Sir Gibbie Ch 17 Featured Book Tale Teller Kids Reading Age 15 #greatbooks #classics #teens

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter seventeen 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. Sir
Giby by George mac Donald, Chapter seventeen, Secret Service. I

(00:24):
must not linger over degrees and phases. Every morning Gibby
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 Jane, until short
of the actual making of the porridge. He did everything
antecedent to the men's breakfast. When Jean came in, she

(00:46):
had but to take the lid from the pot, put
in the salt, assume the spirtle, and, grasping the first
handful of the meal which stood ready waiting in the
bossi 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.

(01:09):
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 laborer received his due reward.
Until he had thoroughly mastered his work. Gibbey persisted in

(01:31):
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 Jeane's satisfaction, she did
begin to wonder how a mere boy could both have

(01:54):
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

(02:16):
a user of them. She took no one into her
confidence on the matter. It was enough she judged that
she and Donnell understood each other. And now, if Gibbey
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

(02:39):
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

(02:59):
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 offense. For all were jealous of their rights, their duty,

(03:23):
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 Gibby sometimes indulged, was an offense,
for did it not imply a reproach. Many were the
useless traps laid for the offender, Many the feudal attempts

(03:46):
to surprise him, As Gibby 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 splendor of the white horse,
and neglect carrying out the experiment on which he had
resolved with regard to the effect of water upon his

(04:07):
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

(04:29):
in a fresh lair, Gibbey 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,

(04:51):
chief of all in this respect, the churn, were kept.
It required much effort to come up to the nicety
considered by gene in disp pencible in the churn, and
the croucher on the ceiling, when he saw the long
nose advanced to prosecute inquiry into its condition mentally trembled
lest the next movement should condemn his endeavor as a failure.

(05:15):
With his clothes he could do nothing alas, but he
bathed every night in the lorry 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

(05:37):
part of his labor. Donal had never had such time
for reading. In return, he gave him his dinner, and
Gibbey 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,

(05:57):
he soon gave up attempting to learn anything from him
as to his place, or people, or history. For to
all such questions in that direction, Gibby 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.

(06:19):
Nor was larger time for reading the soul benefit Gibby
conferred upon Donal. Such was the avidity and growing intelligence
with which the little naked town savage listened to what
Donald read to him, that his own presence was just
so much added to Donald's own live soul of thought
and feeling. From listening to his own lips through Gibbey's ears,

(06:44):
he not only understood many things better, but perceiving what
things must puzzle, Gibby 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 Donnell imagined. For although still now

(07:08):
and then he had a return of the fancy that
Gibby 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

(07:28):
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

(07:49):
tears of the vanquished winter blown as he fled across
the sea from Norway or Iceland. Then would Donald's heart
be sore for Gibby 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,

(08:13):
Donal would have laughed to scorn, and justly then most
perhaps then, only does the true 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 Gibbey's looped and windowed raggedness. Once,

(08:39):
in great pity, he pulled off his jacket and threw
it on Gibbey'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 Donald out of his pity

(09:02):
into brief anger, and he rushed after him in indignation,
with full purpose to teach him proper behavior by a
box on the ear. But Gibbey dived under the belly
of a favorite 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

(09:22):
tongue round the grass and plucking it undisturbed, showed such
an innocent countenance of holy merriment that the pride of
Donald's hurt benevolence melted away, and his laughter emulated Gibbey's.
That sort of day was in truth drearier for Donald
than for Gibby, for the books he had were not

(09:44):
his own, and he dared not expose them to the rain.
Some of them, indeed came from Glossrouch, the Mokohus, they
generally called it. When he left him, it was to
wander disconsolately about the field, while Gibbey sheltered under o
whole cow, defied the chill and the sleet, and had
no books of which to miss the use he could not,

(10:07):
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.

(10:28):
The worst storm in the world could have not made
that heart quail. For think there had just been the strong,
the well dressed, the learned, the wise, the altogether mighty
and considerable Donnell the coward actually desiring him we, Sir
Gibby Galbraith, the cinder of the city furnace, the naked

(10:52):
and generally the hungry little tramp to wear his jacket
to cover him from the storm. The idea was one
of eternal triumph, and Gibby, 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,

(11:13):
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

(11:35):
themselves and would soon give over their teasing. By tomorrow
they would have wandered away into other fields and left
the sun free to come back to Donnell and the cattle,
when Gibby, at present shielded like any lord, by the
friendliest of cows would come in for a share of
the light and the warmth. Gibby was so confident with

(11:57):
the animals that they were already even more feed with
him than with Donnell. All except Horny, who, being of
a low spirit therefore incapable of obedience, was friendliest with
the one who gave her the hardest blows. End of
Chapter seventeen. Recording by Hannah Mary