From listening to his own lips through Gibbie's ears, he not only understood many things better, but, perceiving what things must puzzle Gibbie, 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 Donal imagined; for, although still, now and then, he had a return of the fancy that Gibbie 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 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 tears of the vanquished Winter, blown, as he fled, across the sea, from Norway or Iceland.

Then would Donal's heart be sore for Gibbie, 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 Donal would have laughed to scorn, and justly.