SECRET SERVICE.
I must not linger over degrees and phases. Every morning, Gibbie
got into the kitchen in good time; and not only did more and more
of the work, but did it more and more to the satisfaction of Jean,
until, short of the actual making of the porridge, he did everything
antecedent to the men’s breakfast. When Jean came in, she had but to
take the lid from the pot, put in the salt, assume the spurtle, and,
grasping the first handful of the meal, which stood ready waiting in
the bossie on the stone cheek of the fire, throw it in, thus commencing
the simple cookery of the best of all dishes to a true-hearted and
healthy Scotsman. Without further question she attributed all the aid
she received to the goodness, “enough for anything,” of Donal Grant,
and continued to make acknowledgment of the same in both sort and
quantity of victuals, whence, as has been shown, the real labourer
received his due reward.
Until he had thoroughly mastered his work, Gibbie persisted in
regarding matters economic “from his loophole in the _ceiling_;” and
having at length learned the art of making butter, soon arrived at some
degree of perfection in it. But when at last one morning he not only
churned, but washed and made it up entirely to Jean’s satisfaction, she
did begin to wonder how a mere boy could both have such perseverance,
and be so clever at a woman’s work. For now she entered the kitchen
every morning without a question of finding the fire burning, the water
boiling, the place clean and tidy, the supper dishes well washed and
disposed on shelf and rack: her own part was merely to see that proper
cloths were handy to so thorough a user of them. She took no one into
her confidence on the matter: it was enough, she judged, that she and
Donal understood each other.
And now if Gibbie had contented himself with rendering this
house-service in return for the shelter of the barn and its hay,
he might have enjoyed both longer; but from the position of his
night-quarters, he came gradually to understand the work of the stable
also; and before long, the men, who were quite ignorant of anything
similar taking place in the house, began to observe, more to their
wonder than satisfaction, that one or other of their horses was
generally groomed before his man came to him; that often there was hay
in their racks which they had not given them; and that the master’s
white horse every morning showed signs of having had some attention
paid him that could not be accounted for. The result was much talk
and speculation, suspicion and offence; for all were jealous of their
rights, their duty, and their dignity, in relation to their horses:
no man was at liberty to do a thing to or for any but his own pair.
Even the brightening of the harness-brass, in which Gibbie sometimes
indulged, was an offence; for did it not imply a reproach? Many were
the useless traps laid for the offender, many the futile attempts to
surprise him: as Gibbie never did anything except for half an hour
or so while the men were sound asleep or at breakfast, he escaped
discovery.
But he could not hold continued intercourse with the splendour of the
white horse, and neglect carrying out the experiment on which he had
resolved with regard to the effect of water upon his own skin; and
having found the result a little surprising, he soon got into the habit
of daily and thorough ablution. But many animals that never wash are
yet cleaner than some that do; and, what with the scantiness of his
clothing, his constant exposure to the atmosphere, and his generally
lying in a fresh lair, Gibbie had always been comparatively clean.
Besides, being nice in his mind, he was naturally nice in his body.
The new personal regard thus roused by the presence of Snowball, had
its development greatly assisted by the scrupulosity with which most
things in the kitchen, and chief of all in this respect, the churn,
were kept. It required much effort to come up to the nicety considered
by Jean indispensable in the churn; and the croucher on the ceiling,
when he saw the long nose advance to prosecute inquiry into its
condition, mentally trembled lest the next movement should condemn his
endeavour as a failure. With his clothes he could do nothing, alas! but
he bathed every night in the Lorrie as soon as Donal had gone home with
the cattle. Once he got into a deep hole, but managed to get out again,
and so learned that he could swim.
All day he was with Donal, and took from him by much the greater part
of his labour: Donal had never had such time for reading. In return
he gave him his dinner, and Gibbie could do very well upon one meal a
day. He paid him also in poetry. It never came into his head, seeing
he never spoke, to teach him to read. He soon gave up attempting to
learn anything from him as to his place or people or history, for to
all questions in that direction Gibbie only looked grave and shook his
head. As often, on the other hand, as he tried to learn where he spent
the night, he received for answer only one of his merriest laughs.
Nor was larger time for reading the sole benefit Gibbie conferred upon
Donal. Such was the avidity and growing intelligence with which the
little naked town-savage listened to what Donal read to him, that his
presence was just so much added to Donal’s own live soul of thought and
feeling. From listening to his own lips through Gibbie’s ears, he not
only understood many things better, but, perceiving what things must
puzzle Gibbie, came sometimes, rather to his astonishment, to see that
in fact he did not understand them himself. Thus the bond between the
boy and the child grew closer--far closer, indeed than Donal imagined;
for, although still, now and then, he had a return of the fancy that
Gibbie might be a creature of some speechless race other than human,
of whom he was never to know whence he came or whither he went--a
messenger, perhaps, come to unveil to him the depths of his own spirit,
and make up for the human teaching denied him, this was only in his
more poetic moods, and his ordinary mental position towards him was one
of kind condescension.
It was not all fine weather up there among the mountains in the
beginning of summer. In the first week of June even, there was sleet
and snow in the wind--the tears of the vanquished Winter, blown, as
he fled, across the sea, from Norway or Iceland. Then would Donal’s
heart be sore for Gibbie, when he saw his poor rags blown about like
streamers in the wind, and the white spots melting on his bare skin.
His own condition would then to many have appeared pitiful enough,
but such an idea Donal would have laughed to scorn, and justly. Then
most, perhaps then only, does the truly generous nature feel poverty,
when he sees another in need and can do little or nothing to help him.
Donal had neither greatcoat, plaid, nor umbrella, wherewith to shield
Gibbie’s looped and windowed raggedness. Once, in great pity, he pulled
off his jacket, and threw it on Gibbie’s shoulders. But the shout of
laughter that burst from the boy, as he flung the jacket from him, and
rushed away into the middle of the feeding herd, a shout that came from
no cave of rudeness, but from the very depths of delight, stirred by
the loving kindness of the act, startled Donal out of his pity into
brief anger, and he rushed after him in indignation, with full purpose
to teach him proper behaviour by a box on each ear. But Gibbie dived
under the belly of a favourite cow, and peering out sideways from
under her neck and between her forelegs, his arms grasping each a leg,
while the cow went on twisting her long tongue round the grass and
plucking it undisturbed, showed such an innocent countenance of holy
merriment, that the pride of Donal’s hurt benevolence melted away, and
his laughter emulated Gibbie’s. That sort of day was in truth drearier
for Donal than for Gibbie, for the books he had were not his own, and
he dared not expose them to the rain; some of them indeed came from
Glashruach--_the Muckle Hoose_, they generally called it! When he left
him, it was to wander disconsolately about the field; while Gibbie,
sheltered under a whole cow, defied the chill and the sleet, and had no
books of which to miss the use. He could not, it is true, shield his
legs from the insidious attacks of such sneaking blasts as will always
find out the undefended spots; but his great heart was so well-to-do
in the inside of him, that, unlike Touchstone, his spirits not being
weary, he cared not for his legs. The worst storm in the world could
not have made that heart quail. For, think! there had just been the
strong, the well-dressed, the learned, the wise, the altogether mighty
and considerable Donal, the cowherd, actually desiring him, wee Sir
Gibbie Galbraith, the cinder of the city furnace, the naked, and
generally the hungry little tramp, to wear his jacket to cover him from
the storm! The idea was one of eternal triumph; and Gibbie, exulting
in the unheard-of devotion and condescension of the thing, kept on
laughing like a blessed cherub under the cow’s belly. Nor was there in
his delight the smallest admixture of pride that _he_ should have drawn
forth such kindness; it was simple glorying in the beauteous fact. As
to the cold and the sleet, so far as he knew they never hurt anybody.
They were not altogether pleasant creatures, but they could not help
themselves, and would soon give over their teasing. By to-morrow they
would have wandered away into other fields, and left the sun free to
come back to Donal and the cattle, when Gibbie, at present shielded
like any lord by the friendliest of cows, would come in for a share of
the light and the warmth. Gibbie was so confident with the animals,
that they were already even more friendly with him than with Donal--all
except Hornie, who, being of a low spirit, therefore incapable of
obedience, was friendliest with the one who gave her the hardest blows.