very depths of delight, stirred by the
loving kindness of the act, startled Donal out of his pity into
brief anger, and he rushed after him in indignation, with full
purpose to teach him proper behaviour by a box on each ear. But
Gibbie dived under the belly of a favourite 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 tongue
round the grass and plucking it undisturbed, showed such an innocent
countenance of holy merriment, that the pride of Donal's hurt
benevolence melted away, and his laughter emulated Gibbie's. That
sort of day was in truth drearier for Donal than for Gibbie, for the
books he had were not his own, and he dared not expose them to the
rain; some of them indeed came from Glashruach--the Muckle Hoose,
they generally called it! When he left him, it was to wander
disconsolately about the field; while Gibbie, sheltered under a
whole cow, defied the chill and the sleet, and had no books of which
to miss the use. He could not, 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. The worst storm in the world could not
have made that heart quail. For, think! there had just been the
strong, the well-dressed, the learned, the wise, the altogether
mighty and considerable Donal, the cowherd, actually desiring him,
wee Sir Gibbie Galbraith, the cinder of the city furnace, the naked,
and generally the hungry little tramp, to wear his jacket to cover
him from the storm! The idea was one of eternal triumph; and
Gibbie, 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 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 themselves, and would soon give
over their teasing. By to-morrow they would have wandered away into
other fields, and left the sun free to come back to Donal and the
cattle, when Gibbie, at present shielded like any lord by the
friendliest of cows, would come in for a s