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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter thirteen 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 Maggie Travers in Columbia, Tennessee Sir Gibby by George
mac Donald, chapter thirteen, the ceiling. He might have slept
(00:23):
longer the next morning, for there was no threshing to
wake him, in spite of the cocks in the yard
that made it their business to rouse sleepers to their work.
Had it not been for another kind of cock inside him,
which bore the same relation to food that the others
bore to light. He peeped first, then crept out. All
was still except the voices of those prophet cocks crying
(00:44):
in the wilderness of the yet sunless world, a moon
now and then from the buyers, and the occasional stamp
of a great hoof in the stable. Gibby clambered up
into the loft, and turning the cheeses about until he
came upon the one he had gnawed before, again attacked
it and enlarged considerably the hole he had already made
in it. Rather dangerous food. It was perhaps eaten in
(01:07):
that unmitigated way, for it was made of skimmed milk
and was very dry and hard. But Gibby was a
powerful little animal, all bones and sinews, small, hard muscle,
and faultless digestion. The next idea, naturally rising, was the burn.
He tumbled down over the straw heap to the floor
of the barn and made for the cat hole. But
(01:29):
the moment he put his head out, he saw the
legs of a man the farmer was walking through his ricks,
speculating on the money they held. He drew back and
looked round to see where best he could betake himself
should he come in. He spied thereupon the ladder leaning
against the end wall of the barn, opposite the loft
and the stables, and near it in the wall a
(01:49):
wooden shutter like the door of a little cupboard. He
got up the ladder, and, opening the shutter, which was
fastened only with a button, found a hole in the wall,
through which, popping his head too carelessly, he knocked from
a shelf some piece of pottery, which fell with a
great crash on a paved floor. Looking after it, Gibby
beheld below him a rich prospect of yellow, white pools
(02:12):
ranging in order on shelves. There reminded him of milk,
but were of a different color. As he gazed, a
door open hastily with a sharp clicking latch, and a
woman entered, ejaculating care what set that cat? Gibby drew back,
lest in her search for the cat she might find
the culprit. She looked all around, muttering such truncated imprecations
(02:35):
as befitted the mouth of a scotchwoman. But as none
of her milk was touched, her wrath gradually abated. She
picked up the fragments and withdrew. Thereupon Gibbey ventured to
recoin her a little farther, and, popping in his head again,
saw that the dairy was opened to the roof, but
the door was in a partition which did not run
so high. The place from which the woman entered was sealed,
(02:59):
and the ceiling rested on the partition between it and
the dairy, so that from a shelf level with the
whole he could easily enough get on the top of
the ceiling. This urged by the instinct of the homeless
to understand their surroundings, he presently affected by creeping like
a cat along the top of the shelf. The ceiling
was that of the kitchen, and was merely of boards, which,
(03:23):
being old and shrunken, had here and there a considerable
crack between two, and Gibbey, peeping through one after another
of these cracks, soon saw several things he did not
understand of such was a barrel churn, which he took
for a barrel organ and welcomed as a sign of civilization.
The woman was sweeping the room towards the hearth, where
(03:44):
the peat fire was already burning, with a great pot
hanging over it, covered with a wooden lid. When the
water in it was hot, she poured it into a
large wooden dish, in which she began to wash other dishes,
thus giving the observant Gibbey his first notion of housekeeping.
Then she scoured the deal table, dusted the bench and
(04:05):
the chairs, arranged the dishes on shelves and rack, except
a few, which she placed on the table, put more
water on the fire, and disappeared in the dairy. Thence
presently she returned carrying a great jar, which, to Gibbey's astonishment,
having lifted a lid in the top of the churn
she emptied into it. He was not therefore any farther,
(04:26):
astonished when she began to turn the handle vigorously that
no music issued. As to what else might be expected,
Gibby had not even a mistaken idea. But the butter
came quickly that morning, and then he did have another astonishment,
for he saw a great mass of something half solid,
tumbled out where he had seen a liquid pour in.
(04:48):
Nor that alone, for the liquid came out again too.
But when at length he saw the mass, after being
well washed, molded into certain shapes, he recognized it as butter,
such as he had seen in the shop, and had
now an end tasted on the piece given him by
some more than usually generous housekeeper. Surely he had wandered
(05:08):
into a region of plenty. Only now, when he saw
the woman busy and careful, the idea of things in
the country being a sort of common property began to
fade from his mind, and the perception to wake that
they were as the things in the shops, which must
not be touched without first paying money for them over
a counter. The butter making brought to a successful clothes
(05:30):
the woman proceeded to make porridge for the men's breakfast,
and with hungry eyes, Gibby watched that process. Next, the
water in the great pot boiling like a wild volcano.
She took handful after handful of meal from a great
wooden dish called a bossy, and threw it into the pot,
stirring as she threw, until the mess was presently so
thick that she could no more move the spurtle in it,
(05:53):
And scarcely had she emptied it into another great wooden
bowl called a bicker, when Gibby heard the heavy tramp
of the men crossed in the yard to consume it.
For the last few minutes, Gibbey's nostrils alas not. Gibby
had been regaled with the delicious odor of the boiling meal,
and now his eyes had their turn. But still at
last not Gibby prostrate on the ceiling, He lay and
(06:16):
watched the splendid spoonfuls tumble out of sight into the
capacious throats of four men. All took their spoonfuls from
the same dish, but each dipped his spoonful into his
private cap of milk. Ere he carried it to his
mouth a little apart sat a boy whom the woman
seemed to favor, having provided him with a plateful of
porridge by himself. But the fact was four were as
(06:40):
many as could bicker comfortably or with any chance of
fair play. The boy's countenance greatly attracted Gibby. It was
a long, solemn face, but the eyes were bright blue
and sparkling, and when he smiled, which was not very often,
it was a good, meaningful smile. When the meal was
over and he saw all the little that was left,
(07:01):
with all the drops of milk from the coppice, tumbled
into a common receptacle to be kept, he thought for
the next meal. Poor Gibby felt very empty and forsaken.
He crawled away, sad at heart, with nothing before him
except a drink of water at the burn. He might
have gone to the door of the house in the
hope of a bit of cake. But now that he
(07:21):
had seen something of the doings in the house and
of the people who lived in it, as soon as
it is, as he had looked embodied ownership in the face,
he began to be aware of its claims, and the
cheese he had eaten to lie heavy upon his spiritual stomach.
He had done that which he would not have done
before leaving the city. Carefully, he crept across the ceiling,
his head hanging like a dog, scolded of his master,
(07:44):
Carefully along the shelf of the dairy, and through the
opening in the wall, quickly down the ladder, and through
the cat hole in the barn door. There was no
one in the corn yard now, and he wandered about
among the ricks, looking with little hope for something to eat.
Turning a corner he came upon a hen house, and
there was a crowd of hens and half grown chickens
(08:05):
about the very dish into which he had seen the
remnants of the breakfast's throne, all pecking bilfuls out of it.
As I may have said before, he always felt at
liberty to share with the animals, partly, I suppose, because
he saw that they had no scrupulosity or ceremony among themselves.
So he dipped his hand into the dish. Why should
(08:25):
not the bird of the air now and then peck
with the more respectable of the barn door, if only
to learn his inferiority. Greatly refreshed, he got up from
among the hens, scrambled over the dry stone wall and
trotted away to the burn end of Chapter thirteen. Recording
by Maggie Travers in Columbia, Tennessee
Chapter thirteen 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 Maggie Travers in Columbia, Tennessee Sir Gibby by George
mac Donald, chapter thirteen, the ceiling. He might have slept
(00:23):
longer the next morning, for there was no threshing to
wake him, in spite of the cocks in the yard
that made it their business to rouse sleepers to their work.
Had it not been for another kind of cock inside him,
which bore the same relation to food that the others
bore to light. He peeped first, then crept out. All
was still except the voices of those prophet cocks crying
(00:44):
in the wilderness of the yet sunless world, a moon
now and then from the buyers, and the occasional stamp
of a great hoof in the stable. Gibby clambered up
into the loft, and turning the cheeses about until he
came upon the one he had gnawed before, again attacked
it and enlarged considerably the hole he had already made
in it. Rather dangerous food. It was perhaps eaten in
(01:07):
that unmitigated way, for it was made of skimmed milk
and was very dry and hard. But Gibby was a
powerful little animal, all bones and sinews, small, hard muscle,
and faultless digestion. The next idea, naturally rising, was the burn.
He tumbled down over the straw heap to the floor
of the barn and made for the cat hole. But
(01:29):
the moment he put his head out, he saw the
legs of a man the farmer was walking through his ricks,
speculating on the money they held. He drew back and
looked round to see where best he could betake himself
should he come in. He spied thereupon the ladder leaning
against the end wall of the barn, opposite the loft
and the stables, and near it in the wall a
(01:49):
wooden shutter like the door of a little cupboard. He
got up the ladder, and, opening the shutter, which was
fastened only with a button, found a hole in the wall,
through which, popping his head too carelessly, he knocked from
a shelf some piece of pottery, which fell with a
great crash on a paved floor. Looking after it, Gibby
beheld below him a rich prospect of yellow, white pools
(02:12):
ranging in order on shelves. There reminded him of milk,
but were of a different color. As he gazed, a
door open hastily with a sharp clicking latch, and a
woman entered, ejaculating care what set that cat? Gibby drew back,
lest in her search for the cat she might find
the culprit. She looked all around, muttering such truncated imprecations
(02:35):
as befitted the mouth of a scotchwoman. But as none
of her milk was touched, her wrath gradually abated. She
picked up the fragments and withdrew. Thereupon Gibbey ventured to
recoin her a little farther, and, popping in his head again,
saw that the dairy was opened to the roof, but
the door was in a partition which did not run
so high. The place from which the woman entered was sealed,
(02:59):
and the ceiling rested on the partition between it and
the dairy, so that from a shelf level with the
whole he could easily enough get on the top of
the ceiling. This urged by the instinct of the homeless
to understand their surroundings, he presently affected by creeping like
a cat along the top of the shelf. The ceiling
was that of the kitchen, and was merely of boards, which,
(03:23):
being old and shrunken, had here and there a considerable
crack between two, and Gibbey, peeping through one after another
of these cracks, soon saw several things he did not
understand of such was a barrel churn, which he took
for a barrel organ and welcomed as a sign of civilization.
The woman was sweeping the room towards the hearth, where
(03:44):
the peat fire was already burning, with a great pot
hanging over it, covered with a wooden lid. When the
water in it was hot, she poured it into a
large wooden dish, in which she began to wash other dishes,
thus giving the observant Gibbey his first notion of housekeeping.
Then she scoured the deal table, dusted the bench and
(04:05):
the chairs, arranged the dishes on shelves and rack, except
a few, which she placed on the table, put more
water on the fire, and disappeared in the dairy. Thence
presently she returned carrying a great jar, which, to Gibbey's astonishment,
having lifted a lid in the top of the churn
she emptied into it. He was not therefore any farther,
(04:26):
astonished when she began to turn the handle vigorously that
no music issued. As to what else might be expected,
Gibby had not even a mistaken idea. But the butter
came quickly that morning, and then he did have another astonishment,
for he saw a great mass of something half solid,
tumbled out where he had seen a liquid pour in.
(04:48):
Nor that alone, for the liquid came out again too.
But when at length he saw the mass, after being
well washed, molded into certain shapes, he recognized it as butter,
such as he had seen in the shop, and had
now an end tasted on the piece given him by
some more than usually generous housekeeper. Surely he had wandered
(05:08):
into a region of plenty. Only now, when he saw
the woman busy and careful, the idea of things in
the country being a sort of common property began to
fade from his mind, and the perception to wake that
they were as the things in the shops, which must
not be touched without first paying money for them over
a counter. The butter making brought to a successful clothes
(05:30):
the woman proceeded to make porridge for the men's breakfast,
and with hungry eyes, Gibby watched that process. Next, the
water in the great pot boiling like a wild volcano.
She took handful after handful of meal from a great
wooden dish called a bossy, and threw it into the pot,
stirring as she threw, until the mess was presently so
thick that she could no more move the spurtle in it,
(05:53):
And scarcely had she emptied it into another great wooden
bowl called a bicker, when Gibby heard the heavy tramp
of the men crossed in the yard to consume it.
For the last few minutes, Gibbey's nostrils alas not. Gibby
had been regaled with the delicious odor of the boiling meal,
and now his eyes had their turn. But still at
last not Gibby prostrate on the ceiling, He lay and
(06:16):
watched the splendid spoonfuls tumble out of sight into the
capacious throats of four men. All took their spoonfuls from
the same dish, but each dipped his spoonful into his
private cap of milk. Ere he carried it to his
mouth a little apart sat a boy whom the woman
seemed to favor, having provided him with a plateful of
porridge by himself. But the fact was four were as
(06:40):
many as could bicker comfortably or with any chance of
fair play. The boy's countenance greatly attracted Gibby. It was
a long, solemn face, but the eyes were bright blue
and sparkling, and when he smiled, which was not very often,
it was a good, meaningful smile. When the meal was
over and he saw all the little that was left,
(07:01):
with all the drops of milk from the coppice, tumbled
into a common receptacle to be kept, he thought for
the next meal. Poor Gibby felt very empty and forsaken.
He crawled away, sad at heart, with nothing before him
except a drink of water at the burn. He might
have gone to the door of the house in the
hope of a bit of cake. But now that he
(07:21):
had seen something of the doings in the house and
of the people who lived in it, as soon as
it is, as he had looked embodied ownership in the face,
he began to be aware of its claims, and the
cheese he had eaten to lie heavy upon his spiritual stomach.
He had done that which he would not have done
before leaving the city. Carefully, he crept across the ceiling,
his head hanging like a dog, scolded of his master,
(07:44):
Carefully along the shelf of the dairy, and through the
opening in the wall, quickly down the ladder, and through
the cat hole in the barn door. There was no
one in the corn yard now, and he wandered about
among the ricks, looking with little hope for something to eat.
Turning a corner he came upon a hen house, and
there was a crowd of hens and half grown chickens
(08:05):
about the very dish into which he had seen the
remnants of the breakfast's throne, all pecking bilfuls out of it.
As I may have said before, he always felt at
liberty to share with the animals, partly, I suppose, because
he saw that they had no scrupulosity or ceremony among themselves.
So he dipped his hand into the dish. Why should
(08:25):
not the bird of the air now and then peck
with the more respectable of the barn door, if only
to learn his inferiority. Greatly refreshed, he got up from
among the hens, scrambled over the dry stone wall and
trotted away to the burn end of Chapter thirteen. Recording
by Maggie Travers in Columbia, Tennessee
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