Sir Gibbie Ch 1 Featured Books by Tale Teller Kids Reading Age 15 #greatbooks #classics

LibriVox recording of Sir Gibbie by George MacDonald.

Read in English by LibriVox Volunteers.

Sir Gibbie is a Scottish classic by George MacDonald about a mute, orphaned boy who flees to the countryside after witnessing a murder, finding a new life and demonstrating inherent goodness and a Christ-like purity amidst his hardships. The story, written in Doric dialogue, presents a rags-to-riches journey filled with adventure and misadventure, ultimately serving as a spiritually-based narrative about self-sacrifice and living a life of integrity.  Key Aspects of the Novel

• Protagonist: 
  Gibbie is a boy from Scotland's Highlands who is orphaned and unable to speak. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Plot: 
  After his father's death, Gibbie witnesses a murder and escapes to the countryside, where he experiences a new life and a series of adventures. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Themes: 
  The novel explores themes of self-sacrifice, Christian obedience, integrity, and the beauty of the natural world as a reflection of God's presence. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Style: 
  Written in the Doric dialect of Scotland, the book features a complex cast of characters and offers a story that is both a spiritual lesson and a tale of rags-to-riches success. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Historical Context: 
  Published in 1879, the novel was written during a time when George MacDonald, a renowned Scottish author, minister, and poet, aimed to further spread Christian principles through his accessible narratives. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Legacy: 
  Sir Gibbie is a favorite of C. S. Lewis and remains an influential classic, often recommended for its uplifting and spiritually rich content. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter one of Sir Gibby. This is a LibriVox recording.
All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording
by Mary Anne Weathers. Sir Gibby by George mac Donald,
Chapter one, The ear ring, come ou to the gatter

(00:22):
Yindekum cried in harsh, half masculine voice. A woman standing
on the curbstone of a short, narrow, dirty lane at
right angles to an important thoroughfare, itself none of the
widest or cleanest. She was dressed in dark petticoat and
print wrapper. One of her shoes was down at the heel,
and discovered a great hole in her stocking. Had her

(00:42):
black hair been brushed and displayed, it would have revealed
a thready glitter of gray. But all that was now
visible of it was only two or three untidy tresses
that dropped from under a cap of black net and
green ribbons, which looked as if she had slept in it.
Her face must have been handsome when it was young
and fresh, but was now beginning to look tattooed. Though
whether the color was from without or from within, it

(01:04):
would have been hard to determine. Her black eyes looked resolute,
almost fierce, above her straight, well formed nose, Yet evidently
circumstance clave fast to her. She had never risen above it,
and was now plainly subjected to it. About thirty yards
from her, on the farther side of the main street,
and just opposite the mouth of the lane, a child,

(01:26):
apparently about six but in reality about eight, was down
on his knees, raking with both hands in the gray
dirt of the kennel. At the woman's cry, he lifted
his head, ceased his search, raised himself but without getting up,
and looked at her. They were notable eyes out of
which he looked of Such a deep blue were they,
and having such long lashes, But more notable far from

(01:48):
their expression, the nature of which, although a certain witchery
of confidence was at once discoverable, was not to be
determined without the help of the whole face, whose diffused
meaning seemed in them to deepen all almost to speech.
Whatever was at the heart of that expression, it was
something that enticed question and might want investigation. The face,

(02:09):
as well as the eyes, was lovely, not very clean,
and not too regular for hope of a fine development,
but chiefly remarkable from a general effect of something I
can only call luminosity. The hair, which stuck out from
the head in every direction like a round fur cap,
would have been of the red gold kind, had it
not been sunburned into a sort of human hay. An

(02:31):
odd creature altogether. The child appeared as shaking the gutter
drops from his little dirty hands. He gazed from his
bare knees on the curbstone at the woman of rebuke.
It was but for a moment. The next he was down,
raking in the gutter again. The woman looked angry and
took a step forward, but the sound of a sharp,
imperative little bell behind her made her turn at once

(02:53):
and re entered the shop from which he had just issued,
following a man whose pushing the door wider had set
the bell ringing. Above the door was a small board
nearly square, upon which was painted in lead color on
the black ground the words licensed to sell beer, spirits
and tobacco to be drunk on the premises. There was
no other sign them. It likes my Whisky'll no I

(03:15):
be spit O my name, said Mistress Kroll. As the
day went on, she would have more and more customers,
and in the evening on to midnight her parlor would
be well filled. Then she would be always at hand,
and the spring of the bell would be turned aside
from the impact of the opening door. Now the bell
was needful to recall her from house affairs. The lacinat

(03:36):
critic has for clean doubt he's been not at this hill. Halfore,
she murmured to herself, as she poured from a black
bottle into a pewter measure a gill of whiskey for
the pale faced toper who stood on the other side
of the counter, far gone in consumption. He could not
get through the forenoon without his mourning. I would like,
she went on, as she replaced the bottle, without having
spoken a word to her customer, whose departure was now

(03:58):
announced with the same boisterous alacrity as his arrival by
the shrill toned bell. I would like, for father's sake,
honest man, to throw of his lug that lacken for
dart I canna fathom nor bide. Meantime, the boy's attention
seemed entirely absorbed in the gutter. Whatever vehicle passed before him,
whatever footsteps behind. He never lifted his head, but went

(04:20):
creeping slowly on his knees along the curb, still searching
down the floe of the sluggish, nearly motionless current. It
was a gray morning towards the close of autumn. The
days began and ended with a fog, but often between
as gold and a sunshine glorified the streets of the
gray city as any that ripened purple grapes. To day,

(04:41):
the mist had lasted longer than usual, had risen instead
of dispersing. But now it was thinning, and at length,
like a slow blossoming of the sky flower, the sun
came melting through the cloud. Between the gables of two houses.
A ray fell upon the pavement and the gutter. It
lay there, a very type of purity, so pure that

(05:02):
rest where it might, it destroyed every shadow of defilement
that sought to mingle with it. Suddenly the boy made
a dart upon all fours, and pounced, like a creature
of prey, upon something in the kennel. He had found
what he had been looking for so long. He sprang
to his feet and bounded with it into the sun,
rubbing it as he ran. Upon what he had for trousers,

(05:23):
of which there was nothing below the knees but a
few streamers, and nothing above the knees but the body
of the garment, which had been I will not say
made for, but last worn by a boy three times
his size. His feet, of course, were bare, as well
as his knees and legs, But though they were dirty
red and rough, they were nicely shaped little legs, and
the feet were dainty. The sunbeams he sought came down

(05:46):
through the smoky air like a Jacob's ladder, and he
stood at the foot of it, like a little prodigal
angel that wanted to go home again, but feared it
was too much inclined for him to manage the ascent
in the present condition of his wings. But all he
did want was to see in the light of heaven
what the gutter had yielded him. He held up his
find in the radiance and regarded it admiringly. It was

(06:07):
a little earring of amethyst colored glass, and in the
sun looked lovely. The boy was in an ecstasy over it.
He rubbed it on his sleeve, sucked it to clear
it from the last of the gutter, and held it
up once more in the sun, where for a few
blissful moments he contemplated it speechless. He then caused it
to disappear somewhere about his garments, I will not venture

(06:28):
to say, in a pocket, and ran off, his little
bare feet, sounding thud thud thud on the pavement, and
the collar of his jacket sticking half way up the
back of his head and threatening to rub it bare.
As he ran through street after street he sped, all
built of granite, all with flagged footways, and all paved
with granite blocks. A hard, severe city, not beautiful or

(06:50):
stately with its thick, gray, sparkling walls. For the houses
were not high, and the windows were small, yet in
the better parts nevertheless handsome, as well as massive and strong.
To the boy, the great city was but a house
of many rooms, all for his use, his sport, his life.
He did not know much of what lay within the houses,

(07:11):
but that only added the joy of mystery to possession.
They were jewel closets, treasure caves, indeed, with secret fountains
of life, and every street was a channel into which
they overflowed. It was in one of quite a third
rate sort that the urchin at length ceased his trot
and drew up at the door of a baker's shop,
a divided door opening in the middle by a latch

(07:33):
of bright brass. But the child did not lift the latch,
only raised himself on tiptoe by the help of its handle,
to look through the upper half of the door, which
was of glass, into the beautiful shop. The floor was
of flags, fresh sanded, the counter was of deal scrubbed
as white, almost as flour. On the shelves were heaped
the loaves of the morning's baking, along with a large

(07:54):
store of scones and rolls and baps, and last the
best bread in the world, biscuits hard and soft, and
those brown disks of delicate, flaky pie crust known as buns.
And the smell that came through the very glass, it
seemed to the child, was as that of the tree
of life and the paradise of which he had never heard.

(08:15):
But most enticing of all to the eyes of the
little wanderer of the street were the penny loaves, hot
smoking from the oven, which fact is our first window
into the ordered nature of the child. For the main
point which made them more attractive than all the rest
to him was that sometimes he did have a penny,
and that a penny loaf was the largest thing that
could be had for a penny in the shop, so

(08:37):
that lawless as he looked, the desires of the child
were moderate, and his imagination wrought within the bounds of reason.
But no one who has never been blessed with only
a penny to spend and a mighty hunger behind it
can understand the interest with which he stood there and
through the glass watched the bread. Having no penny and
only the hunger, there is at least one powerful bond,

(08:59):
though it may not always awake sympathy between mudlark and monarch,
that of hunger. No one has yet written the poetry
of hunger has built up in verse its stairs of
grand ascent from such hunger as Gibbey's for a penny loaf, up, no, no,
not to an alderman's feast, that is the way down
the moldy cellar stair, but up the white marble scale,

(09:21):
to the hunger after righteousness, whose very longings are bliss.
Behind the counter sat the baker's wife, a stout, fresh
colored woman, looking rather dull, but simple and honest. She
was knitting and if not dreaming, at least dozing over
her work, For she never saw the forehead and eyes which,
like a young ascending moon, gazed at her over the

(09:42):
horizon of the opaque half of her door. There was
no greed in those eyes, only much quiet interest. He
did not want to get in, had to wait, and
while waiting beguiled the time by beholding. He knew that Micey,
the baker's daughter, was at school, and that she would
be home with it half an hour. He had seen
her with tear filled eyes as she went, had learned

(10:04):
from her the cause, and had in consequence unwittingly roused
missus Krole's anger, and braved it when aroused. But though
he was waiting for her, such was the absorbing power
of the spectacle before him, that he never heard her
approaching footsteps. Map me in, said Micy with conscious dignity
and a touch of indignation. At being impeded on the

(10:24):
very threshold of her father's shop. The boy started and turned,
but instead of moving out of the way, began searching
in some mysterious receptacle hid in the recesses of his rags.
A look of anxiety once appeared, but the same moment
it vanished, and he held out in his hand the
little drop of amethystine's splendor. Micey's face changed and she

(10:45):
clutched it eagerly. That's rail giddy. O wee gibbee, she cried,
Why did you get it? He pointed to the kennel
and drew back from the door. Ah thank'e, she said heartily,
and pressing down the thumbstall of the latch went in.
Was that yr caloggin we Micey asked her mother, somewhat severely,
but without lifting her eyes from her wires. Ye muna

(11:06):
be spakin to loons in the strait. It's only we gibbie,
mother answered the girl in a tone of confidence. Oh well,
returned the mother. He's not like the lave o loons.
But what had ye to say till him? She resumed,
as if her leniency might have been taken advantage of.
He's nae fit company for the likes O you ass
a father, an mother, an a chop yo mun hay

(11:27):
little to say to suck run throud laddies. Gimbi has
a father, though they say never hid nay, mother, said
the child. Troth A fine father rejoined the mother with
a small scornful laugh. Na. But he's suthin to mac
munchin all sicka father lassie, as it would be, tellin
em at nain what said ye till him? I bet

(11:48):
think it him, cause a tete my drop is a
gait to the shill in the marnin an if ant
tell me an was at the chop door, waitin to
gimme it back, They says, I finin things. He's a
gid hearted cratur, said the mother fer aenn that is
has been sale barked up. She rose, took from the
shelf a large piece of bread composed of many adhering
penny loaves detached one, and went to the door. Here Gibby,

(12:10):
she cried as she opened it. Here's a fine piece
to ye. But no Gibby was there. Up and down
the street, not a child was to be seen. A
sandboy with a donkey cart was the sole human arrangement
in it. The baker's wife drew back shut the door
and resumed her knitting. End of chapter one