INITIATION.
Mrs. Sclater’s first piece of business the following morning was to
take Gibbie to the most fashionable tailor in the city, and have him
measured for such clothes as she judged suitable for a gentleman’s
son. As they went through the streets, going and returning, the
handsome lady walking with the youth in the queer country-made clothes,
attracted no little attention, and most of the inhabitants who saw
them, having by this time heard of the sudden importance of their
old acquaintance, wee Sir Gibbie, and the search after him, were not
long in divining the secret of the strange conjunction. But although
Gibbie seemed as much at home with the handsome lady as if she had
been his own mother, and walked by her side with a step and air as
free as the wind from Glashgar, he felt anything but comfortable in
his person. For here and there Tammy Breeks’s seams came too close
to his skin, and there are certain kinds of hardship which, though
the sufferer be capable of the patience of Job, will yet fret. Gibbie
could endure cold or wet or hunger, and sing like a mavis; he had borne
pain upon occasion with at least complete submission; but the tight
arm-holes of his jacket could hardly be such a decree of Providence
as it was rebellion to interfere with; and therefore I do not relate
what follows, as a pure outcome of that benevolence in him which was
yet equal to the sacrifice of the best fitting of garments. As they
walked along Pearl-street, the handsomest street of the city, he
darted suddenly from Mrs. Sclater’s side, and crossed to the opposite
pavement. She stood and looked after him wondering, hitherto he had
broken out in no vagaries! As he ran, worse and worse! he began tugging
at his jacket, and had just succeeded in getting it off as he arrived
at the other side, in time to stop a lad of about his own size, who was
walking bare-footed and in his shirt sleeves--if _shirt_ or _sleeves_
be a term applicable to anything visible upon him. With something of
the air of the tailor who had just been waiting upon himself, but with
as much kindness and attention as if the boy had been Donal Grant
instead of a stranger, he held the jacket for him to put on. The lad
lost no time in obeying, gave him one look and nod of gratitude, and
ran down a flight of steps to a street below, never doubting his
benefactor an idiot, and dreading some one to whom he belonged would
be after him presently to reclaim the gift. Mrs. Sclater saw the
proceeding with some amusement and a little foreboding. She did not
mourn the fate of the jacket; had it been the one she had just ordered,
or anything like it, the loss would have been to her not insignificant:
but was the boy altogether in his right mind? She in her black satin
on the opposite pavement, and the lad scudding down the stair in the
jacket, were of similar mind concerning the boy, who, in shirt sleeves
indubitable, now came bounding back across the wide street. He took
his place by her side as if nothing had happened, only that he went
along swinging his arms as if he had just been delivered from manacles.
Having for so many years roamed the streets with scarcely any clothes
at all, he had no idea of looking peculiar, and thought nothing more of
the matter.
But Mrs. Sclater soon began to find that even in regard to social
externals, she could never have had a readier pupil. He watched her
so closely, and with such an appreciation of the difference in things
of the kind between her and her husband, that for a short period he
was in danger of falling into habits of movement and manipulation
too dainty for a man, a fault happily none the less objectionable in
the eyes of his instructress, that she, on her own part, carried the
feminine a little beyond the limits of the natural. But here also she
found him so readily set right, that she imagined she was going to
do anything with him she pleased, and was not a little proud of her
conquest, and the power she had over the young savage. She had yet to
discover that Gibbie had his own ideas too, that it was the general
noble teachableness and affection of his nature that had brought about
so speedy an understanding between them in everything wherein he saw
she could show him the better way, but that nowhere else would he
feel bound or inclined to follow her injunctions. Much and strongly
as he was drawn to her by her ladyhood, and the sense she gave him
of refinement and familiarity with the niceties, he had no feeling
that she had authority over him. So neglected in his childhood, so
absolutely trusted by the cottagers, who had never found in him the
slightest occasion for the exercise of authority, he had not an idea
of owing obedience to any but the One. Gifted from the first with a
heart of devotion, the will of the Master set the will of the boy
upon the throne of service, and what he had done from inclination
he was now capable of doing against it, and would most assuredly do
against it if ever occasion should arise: what other obedience was
necessary to his perfection? For his father and mother and Donal he had
reverence--profound and tender, and for no one else as yet among men;
but at the same time something far beyond respect for every human shape
and show. He would not, could not make any of the social distinctions
which to Mr. and Mrs. Sclater seemed to belong to existence itself,
and their recognition essential to the living of their lives; whence
it naturally resulted that upon occasion he seemed to them devoid of
the first rudiments of breeding, without respect or any notion of
subordination.
Mr. Sclater was conscientious in his treatment of him. The very day
following that of their arrival, he set to work with him. He had been a
tutor, was a good scholar, and a sensible teacher, and soon discovered
how to make the most of Gibbie’s facility in writing. He was already
possessed of a little Latin, and after having for some time accustomed
him to translate from each language into the other, the minister began
to think it might be of advantage to learning in general, if at least
half the boys and girls at school, and three parts of every Sunday
congregation, were as dumb as Sir Gilbert Galbraith. When at length
he set him to Greek, he was astonished at the avidity with which he
learned it! He had hardly got him over _τύπτω_, when he found him one
day so intent upon the Greek Testament, that, exceptionally keen of
hearing as he was, he was quite unaware that anyone had entered the
room.
What Gibbie made of Mr. Sclater’s prayers, either in congregational or
family devotion, I am at some loss to imagine. Beside his memories of
the direct fervid outpouring and appeal of Janet, in which she seemed
to talk face to face with God, they must have seemed to him like the
utterances of some curiously constructed wooden automaton, doing its
best to pray, without any soul to be saved, any weakness to be made
strong, any doubt to be cleared, any hunger to be filled. What can be
less like religion than the prayers of a man whose religion is his
profession, and who, if he were not “in the church,” would probably
never pray at all? Gibbie, however, being the reverse of critical,
must, I can hardly doubt, have seen in them a good deal more than was
there--a pitiful faculty to the man who cultivates that of seeing in
everything less than is there.
To Mrs. Sclater, it was at first rather depressing, and for a time
grew more and more painful, to have a live silence by her side. But
when she came into rapport with the natural utterance of the boy, his
presence grew more like a constant speech, and that which was best in
her was not unfrequently able to say for the boy what he would have
said could he have spoken: the nobler part of her nature was in secret
alliance with the thoughts and feelings of Gibbie. But this relation
between them, though perceptible, did not become at all plain to her
until after she had established more definite means of communication.
Gibbie, for his part, full of the holy simplicities of the cottage, had
a good many things to meet which disappointed, perplexed, and shocked
him. Middling good people are shocked at the wickedness of the wicked;
Gibbie, who knew both so well, and what ought to be expected, was
shocked only at the wickedness of the righteous. He never came quite
to understand Mr. Sclater: the inconsistent never can be _understood_.
That only which has absolute reason in it can be understood of man.
There is a bewilderment about the very nature of evil which only he who
made us capable of evil that we might be good, can comprehend.