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APPRENTICESHIP.
He scrambled out on the top of the hay, and looked down on the
beautiful creature below him, dawning radiant again with the
morning, as it issued undimmed from the black bosom of the night.
He was not, perhaps, just so well groomed as white steed might be;
it was not a stable where they kept a blue-bag for their grey
horses; but to Gibbie's eyes he was so pure, that he began, for the
first time in his life, to doubt whether he was himself quite as
clean as he ought to be. He did not know, but he would make an
experiment for information when he got down to the burn. Meantime
was there nothing he could do for the splendid creature? From
above, leaning over, he filled his rack with hay; but he had eaten
so much grass the night before, that he would not look at it, and
Gibbie was disappointed. What should he do next? The thing he
would like best would be to look through the ceiling again, and
watch the woman at her work. Then, too, he would again smell the
boiling porridge, and the burning of the little sprinkles of meal
that fell into the fire. He dragged, therefore, the ladder to the
opposite end of the barn, and gradually, with no little effort,
raised it against the wall. Carefully he crept through the hole,
and softly round the shelf, the dangerous part of the pass, and so
on to the ceiling, whence he peeped once more down into the kitchen.
His precautions had been so far unnecessary, for as yet it lay
unvisited, as witnessed by its disorder. Suddenly came to Gibbie
the thought that here was a chance for him -- here a path back to the
world. Rendered daring by the eagerness of his hope, he got again
upon the shelf, and with every precaution lest he should even touch
a milkpan, descended by the lower shelves to the floor. There
finding the door only latched, he entered the kitchen, and proceeded
to do everything he had seen the woman do, as nearly in her style as
he could. He swept the floor, and dusted the seats, the window
sill, the table, with an apron he found left on a chair, then
arranged everything tidily, roused the rested fire, and had just
concluded that the only way to get the great pot full of water upon
it, would be to hang first the pot on the chain, and then fill it
with the water, when his sharp ears caught sounds and then heard
approaching feet. He darted into the dairy, and in a few seconds,
for he was getting used to the thing now, had clambered upon the
ceiling, and was lying flat across the joists, with his eyes to the
most commanding crack he had discovered: he was anxious to know how
his service would be received. When Jean Mavor -- she was the
farmer's half-sister -- opened the door, she stopped short and stared;
the kitchen was not as she had left it the night before! She
concluded she must be mistaken, for who could have touched it? and
entered. Then it became plain beyond dispute that the floor had
been swept, the table wiped, the place redd up, and the fire roused.
"Hoot! I maun hae been walkin' i' my sleep!" said Jean to herself
aloud. "Or maybe that guid laddie Donal Grant's been wullin' to gie
me a helpin' han' for's mither's sake, honest wuman! The laddie's
guid eneuch for onything! -- ay, gien 'twar to mak' a minister o'!"
Eagerly, greedily, Gibbie now watched her every motion, and, bent
upon learning, nothing escaped him: he would do much better next
morning! -- At length the men came in to breakfast, and he thought to
enjoy the sight; but, alas! it wrought so with his hunger as to make
him feel sick, and he crept away to the barn. He would gladly have
lain down in the hay for a while, but that would require the ladder,
and he did not now feel able to move it. On the floor of the barn
he was not safe, and he got out of it into the cornyard, where he
sought the henhouse. But there was no food there yet, and he must
not linger near; for, if he were discovered, they would drive him
away, and he would lose Donal Grant. He had not seen him at
breakfast, for indeed he seldom, during the summer, had a meal
except supper in the house. Gibbie, therefore, as he could not eat,
ran to the burn and drank -- but had no heart that morning for his
projected inquiry into the state of his person. He must go to
Donal. The sight of him would help him to bear his hunger.
The first indication Donal had of his proximity was the rush of
Hornie past him in flight out of the corn. Gibbie was pursuing her
with stones for lack of a stick. Thoroughly ashamed of himself,
Donal threw his book from him, and ran to meet Gibbie.
"Ye maunna fling stanes, cratur," he said. "Haith! it's no for me to
fin' fau't, though," he added, "sittin' readin' buiks like a gowk
'at I am, an' lattin' the beasts rin wull amo' the corn, 'at's weel
peyed to haud them oot o' 't! I'm clean affrontit wi' mysel',
cratur."
Gibbie's response was to set off at full speed for the place where
Donal had been sitting. He was back in a moment with the book,
which he pressed into Donal's hand, while from the other he withdrew
his club. This he brandished aloft once or twice, then starting at
a steady trot, speedily circled the herd, and returned to his
adopted master -- only to start again, however, and attack Hornie,
whom he drove from the corn-side of the meadow right over to the
other: she was already afraid of him. After watching him for a
time, Donal came to the conclusion that he could not do more than
the cratur if he had as many eyes as Argus, and gave not even one of
them to his book. He therefore left all to Gibbie, and did not once
look up for a whole hour. Everything went just as it should; and
not once, all that day, did Hornie again get a mouthful of the
grain. It was rather a heavy morning for Gibbie, though, who had
eaten nothing, and every time he came near Donal, saw the
handkerchief bulging in the grass, which a little girl had brought
and left for him. But he was a rare one both at waiting and at
going without.
At last, however, Donal either grew hungry of himself, or was moved
by certain understood relations between the sun and the necessities
of his mortal frame; for he laid down his book, called out to
Gibbie, "Cratur, it's denner-time," and took his bundle. Gibbie
drew near with sparkling eyes. There was no selfishness in his
hunger, for, at the worst pass he had ever reached, he would have
shared what he had with another, but he looked so eager, that Donal,
who himself knew nothing of want, perceived that he was ravenous,
and made haste to undo the knots of the handkerchief, which Mistress
Jean appeared that day to have tied with more than ordinary vigour,
ere she intrusted the bundle to the foreman's daughter. When the
last knot yielded, he gazed with astonishment at the amount and
variety of provision disclosed.
"Losh!" he exclaimed, "the mistress maun hae kenned there was two o'
's."
He little thought that what she had given him beyond the usual
supply was an acknowledgment of services rendered by those same
hands into which he now delivered a share, on the ground of other
service altogether. It is not always, even where there is no
mistake as to the person who has deserved it, that the reward
reaches the doer so directly.
Before the day was over, Donal gave his helper more and other pay
for his service. Choosing a fit time, when the cattle were well
together and in good position, Hornie away at the stone dyke, he
took from his pocket a somewhat wasted volume of ballads -- ballants,
he called them -- and said, "Sit ye doon, cratur. Never min' the
nowt. I'm gaein' to read till ye."
Gibbie dropped on his crossed legs like a lark to the ground, and
sat motionless. Donal, after deliberate search, began to read, and
Gibbie to listen; and it would be hard to determine which found the
more pleasure in his part. For Donal had seldom had a listener -- and
never one so utterly absorbed.
When the hour came for the cattle to go home, Gibbie again remained
behind, waiting until all should be still at the farm. He lay on
the dyke, brooding over what he had heard, and wondering how it was
that Donal got all those strange beautiful words and sounds and
stories out of the book.
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