child he wanted to please; and for a few moments life
itself seemed scarcely worth having. He called himself a fool, and
resolved never to read another poem to a girl so long as he lived.
By the time he had again walked through the burn, however, he was
calm and comparatively wise, and knew what to say.

"Div ye hear yon burn efter ye gang to yer bed, mem?" he asked
Genevra, as he climbed the bank, pointing a little lower down the
stream to the mountain brook which there joined it.

"Always," she answered. "It runs right under my window."

"What kin' o' a din dis't mak'?" he asked again.

"It is different at different times," she answered. "It sings and
chatters in summer, and growls and cries and grumbles in winter, or
after rain up in Glashgar."

"Div ye think the burn's ony happier i' the summer, mem?"

"No, Donal; the burn has no life in it, and therefore can't be
happier one time than another."

"Weel, mem, I wad jist like to speir what waur it is to fancy
yersel' a burn, than to fancy the burn a body, ae time singin' an'
chatterin', an' the neist growlin' an' grum'lin'."

"Well, but, Donal, can a man be a burn?"

"Weel, mem, no--at least no i' this warl', an' at 'is ain wull. But
whan ye're lyin' hearkenin' to the burn, did ye never imagine
yersel' rinnin' doon wi' 't--doon to the sea?"

"No, Donal; I always fancy myself going up the mountain where it
comes from, and running about wild there in the wind, when all the
time I know I'm safe and warm in bed."

"Weel, maybe that's better yet--I wadna say," answered Donal; "but
jist the nicht, for a cheenge like, ye turn an' gang doon wi' 't--i'
yer thouchts, I mean. Lie an' hearken he'rty till 't the nicht,
whan ye're i' yer bed; hearken an' hearken till the soon' rins awa'
wi' ye like, an' ye forget a' aboot yersel', an' think yersel' awa'
wi' the burn, rinnin', rinnin', throu' this an' throu' that, throu'
stanes an' birks an' bracken, throu' heather, an' plooed lan' an'
corn, an' wuds an' gairdens, aye singin', an' aye cheengin' yer tune
accordin', till it wins to the muckle roarin' sea, an' 's a' tint.
An' the first nicht 'at the win' 's up an' awa', dee the same, mem,
wi' the win'. Get up upo' the back o' 't, like, as gien it was yer
muckle horse, an' jist ride him to the deith; an' efter that, gien
ye dinna maybe jist wuss 'at ye was a burn or a blawin' win'--aither
wad be a sair loss to the universe--ye wunna, I'm thinkin', be sae
ready to fin' fau't wi' the chield 'at made yon bit sangy."

"Are you vexed with me, Donal?--I'm so sorry!" said Ginevra, taking
the earnestness of his tone for displeasure.

"Na, na, mem. Ye're ower guid an' ower bonny," answered Donal, "to
be a vex to onybody; but it wad be a vex to hear sic a cratur as you
speykin' like ane o' the fules o' the warl', 'at believe i' naething
but what comes in at the holes i' their heid."

Ginevra was silent. She could not quite understand Donal, but she
felt she must be wrong somehow; and of this she was the more
convinced when she saw the beautiful eyes of Gibbie fixed in
admiration, and brimful of love, upon Donal.

The way Donal kept his vow never to read another poem of his own to
a girl, was to proceed that very night to make another for the
express purpose, as he lay awake in the darkness.

The last one he ever read to her in that meadow was this:

What gars ye sing, said the herd laddie,
What gars ye sing sae lood?
To tice them oot o' the yerd, laddie,
The worms, for my daily food.

An' aye he sang, an' better he sang,
An' the worms creepit in an' oot;
An' ane he tuik, an' twa he loot gang,
But still he carolled stoot.

It's no for the worms, sir, said the herd,
They comena for yer sang.
Think ye sae, sir? answered the bird,
Maybe ye're no i' the wrang.
But aye &c.

Sing ye yoong sorrow to beguile
Or to gie auld fear the flegs?
Na, quo' the mavis; it's but to wile
My wee things oot o' her eggs.
An' aye &c.

The mistress is plenty for that same gear,
Though ye sangna ear' nor late.
It's to draw the deid frae the moul' sae drear,
An' open the kirkyard gate.
An' aye &c.

Na, na; it's a better sang nor yer ain,
Though ye hae o' notes a feck,
'At wad mak auld Barebanes there sae fain
As to lift the muckle sneck!
But aye &c.

Better ye sing nor a burn i' the mune,
Nor a wave ower san' that flows,
Nor a win' wi' the glintin' stars abune,
An' aneth the roses in rows;
An' aye &c.

But I'll speir ye nae mair, sir, said the herd.
I fear what ye micht say neist.
Ye wad but won'er the mair, said the bird,
To see the thouchts i' my breist.

And aye he sang, an' better he sang,
An' the worms creepit in an' oot;
An' ane he tuik, an' twa he loot gang,
But still he carolled stoot.

I doubt whether Ginevra understood this song better than the first,
but she was now more careful of criticizing; and when by degrees it
dawned upon her that he was the maker of these and other verses he
read, she grew half afraid of Donal, and began to regard him with
big eyes; he became, from a herd-boy, an unintelligible person,
therefore a wonder. For, brought thus face to face with the maker
of verses, she could not help trying to think how he did the thing;
and as she felt no possibility of making verses herself, it remained
a mystery and an astonishment, causing a great respect for the poet
to mingle with the kindness she felt towards Nicie's brother.




CHAPTER XXXI.

THEIR REWARD.

By degrees Gibbie had come to be well known about the Mains and
Glashruach. Angus's only recognition of him was a scowl in return
for his smile; but, as I have said, he gave him no farther
annoyance, and the tales about the beast-loon were dying out from
Daurside. Jean Mavor was a special friend to him: for she knew now
well enough who had been her brownie, and made him welcome as often
as he showed himself with Donal. Fergus was sometimes at home;
sometimes away; but he was now quite a fine gentleman, a student of
theology, and only condescendingly cognizant of the existence of
Donal Grant. All he said to him when he came home a master of arts,
was, that he had expected better of him: he ought to be something
more than herd by this time. Donal smiled and said nothing. He had
just finished a little song that pleased him, and could afford to be
patronized. I am afraid, however, he was not contented with that,
but in his mind's eye measured Fergus from top to toe.

In the autumn, Mr. Galbraith returned to Glashruach, but did not
remain long. His schemes were promising well, and his
self-importance was screwed yet a little higher in consequence. But
he was kinder than usual to Ginevra. Before he went he said to her
that, as Mr. Machar had sunk into a condition requiring his
daughter's constant attention, he would find her an English
governess as soon as he reached London; meantime she must keep up
her studies by herself as well as she could. Probably he forgot all
about it, for the governess was not heard of at Glashruach, and
things fell into their old way. There was no spiritual traffic
between the father and daughter, consequently Ginevra never said
anything about Donal or Gibbie, or her friendship for Nicie. He had
himself to blame altogether; he had made it impossible for her to
talk to him. But it was well he remained in ignorance, and so did
not put a stop to the best education she could at this time of her
life have been having--such as neither he nor any friend of his
could have given her.

It was interrupted, however, by the arrival of the winter--a wild
time in that region, fierce storm alternating with the calm of
death. After howling nights, in which it seemed as if all the
polter-geister of the universe must be out on a disembodied lark,
the mountains stood there in the morning solemn still, each with his
white turban of snow unrumpled on his head, in the profoundest
silence of blue air, as if he had never in his life passed a more
thoughtful, peaceful time than the very last night of all. To such
feet as Ginevra's the cottage on Glashgar was for months almost as
inaccessible as if it had been in Sirius. More than once the Daur
was frozen thick; for weeks every beast was an absolute prisoner to
the byre, and for months was fed with straw and turnips and potatoes
and oilcake. Then was the time for stories; and often in the long
dark, while yet it was hours too early for bed, would Ginevra go
with Nicie, who was not much of a raconteuse, to the kitchen, to get
one of the other servants to tell her an old tale. For even in his
own daughter and his own kitchen, the great laird could not
extinguish the accursed superstition. Not a glimpse did Ginevra get
all this time of Donal or of Gibbie.

At last, like one of its own flowers in its own bosom, the spring
began again to wake in God's thought of his world; and the snow,
like all other deaths, had to melt and run, leaving room for hope;
then the summer woke smiling, as if she knew she had been asleep;
and the two youths and the two maidens met yet again on Lorrie bank,
with the brown water falling over the stones, the gold nuggets of
the broom hanging over the water, and the young larch-wood scenting
the air all up the brae side between them and the house, which the
tall hedge hid from their view. The four were a year older, a year
nearer trouble, and a year nearer getting out of it. Ginevra was
more of a woman, Donal more of a poet, Nicie as nice and much the
same, and Gibbie, if possible, more a foundling of the universe than
ever. He was growing steadily, and showed such freedom and ease,
and his motions were all so rapid and direct, that it was plain at a
glance the beauty of his countenance was in no manner or measure
associated with weakness. The mountain was a grand nursery for him,
and the result, both physical and spiritual, corresponded. Janet,
who, better than anyone else, knew what was in the mind of the boy,
revered him as much as he revered her; the first impression he made
upon her had never worn off--had only changed its colour a little.
More even than a knowledge of the truth, is a readiness to receive
it; and Janet saw from the first that Gibbie's ignorance at its
worst was but room vacant for the truth: when it came it found bolt
nor bar on door or window, but had immediate entrance. The secret
of this power of reception was, that to see a truth and to do it was
one and the same thing with Gibbie. To know and not do would have
seemed to him an impossibility, as it is in vital idea a
monstrosity.

This unity of vision and action was the main cause also of a certain
daring simplicity in the exercise of the imagination, which so far
from misleading him reacted only in obedience--which is the truth of
the will--the truth, therefore, of the whole being. He did not do
the less well for his sheep, that he fancied they knew when Jesus
Christ was on the mountain, and always at such times both fed better
and were more frolicsome. He thought Oscar knew it also, and
interpreted a certain look of the dog by the supposition that he had
caught a sign of the bodily presence of his Maker. The direction in
which his imagination ran forward, was always that in which his
reason pointed; and so long as Gibbie's fancies were bud-blooms upon
his obedience, his imagination could not be otherwise than in
harmony with his reason. Imagination is a poor root, but a worthy
blossom, and in a nature like Gibbie's its flowers cannot fail to be
lovely. For no outcome of a man's nature is so like himself as his
imaginations, except it be his fancies, indeed. Perhaps his
imaginations show what he is meant to be, his fancies what he is
making of himself.

In the summer, Mr. Galbraith, all unannounced, reappeared at
Glashruach, but so changed that, startled at the sight of him,
Ginevra stopped midway in her advance to greet him. The long thin
man was now haggard and worn; he looked sourer too, and more
suspicious--either that experience had made him so, or that he was
less equal to the veiling of his feelings in dignified indifference.
He was annoyed that his daughter should recognize an alteration in
him, and, turning away, leaned his head on the hand whose arm was
already supported by the mantelpiece, and took no further notice of
her presence; but perhaps conscience also had something to do with
this behaviour. Ginevra knew from experience that the sight of
tears would enrage him, and with all her might repressed those she
felt beginning to rise. She went up to him timidly, and took the
hand that hung by his side. He did not repel her--that is, he did
not push her away, or even withdraw his hand, but he left it hanging
lifeless, and returned with it no pressure upon hers--which was much
worse.

"Is anything the matter, papa?" she asked with trembling voice.

"I am not aware that I have been in the habit of communicating with
you on the subject of my affairs," he answered; "nor am I likely to
begin to do so, where my return after so long an absence seems to
give so little satisfaction."

"Oh, papa! I was frightened to see you looking so ill."

"Such a remark upon my personal appearance is but a poor recognition
of my labours for your benefit, I venture to think, Jenny," he said.

He was at the moment contemplating, as a necessity, the sale of
every foot of the property her mother had brought him. Nothing less
would serve to keep up his credit, and gain time to disguise more
than one failing scheme. Everything had of late been going so
badly, that he had lost a good deal of his confidence and
self-satisfaction; but he had gained no humility instead. It had
not dawned upon him yet that he was not unfortunate, but unworthy.
The gain of such a conviction is to a man enough to outweigh
infinitely any loss that even his unworthiness can have caused him;
for it involves some perception of the worthiness of the truth, and
makes way for the utter consolation which the birth of that truth in
himself will bring. As yet Mr. Galbraith was but overwhelmed with
care for a self which, so far as he had to do with the making of it,
was of small value indeed, although in the possibility, which is the
birthright of every creature, it was, not less than that of the
wretchedest of dog-licked Lazaruses, of a value by himself
unsuspected and inappreciable. That he should behave so cruelly to
his one child, was not unnatural to that self with which he was so
much occupied: failure had weakened that command of behaviour which
so frequently gains the credit belonging only to justice and
kindness, and a temper which never was good, but always feeling the
chain, was ready at once to show its ugly teeth. He was a proud
man, whose pride was always catching cold from his heart. He might
have lived a hundred years in the same house with a child that was
not his own, without feeling for her a single movement of affection.

The servants found more change in him than Ginevra did; his
relations with them, if not better conceived than his paternal ones,
had been less evidently defective. Now he found fault with every
one, so that even Joseph dared hardly open his mouth, and said he
must give warning. The day after his arrival, having spent the
morning with Angus walking over certain fields, much desired, he
knew, of a neighbouring proprietor, inwardly calculating the utmost
he could venture to ask for them with a chance of selling, he
scolded Ginevra severely on his return because she had not had
lunch, but had waited for him; whereas a little reflection might
have shown him she dared not take it without him. Naturally,
therefore, she could not now eat, because of a certain sensation in
her throat. The instant he saw she was not eating, he ordered her
out of the room: he would have no such airs in his family! By the
end of the week--he arrived on the Tuesday--such a sense of
estrangement possessed Ginevra, that she would turn on the stair and
run up again, if she heard her father's voice below. Her aversion
to meeting him, he became aware of, and felt relieved in regard to
the wrong he was doing his wife, by reflecting upon her daughter's
behaviour towards him; for he had a strong constitutional sense of
what was fair, and a conscience disobeyed becomes a cancer.

In this evil mood he received from some one--all his life Donal
believed it was Fergus--a hint concerning the relations between his
daughter and his tenant's herd-boy. To describe his feelings at the
bare fact that such a hint was possible, would be more labour than
the result would repay.--What! his own flesh and blood, the heiress
of Glashruach, derive pleasure from the boorish talk of such a
companion! It could not be true, when the mere thought, without the
belief of it, filled him with such indignation! He was overwhelmed
with a righteous disgust. He did himself the justice of making
himself certain before he took measures; but he never thought of
doing them the justice of acquainting himself first with the nature
of the intercourse they held. But it mattered little; for he would
have found nothing in that to give him satisfaction, even if the
thing itself had not been outrageous. He watched and waited, and
more than once pretended to go from home: at last one morning, from
the larch-wood, he saw the unnatural girl seated with her maid on
the bank of the river, the cow-herd reading to them, and on the
other side the dumb idiot lying listening. He was almost beside
himself--with what, I can hardly define. In a loud voice of bare
command he called to her to come to him. With a glance of terror at
Nicie she rose, and they went up through the larches together.

I will not spend my labour upon a reproduction of the verbal torrent
of wrath, wounded dignity, disgust, and contempt, with which the
father assailed his shrinking, delicate, honest-minded woman-child.
For Nicie, he dismissed her on the spot. Not another night would
he endure her in the house, after her abominable breach of
confidence! She had to depart without even a good-bye from Ginevra,
and went home weeping in great dread of what her mother would say.

"Lassie," said Janet, when she heard her story, "gien onybody be to
blame it's mysel'; for ye loot me ken ye gaed whiles wi' yer bonnie
missie to hae a news wi' Donal, an' I saw an' see noucht 'at's wrang
intill't. But the fowk o' this warl' has ither w'ys o' jeedgin' o'
things, an' I maun bethink mysel' what lesson o' the serpent's
wisdom I hae to learn frae 't. Ye're walcome hame, my bonnie lass.
Ye ken I aye keep the wee closet ready for ony o' ye 'at micht come
ohn expeckit."

Nicie, however, had not long to occupy the closet, for those of her
breed were in demand in the country.




CHAPTER XXXII.

PROLOGUE.

Ever since he became a dweller in the air of Glashgar, Gibbie,
mindful of his first visit thereto, and of his grand experience on
that occasion, had been in the habit, as often as he saw reason to
expect a thunder-storm, and his duties would permit, of ascending
the mountain, and there on the crest of the granite peak, awaiting
the arrival of the tumult. Everything antagonistic in the boy,
everything that could naturally find relief, or pleasure, or simple
outcome, in resistance or contention, debarred as it was by the
exuberance of his loving kindness from obtaining satisfaction or
alleviation in strife with his fellows, found it wherever he could
encounter the forces of Nature, in personal wrestle with them where
possible, and always in wildest sympathy with any uproar of the
elements. The absence of personality in them allowed the
co-existence of sympathy and antagonism in respect of them. Except
those truths awaking delight at once calm and profound, of which so
few know the power, and the direct influence of human relation,
Gibbie's emotional joy was more stirred by storm than by anything
else; and with all forms of it he was so familiar that, young as he
was, he had unconsciously begun to generalize on its phases.

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