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' 't! He seems to ken what's risin' i' my min', an' in a moment he's up like the dog to be ready, an' luiks at me waitin'." Nor was it long before the town-bred child grew to love the heavens almost as dearly as the earth.