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Robert Louis Stevenson - "Songs of Travel and Other Verses"

Samuel Smiles - "Men of Invention and Industry "

Honore de Balzac - "Paz"

A. Merritt - "The Moon Pool"

Sir Gibbie

G >> George MacDonald >> Sir Gibbie




"Sir Gilbert's run oot efter the wuman, sir!" she said.

"Hoot!" grunted the minister, greatly displeased, and went back to
his wife.

"Take Sir Gilbert's plate away," said Mrs. Sclater to the servant.

"That's his New Testament again!" she went on, when the girl had
left the room.

"My dear! my dear! take care," said her husband. He had not much
notion of obedience to God, but he had some idea of respect to
religion. He was just an idolater of a Christian shade.

"Really, Mr. Sclater," his wife continued, "I had no idea what I was
undertaking. But you gave me no choice. The creature is
incorrigible. But of course he must prefer the society of women
like that. They are the sort he was accustomed to when he received
his first impressions, and how could it be otherwise? You knew how
he had been brought up, and what you had to expect!"

"Brought up!" cried the minister, and caused his spoonful of
cockie-leekie to rush into his mouth with the noise of the German
schlürfen, then burst into a loud laugh. "You should have seen him
about the streets!--with his trowsers--"

"Mister Sclater! Then you ought to have known better!" said his
wife, and laying down her spoon, sat back into the embrace of her
chair.

But in reality she was not the least sorry he had undertaken the
charge. She could not help loving the boy, and her words were
merely the foam of vexation, mingled with not a little jealousy,
that he had left her, and his nice hot dinner, to go with the woman.
Had she been a fine lady like herself, I doubt if she would have
liked it much better; but she specially recoiled from coming into
rivalry with one in whose house a horrible murder had been
committed, and who had been before the magistrates in consequence.

Nothing further was said until the second course was on the table.
Then the lady spoke again:

"You really must, Mr. Sclater, teach him the absurdity of attempting
to fit every point of his behaviour to--to--words which were of
course quite suitable to the time when they were spoken, but which
it is impossible to take literally now-a-days--as impossible as to
go about the streets with a great horn on your head and a veil
hanging across it.--Why!"--Here she laughed--a laugh the less
lady-like that, although it was both low and musical, it was
scornful, and a little shaken by doubt.--"You saw him throw his arms
round the horrid creature's neck!--Well, he had just asked me if she
was a sinner. I made no doubt she was. Off with the word goes my
gentleman to embrace her!"

Here they laughed together.

Dinner over, they went to a missionary meeting, where the one stood
and made a speech and the other sat and listened, while Gibbie was
having tea with Mistress Croale.

>From that day Gibbie's mind was much exercised as to what he could
do for Mistress Croale, and now first he began to wish he had his
money. As fast as he learned the finger-alphabet he had taught it
to Donal, and, as already they had a good many symbols in use
between them, so many indeed that Donal would often instead of
speaking make use of signs, they had now the means of intercourse
almost as free as if they had had between them two tongues instead
of one. It was easy therefore for Gibbie to impart to Donal his
anxiety concerning her, and his strong desire to help her, and doing
so, he lamented in a gentle way his present inability. This
communication Donal judged it wise to impart in his turn to Mistress
Croale.

"Ye see, mem," he said in conclusion, "he's some w'y or anither
gotten 't intil's heid 'at ye're jist a wheen ower free wi' the
boatle. I kenna. Ye'll be the best jeedge o' that yersel'!"

Mistress Croale was silent for a whole minute by the clock. From
the moment when Gibbie forsook his dinner and his grand new friends
to go with her, the woman's heart had begun to grow to the boy, and
her old memories fed the new crop of affection.

"Weel," she replied at length, with no little honesty, "--I mayna be
sae ill 's he thinks me, for he had aye his puir father afore 's
e'en; but the bairn's richt i' the main, an' we maun luik till't,
an' see what can be dune; for eh! I wad be laith to disappint the
bonnie laad!--Maister Grant, gien ever there wis a Christi-an sowl
upo' the face o' this wickit warl', that Christi-an sowl's wee Sir
Gibbie!--an' wha cud hae thoucht it! But it's the Lord's doin', an'
mervellous in oor eyes!--Ow! ye needna luik like that; I ken my
Bible no that ill!" she added, catching a glimmer of surprise on
Donal's countenance. "But for that Maister Scletter--dod! I wadna
be sair upon 'im--but gien he be fit to caw a nail here an' a nail
there, an fix a sklet or twa, creepin' upo' the riggin' o' the kirk,
I'm weel sure he's nae wise maister-builder fit to lay ony
fundation.--Ay! I tellt ye I kent my beuk no that ill!" she added
with some triumph; then resumed: "What the waur wad he or she or Sir
Gibbie hae been though they hed inveetit me, as I was there, to sit
me doon, an' tak' a plet o' their cockie-leekie wi' them? There was
ane 'at thoucht them 'at was far waur nor me, guid eneuch company
for him; an' maybe I may sit doon wi' him efter a', wi' the help o'
my bonnie wee Sir Gibbie.--I canna help ca'in' him wee Sir
Gibbie--a' the toon ca'd 'im that, though haith! he'll be a big man
or he behaud. An' for 's teetle, I was aye ane to gie honour whaur
honour was due, an' never ance, weel as I kenned him, did I ca' his
honest father, for gien ever there was an honest man yon was
him!--never did I ca' him onything but Sir George, naither mair nor
less, an' that though he vroucht at the hardest at the cobblin' a'
the ook, an' upo' Setterdays was pleased to hae a guid wash i' my
ain bedroom, an' pit on a clean sark o' my deid man's, rist his
sowl!--no 'at I'm a papist, Maister Grant, an' aye kent better nor
think it was ony eese prayin' for them 'at's gane; for wha is there
to pey ony heed to sic haithenish prayers as that wad be? Na! we
maun pray for the livin' 'at it may dee some guid till, an' no for
them 'at its a' ower wi'--the Lord hae mercy upo' them!"

My readers may suspect, one for one reason another for another, that
she had already, before Donal came that evening been holding
communion with the idol in the three-cornerd temple of her cupboard;
and I confess that it was so. But it is equally true that before
the next year was gone, she was a shade better--and that not without
considerable struggle, and more failures than successes.

Upon one occasion--let those who analyze the workings of the human
mind as they would the entrails of an eight-day clock, explain the
phenomenon I am about to relate, or decline to believe it, as they
choose--she became suddenly aware that she was getting perilously
near the brink of actual drunkenness.

"I'll tak but this ae mou'fu' mair," she said to herself; "it's but
a mou'fu', an' it's the last i' the boatle, an' it wad be a peety
naebody to get the guid o' 't."

She poured it out. It was nearly half a glass. She took it in one
large mouthful. But while she held it in her mouth to make the most
of it, even while it was between her teeth, something smote her with
the sudden sense that this very moment was the crisis of her fate,
that now the axe was laid to the root of her tree. She dropped on
her knees--not to pray like poor Sir George--but to spout the
mouthful of whisky into the fire. In roaring flame it rushed up the
chimney. She started back.

"Eh!" she cried; "guid God! sic a deevil's I maun be, to cairry the
like o' that i' my inside!--Lord! I'm a perfec' byke o' deevils!
My name it maun be Legion. What is to become o' my puir sowl!"

It was a week before she drank another drop--and then she took her
devils with circumspection, and the firm resolve to let no more of
them enter into her than she could manage to keep in order.

Mr. and Mrs. Sclater got over their annoyance as well as they could,
and agreed that in this case no notice should be taken of Gibbie's
conduct.




CHAPTER XLV.

SHOALS AHEAD.

It had come to be the custom that Gibbie should go to Donal every
Friday afternoon about four o'clock, and remain with him till the
same time on Saturday, which was a holiday with both. One Friday,
just after he was gone, the temptation seized Mrs. Sclater to follow
him, and, paying the lads an unexpected visit, see what they were
about.

It was a bright cold afternoon; and in fur tippet and muff, amidst
the snow that lay everywhere on roofs and window-sills and
pavements, and the wind that blew cold as it blows in few places
besides, she looked, with her bright colour and shining eyes, like
life itself laughing at death. But not many of those she met
carried the like victory in their countenances, for the cold was
bitter. As she approached the Widdiehill, she reflected that she
had followed Gibbie so quickly, and walked so fast, that the boys
could hardly have had time to settle to anything, and resolved
therefore to make a little round and spend a few more minutes upon
the way. But as, through a neighbouring street, she was again
approaching the Widdiehill, she caught sight of something which, as
she was passing a certain shop, that of a baker known to her as one
of her husband's parishioners, made her stop and look in through the
glass which formed the upper half of the door. There she saw
Gibbie, seated on the counter, dangling his legs, eating a penny
loaf, and looking as comfortable as possible.--"So soon after
luncheon, too!" said Mrs. Sclater to herself with indignation,
reading through the spectacles of her anger a reflection on her
housekeeping. But a second look revealed, as she had dreaded, far
weightier cause for displeasure: a very pretty girl stood behind the
counter, with whose company Gibbie was evidently much pleased. She
was fair of hue, with eyes of gray and green, and red lips whose
smile showed teeth whiter than the whitest of flour. At the moment
she was laughing merrily, and talking gaily to Gibbie. Clearly they
were on the best of terms, and the boy's bright countenance,
laughter, and eager motions, were making full response to the girl's
words.

Gibbie had been in the shop two or three times before, but this was
the first time he had seen his old friend, Mysie, of the amethyst
ear-ring. And now one of them had reminded the other of that
episode in which their histories had run together; from that Mysie
had gone on to other reminiscences of her childhood in which wee
Gibbie bore a part, and he had, as well as he could, replied with
others, of his, in which she was concerned. Mysie was a simple,
well-behaved girl, and the entrance of neither father nor mother
would have made the least difference in her behaviour to Sir
Gilbert, though doubtless she was more pleased to have a chat with
him than with her father's apprentice, who could speak indeed, but
looked dull as the dough he worked in, whereas Gibbie, although
dumb, was radiant. But the faces of people talking often look more
meaningful to one outside the talk-circle than they really are, and
Mrs. Sclater, gazing through the glass, found, she imagined, large
justification of displeasure. She opened the door sharply, and
stepped in. Gibbie jumped from his seat on the counter, and, with a
smile of playful roguery, offered it to her; a vivid blush
overspread Mysie's fair countenance.

"I thought you had gone to see Donal," said Mrs. Sclater, in the
tone of one deceived, and took no notice of the girl.

Gibbie gave her to understand that Donal would arrive presently, and
they were then going to the point of the pier, that Donal might
learn what the sea was like in a nor'-easter.

"But why did you make your appointment here?" asked the lady.

"Because Mysie and I are old friends," answered the boy on his
fingers.

Then first Mrs. Sclater turned to the girl: having got over her
first indignation, she spoke gently and with a frankness natural to
her.

"Sir Gilbert tells me you are old friends," she said.

Thereupon Mysie told her the story of the ear-ring, which had
introduced their present conversation, and added several other
little recollections, in one of which she was drawn into a
description, half pathetic, half humorous, of the forlorn appearance
of wee Gibbie, as he ran about in his truncated trousers. Mrs.
Slater was more annoyed, however, than interested, for, in view of
the young baronet's future, she would have had all such things
forgotten; but Gibbie was full of delight in the vivid recollections
thus brought him of some of the less painful portions of his past,
and appreciated every graphic word that fell from the girl's pretty
lips.

Mrs. Sclater took good care not to leave until Donal came. Then the
boys, having asked her if she would not go with them, which
invitation she declined with smiling thanks, took their departure
and went to pay their visit to the German Ocean, leaving her with
Mysie--which they certainly would not have done, could they have
foreseen how the well-meaning lady--nine-tenths of the mischiefs in
the world are well-meant--would hurt the feelings of the
gentle-conditioned girl. For a long time after, as often as Gibbie
entered the shop, Mysie left it and her mother came--a result
altogether as Mrs. Sclater would have had it. But hardly anybody
was ever in less danger of falling in love than Gibbie; and the
thing would not have been worth recording, but for the new direction
it caused in Mrs. Sclater's thoughts: measures, she judged, must be
taken.

Gladly as she would have centred Gibbie's boyish affections in
herself, she was too conscientious and experienced not to regard the
danger of any special effort in that direction, and began therefore
to cast about in her mind what could be done to protect him from one
at least of the natural consequences of his early familiarity with
things unseemly--exposure, namely, to the risk of forming low
alliances--the more imminent that it was much too late to attempt
any restriction of his liberty, so as to keep him from roaming the
city at his pleasure. Recalling what her husband had told her of
the odd meeting between the boy and a young lady at Miss Kimble's
school--some relation, she thought he had said--also the desire to
see her again which Gibbie, on more than one occasion, had shown,
she thought whether she could turn the acquaintance to account. She
did not much like Miss Kimble, chiefly because of her
affectations--which, by the way, were caricatures of her own; but
she knew her very well, and there was no reason why she should not
ask her to come and spend the evening, and bring two or three of the
elder girls with her: a little familiarity with the looks, manners,
and dress of refined girls of his own age, would be the best
antidote to his taste for low society, from that of bakers'
daughters downwards.

It was Mrs. Sclater's own doing that Gibbie had not again spoken to
Ginevra. Nowise abashed at the thought of the grenadier or her
array of doves, he would have gone, the very next day after meeting
them in the street, to call upon her: it was some good, he thought,
of being a rich instead of a poor boy, that, having lost thereby
those whom he loved best, he had come where he could at least see
Miss Galbraith; but Mrs. Sclater had pretended not to understand
where he wanted to go, and used other artifices besides--well-meant,
of course--to keep him to herself until she should better understand
him. After that he had seen Ginevra more than once at church, but
had had no chance of speaking to her. For, in the sudden dispersion
of its agglomerate particles, a Scotch congregation is--or was in
Gibbie's time--very like the well-known vitreous drop called a
Prince Rupert's tear, in which the mutually repellent particles are
held together by a strongly contracted homogeneous layer--to
separate with explosion the instant the tough skin is broken and
vibration introduced; and as Mrs. Sclater generally sat in her
dignity to the last, and Gibbie sat with her, only once was he out
in time to catch a glimpse of the ultimate rank of the retreating
girls. He was just starting to pursue them, when Mrs. Sclater,
perceiving his intention, detained him by requesting the support of
his arm--a way she had, pretending to be weary, or to have given her
ankle a twist, when she wanted to keep him by her side. Another
time he had followed them close enough to see which turn they took
out of Daur-street; but that was all he had learned, and when the
severity of the winter arrived, and the snow lay deep, sometimes for
weeks together, the chances of meeting them were few. The first
time the boys went out together, that when they failed to find
Mistress Croale's garret, they made an excursion in search of the
girls' school, but had been equally unsuccessful in that; and
although they never after went for a walk without contriving to pass
through some part of the region in which they thought it must lie,
they had never yet even discovered a house upon which they could
agree as presenting probabilities.

Mr. Galbraith did not take Miss Kimble into his confidence with
respect to his reasons for so hurriedly placing his daughter under
her care: he was far too reticent, too proud, and too much hurt for
that. Hence, when Mrs. Sclater's invitation arrived, the
schoolmistress was aware of no reason why Miss Galbraith should not
be one of the girls to go with her, especially as there was her
cousin, Sir Gilbert, whom she herself would like to meet again, in
the hope of removing the bad impression which, in the discharge of
her duty, she feared she must have made upon him.

One day, then, at luncheon, Mrs. Sclater told Gibbie that some
ladies were coming to tea, and they were going to have supper
instead of dinner. He must put on his best clothes, she said. He
did as she desired, was duly inspected, approved on the whole, and
finished off by a few deft fingers at his necktie, and a gentle push
or two from the loveliest of hands against his hair-thatch, and was
seated in the drawing-room with Mrs. Sclater when the ladies
arrived. Ginevra and he shook hands, she with the sweetest of
rose-flushes, he with the radiance of delighted surprise. But, a
moment after, when Mrs. Sclater and her guests had seated
themselves, Gibbie, their only gentleman, for Mr. Sclater had not
yet made his appearance, had vanished from the room. Tea was not
brought until some time after, when Mr. Sclater came home, and then
Mrs. Sclater sent Jane to find Sir Gilbert; but she returned to say
he was not in the house. The lady's heart sank, her countenance
fell, and all was gloom: her project had miscarried! he was gone!
who could tell whither?--perhaps to the baker's daughter, or to the
horrid woman Croale!

The case was however very much otherwise. The moment Gibbie ended
his greetings, he had darted off to tell Donal: it was not his
custom to enjoy alone anything sharable.

The news that Ginevra was at that moment seated in Mrs. Sclater's
house, at that moment, as his eagerness had misunderstood Gibbie's,
expecting his arrival, raised such a commotion in Donal's
atmosphere, that for a time it was but a huddle of small whirlwinds.
His heart was beating like the trample of a trotting horse. He
never thought of inquiring whether Gibbie had been commissioned by
Mrs. Sclater to invite him, or reflected that his studies were not
half over for the night. An instant before the arrival of the
blessed fact, he had been absorbed in a rather abstruse
metaphysico-mathematical question; now not the metaphysics of the
universe would have appeared to him worth a moment's meditation. He
went pacing up and down the room, and seemed lost to everything.
Gibbie shook him at length, and told him, by two signs, that he
must put on his Sunday clothes. Then first shyness, like the shroud
of northern myth that lies in wait in a man's path, leaped up, and
wrapped itself around him. It was very well to receive ladies in a
meadow, quite another thing to walk into their company in a grand
room, such as, before entering Mrs. Sclater's, he had never beheld
even in Fairyland or the Arabian Nights. He knew the ways of the
one, and not the ways of the other. Chairs ornate were doubtless
poor things to daisied banks, yet the other day he had hardly
brought himself to sit on one of Mrs. Sclater's! It was a moment of
awful seeming. But what would he not face to see once more the
lovely lady-girl! He bethought himself that he was no longer a
cowherd but a student, and that such feelings were unworthy of one
who would walk level with his fellows. He rushed to the labours of
his toilette, performed severe ablutions, endued his best
shirt--coarse, but sweet from the fresh breezes of Glashgar, a pair
of trousers of buff-coloured fustian stamped over with a black
pattern, an olive-green waistcoat, a blue tailcoat with lappets
behind, and a pair of well-polished shoes, the soles of which in
honour of Sunday were studded with small instead of large knobs of
iron, set a tall beaver hat, which no brushing would make smooth, on
the back of his head, stuffed a silk hankerchief, crimson and
yellow, in his pocket, and declared himself ready.

Now Gibbie, although he would not have looked so well in his woolly
coat in Mrs. Sclater's drawing-room as on the rocks of Glashgar,
would have looked better in almost any other than the evening dress,
now, alas! nearly European. Mr. Sclater, on the other hand, would
have looked worse in any other because being less commonplace, it
would have been less like himself; and so long as the commonplace
conventional so greatly outnumber the simply individual, it is
perhaps well the present fashion should hold. But Donal could
hardly have put on any clothes that would have made him look worse,
either in respect of himself or of the surroundings of social life,
than those he now wore. Neither of the boys, however, had begun to
think about dress in relation either to custom or to fitness, and it
was with complete satisfaction that Gibbie carried off Donal to
present to the guest of his guardians.

Donal's preparations had taken a long time, and before they reached
the house, tea was over and gone. They had had some music; and Mrs.
Sclater was now talking kindly to two of the school-girls, who,
seated erect on the sofa, were looking upon her elegance with awe
and envy. Ginevra, was looking at the pictures of an annual. Mr.
Sclater was making Miss Kimble agreeable to herself. He had a
certain gift of talk--depending in a great measure on the assurance
of being listened to, an assurance which is, alas! nowise the less
hurtful to many a clergyman out of the pulpit, that he may be
equally aware no one heeds him in it.




CHAPTER XLVI.

THE GIRLS.

The door was opened. Donal spent fully a minute rubbing his shoes
on the mat, as diligently as if he had just come out of the
cattle-yard, and then Gibbie led him in triumph up the stair to the
drawing-room. Donal entered in that loose-jointed way which comes
of the brains being as yet all in the head, and stood, resisting
Gibbie's pull on his arm, his keen hazel eyes looking gently round
upon the company, until he caught sight of the face he sought, when,
with the stride of a sower of corn, he walked across the room to
Ginevra. Mrs. Sclater rose; Mr. Sclater threw himself back and
stared; the latter astounded at the presumption of the youths, the
former uneasy at the possible results of their ignorance. To the
astonishment of the company, Ginevra rose, respect and modesty in
every feature, as the youth, clownish rather than awkward,
approached her, and almost timidly held out her hand to him. He
took it in his horny palm, shook it hither and thither sideways,
like a leaf in a doubtful air, then held it like a precious thing he
was at once afraid of crushing by too tight a grasp, and of dropping
from too loose a hold, until Ginevra took charge of it herself
again. Gibbie danced about behind him, all but standing on one leg,
but, for Mrs. Sclater's sake, restraining himself. Ginevra sat
down, and Donal, feeling very large and clumsy, and wanting to "be
naught a while," looked about him for a chair, and then first
espying Mrs. Sclater, went up to her with the same rolling, clamping
stride, but without embarrassment, and said, holding out his hand,

"Hoo are ye the nicht, mem?" I sawna yer bonnie face whan I cam in.
A gran' hoose, like this o' yours--an' I'm sure, mem, it cudna be
ower gran' to fit yersel', but it's jist some perplexin' to plain
fowk like me, 'at's been used to mair room, an' less intill't."

Donal was thinking of the meadow on the Lorrie bank.

"I was sure of it!" remarked Mrs. Sclater to herself. "One of
nature's gentleman! He would soon be taught."

She was right; but he was more than a gentleman, and could have
taught her what she could have taught nobody in turn.

"You will soon get accustomed to our town ways, Mr. Grant. But many
of the things we gather about us are far more trouble than use," she
replied, in her sweetest tones, and with a gentle pressure of the
hand, which went a long way to set him at his ease. "I am glad to
see you have friends here," she added.

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