THE SLATE.
>From that very next day, then, after he was received into the cottage on Glashgar, Gibbie, as a matter of course, took upon him the work his hand could find to do, and Janet averred to her husband that never had any of her daughters been more useful to her.At the same time, however, she insisted that Robert should take the boy out with him.She would not have him do woman's work, especially work for which she was herself perfectly able.She had not come to her years, she said, to learn idleset; and the boy would save Robert many a weary step among the hills.
"He canna speyk to the dog," objected Robert, giving utterance to the first difficulty that suggested itself.
"The dog canna speyk himsel'," returned Janet, "an' the won'er is he can un'erstan': wha kens but he may come full nigher ane 'at's speechless like himsel'! Ye gie the cratur the chance, an' I s'
warran' he'll mak himsel' plain to the dog.Ye jist try 'im.Tell ye him to tell the dog sae and sae, an' see what 'll come o' 't."Robert made the experiment, and it proved satisfactory.As soon as he had received Robert's orders, Gibbie claimed Oscar's attention.
The dog looked up in his face, noted every glance and gesture, and, partly from sympathetic instinct, that gift lying so near the very essence of life, partly from observation of the state of affairs in respect of the sheep, divined with certainty what the duty required of him was, and was off like a shot.
"The twa dumb craturs un'erstan' ane anither better nor I un'erstan'
aither o' them," said Robert to his wife when they came home.
And now indeed it was a blessed time for Gibbie.It had been pleasant down in the valley, with the cattle and Donal, and foul weather sometimes; but now it was the full glow of summer; the sweet keen air of the mountain bathed him as he ran, entered into him, filled him with life like the new wine of the kingdom of God, and the whole world rose in its glory around him.Surely it is not the outspread sea, however the sight of its storms and its labouring ships may enhance the sense of safety to the onlooker, but the outspread land of peace and plenty, with its nestling houses, its well-stocked yards, its cattle feeding in the meadows, and its men and horses at labour in the fields, that gives the deepest delight to the heart of the poet! Gibbie was one of the meek, and inherited the earth.Throned on the mountain, he beheld the multiform "goings on of life," and in love possessed the whole.He was of the poet-kind also, and now that he was a shepherd, saw everything with shepherd-eyes.One moment, to his fancy, the great sun above played the shepherd to the world, the winds were the dogs, and the men and women the sheep.The next, in higher mood, he would remember the good shepherd of whom Janet had read to him, and pat the head of the collie that lay beside him: Oscar too was a shepherd and no hireling; he fed the sheep; he turned them from danger and barrenness; and he barked well.
"I'm the dumb dog!" said Gibbie to himself, not knowing that he was really a copy in small of the good shepherd; "but maybe there may be mair nor ae gait o' barkin'."Then what a joy it was to the heaven-born obedience of the child, to hearken to every word, watch every look, divine every wish of the old man! Child Hercules could not have waited on mighty old Saturn as Gibbie waited on Robert.For he was to him the embodiment of all that was reverend and worthy, a very gulf of wisdom, a mountain of rectitude.Gibbie was one of those few elect natures to whom obedience is a delight--a creature so different from the vulgar that they have but one tentacle they can reach such with--that of contempt.
"I jist lo'e the bairn as the verra aipple o' my ee." said Robert.
"I can scarce consaive a wuss, but there's the cratur wi' a grip o'