* At present this is a spondee in England—a trochee inScotland The pronunciation of this important word ought tobe fixed, representing, as it does, so large a portion ofthe community in both countries.
Christie.“Aweel, lassies, comes a letter to Bassanio; he reads it, and turns as pale as deeth.”
A Fishwife.“Gude help us.”
Christie.“Poorsha behooved to ken his grief, wha had a better reicht? 'Here's a letter, leddy,' says he, 'the paper's the boedy of my freend, like, and every word in it a gaping wound.'”
A Fisherman.“Maircy on us.”
Christie.“Lad, it was fra puir Antonio, ye mind o' him, Lasses. Hech! the ill luck o' yon man, no a ship come hame; ane foundered at sea, coming fra Tri-po-lis; the pirates scuttled another, an' ane ran ashore on the Goodwins, near Bright-helm-stane, that's in England itsel', I daur say. Sae he could na pay the three thoosand ducats, an' Shylock had grippit him, an' sought the pund o' flesh aff the breest o' him, puir body.”
Sandy Liston.“He would na be the waur o' a wee bit hiding, yon thundering urang-utang; let the man alane, ye cursed old cannibal.”
Christie.“Poorsha keepit her man but ae hoor till they were united, an' then sent him wi' a puckle o' her ain siller to Veeneece, and Antonio—think o' that, lassies—pairted on their wedding-day.”
Lizzy Johnstone, a Fishwife, aged 12.“Hech! hech! it's lamentable.”
Jean Carnie.“I'm saying, mairriage is quick wark, in some pairts—here there's an awfu' trouble to get a man.”
A young Fishwife.“Ay, is there.”
Omnes.“Haw! haw! haw!” (The fish-wife hides.)
Christie.“Fill your taupsels, lads and lasses, and awa to Veneece.”
Sandy Liston (sturdily).“I'll no gang to sea this day.”
Christie.“Noo, we are in the hall o' judgment. Here are set the judges, awfu' to behold; there, on his throne, presides the Juke.”
Flucker.“She's awa to her Ennglish.”
Lizzy Johnstone.“Did we come to Veeneece to speak Scoetch, ye useless fule?”
Christie.“Here, pale and hopeless, but resigned, stands the broken mairchant, Antonio; there, wi scales and knives, and revenge in his murderin' eye, stands the crewel Jew Shylock.”
“Aweel,” muttered Sandy, considerately, “I'll no mak a disturbance on a wedding day.”
Christie.“They wait for Bell—I dinna mind his mind—a laerned lawyer, ony way; he's sick, but sends ane mair laerned still, and, when this ane comes, he looks not older nor wiser than mysel.”
Flucker.“No possible!”
Christie.“Ye needna be sae sarcy, Flucker, for when he comes to his wark he soon lets 'em ken—runs his een like lightening ower the boend. 'This bond's forfeit. Is Antonio not able to dischairge the money?' 'Ay!' cries Bassanio, 'here's the sum thrice told.' Says the young judge in a bit whisper to Shylock, 'Shylock, there's thrice thy money offered thee. Be mairceful,' says he, out loud. 'Wha'll mak me?' says the Jew body. 'Mak ye!' says he; 'maircy is no a thing ye strain through a sieve, mon; it droppeth like the gentle dew fra' heaven upon the place beneath; it blesses him that gives and him that taks; it becomes the king better than his throne, and airthly power is maist like God's power when maircy seasons justice.'”
Robert Haw, Fisherman.“Dinna speak like that to me, onybody, or I shall gie ye my boat, and fling my nets intil it, as ye sail awa wi' her.”
Jean Carnie.“Sae he let the puir deevil go. Oh! ye ken wha could stand up against siccan a shower o' Ennglish as thaat.”
Christie.“He just said, 'My deeds upon my heed. I claim the law,' says he; 'there is no power in the tongue o' man to alter me. I stay here on my boend.'”
Sandy Liston.“I hae sat quiet!—quiet I hae sat against my will, no to disturb Jamie Drysel's weddin'; but ye carry the game ower far, Shylock, my lad. I'll just give yon bluidy-minded urang-utang a hidin', and bring Tony off, the gude, puir-spirited creature. And him, an' me, an' Bassanee, an' Porshee, we'll all hae a gill thegither.”
He rose, and was instantly seized by two of the company, from whom he burst furiously, after a struggle, and the next moment was heard to fall clean from the top to the bottom of the stairs. Flucker and Jean ran out; the rest appealed against the interruption.
Christie.“Hech! he's killed. Sandy Liston's brake his neck.”
“What aboot it, lassy?” said a young fisherman; “it's Antonio I'm feared for; save him, lassy, if poessible; but I doot ye'll no get him clear o' yon deevelich heathen.
“Auld Sandy's cheap sairved,” added he, with all the indifference a human tone could convey.
“Oh, Cursty,” said Lizzie Johnstone, with a peevish accent, “dinna break the bonny yarn for naething.”
Flucker (returning).“He's a' reicht.”
Christie.“Is he no dead?”
Flucker.“Him deed? he's sober—that's a' the change I see.”
Christie.“Can he speak? I'm asking ye.”
Flucker.“Yes, he can speak.”
Christie.“What does he say, puir body?”
Flucker.“He sat up, an' sought a gill fra' the wife—puir body!”
Christie.“Hech! hech! he was my pupil in the airt o' sobriety!—aweel, the young judge rises to deliver the sentence of the coort. Silence!” thundered Christie. A lad and a lass that were slightly flirting were discountenanced.
Christie.“'A pund o' that same mairchant's flesh is thine! the coort awards it, and the law does give it.'”
A young Fishwife.“There, I thoucht sae; he's gaun to cut him, he's gaun to cut him; I'll no can bide.”(Exibat.)
Christie.“There's a fulish goloshen. 'Have by a doctor to stop the blood.'—'I see nae doctor in the boend,' says the Jew body.”
Flucker.“Bait your hook wi' a boend, and ye shall catch yon carle's saul, Satin, my lad.”
Christie (with dismal pathos).“Oh, Flucker, dinna speak evil o' deegneties—that's maybe fishing for yoursel' the noo!—-'An' ye shall cut the flesh frae off his breest.'—'A sentence,' says Shylock, 'come, prepare.'”
Christie made a dashen Shylock,and the company trembled.
Christie.“'Bide a wee,' says the judge, 'this boend gies ye na a drap o' bluid; the words expressly are, a pund o' flesh!'”
(A Dramatic Pause.)
Jean Carnie (drawing her breath).“That's into your mutton, Shylock”
Christie (with dismal pathos).“Oh, Jean! yon's an awfu' voolgar exprassion to come fra' a woman's mooth.”
“Could ye no hae said, 'intil his bacon'?” said Lizzie Johnstone, confirming the remonstrance.
Christie.“'Then tak your boend, an' your pund o' flesh, but in cutting o' 't, if thou dost shed one drop of Christian bluid, thou diest!'”
Jean Carnie.“Hech!”
Christie.“'Thy goods are by the laws Veneece con-fis-cate, confiscate!'”
Then, like an artful narrator, she began to wind up the story more rapidly.
“Sae Shylock got to be no sae saucy. 'Pay the boend thrice,' says he, 'and let the puir deevil go.'—'Here it's,' says Bassanio.—Na! the young judge wadna let him.—'He has refused it in open coort; no a bawbee for Shylock but just the forfeiture; an' he daur na tak it.'—'I'm awa',' says he. 'The deivil tak ye a'.'—Na! he wasna to win clear sae; ance they'd gotten the Jew on the hep, they worried him, like good Christians, that's a fact. The judge fand a law that fitted him, for conspiring against the life of a citizen; an' he behooved to give up hoose an' lands, and be a Christian; yon was a soor drap—he tarned no weel, puir auld villain, an' scairtit; an' the lawyers sent ane o' their weary parchments till his hoose, and the puir auld heathen signed awa' his siller, an' Abraham, an' Isaac, an' Jacob, on the heed o' 't. I pity him, an auld, auld man; and his dochter had rin off wi' a Christian lad—they ca' her Jessica, and didn't she steal his very diamond ring that his ain lass gied him when he was young, an' maybe no sae hard-hairted?”
Jean Carnie.“Oh, the jaud! suppose he was a Jew, it was na her business to clean him oot.”
A young Fishwife.“Aweel, it was only a Jew body, that's my comfort.”
Christie.“Ye speak as a Jew was na a man; has not a Jew eyes, if ye please?”
Lizzy Johnstone.“Ay, has he!—and the awfuest lang neb atween 'em.”
Christie.“Has not a Jew affections, paassions, organs?”
Jean.“Na! Christie; thir lads comes fr' Italy!”
Christie.“If you prick him, does he not bleed? if you tickle him, does na he lauch?”
A young Fishwife (pertly).“I never kittlet a Jew, for my pairt—sae I'll no can tell ye.”
Christie.“If you poison him, does he not die? and if you wrang him” (with fury) “shall he not revenge?”
Lizzie Johnstone.“Oh! but ye're a fearsome lass.”
Christie.“Wha'll give me a sang for my bonny yarn?”
Lord Ipsden, who had been an unobserved auditor of the latter part of the tale, here inquired whether she had brought her book.
“What'n buik?”
“Your music-book!”
“Here's my music-book,” said Jean, roughly tapping her head.
“And here's mines,” said Christie, birdly, touching her bosom.
“Richard,” said she, thoughtfully, “I wish ye may no hae been getting in voolgar company. Div ye think we hae minds like rinning water?”
Flucker (avec malice).“And tongues like the mill-clack abune it? Because if ye think sae, captain—ye're no far wrang!”
Christie.“Na! we hae na muckle gowd maybe; but our minds are gowden vessels.”
Jean.“Aha! lad.”
Christie.“They are not saxpenny sieves, to let music an' meter through, and leave us none the wiser or better. Dinna gang in low voolgar company, or you a lost laddy.”
Ipsden.“Vulgar, again! everybody has a different sense for that word, I think. What is vulgar?”
Christie.“Voolgar folk sit on an chair, ane, twa, whiles three hours, eatin' an' abune drinkin', as still as hoegs, or gruntin' puir every-day clashes, goessip, rubbich; when ye are aside them, ye might as weel be aside a cuddy; they canna gie ye a sang, they canna gie ye a story, they canna think ye a thoucht, to save their useless lives; that's voolgar folk.”
She sings. “A caaller herrin'!”
Jean.“A caaller herrin'!”
Omnes.
“Come buy my bonny caaller herrin', Six a penny caaller from the sea,” etc.
The music chimed in, and the moment the song was done, without pause, or anything to separate or chill the succession of the arts, the fiddles diverged with a gallant plunge into “The Dusty Miller.” The dancers found their feet by an instinct as rapid, and a rattling reel shook the floor like thunder. Jean Carnie assumed the privilege of a bride, and seized his lordship; Christie, who had a mind to dance with him too, took Flucker captive, and these four were one reel! There were seven others.
The principle of reel dancing is articulation; the foot strikes the ground for everyaccentednote (and, by the by, it is their weakness of accent which makes all English reel and hornpipe players such failures).
And in the best steps of all, which it has in common with the hornpipe, such as the quick “heel and toe,” “the sailor's fling,” and the “double shuffle,” the foot strikes the ground for everysinglenote of the instrument.
All good dancing is beautiful.
But this articulate dancing, compared with the loose, lawless diffluence of motion that goes by that name, gives me (I must confess it) as much more pleasure as articulate singing is superior to tunes played on the voice by a young lady:
Or the clean playing of my mother to the piano-forte splashing of my daughter; though the latter does attack the instrument as a washerwoman her soapsuds, and the former works like a lady.
Or skating to sliding:
Or English verse to dactyls in English:
Or painting to daubing:
Or preserved strawberries to strawberry jam.
What says Goldsmith of the two styles? “They swam, sprawled, frisked, and languished; but Olivia's foot was as pat to the music as its echo.”—Vicar of Wakefield.
Newhaven dancing aims also at fun; laughter mingles with agility; grotesque yet graceful gestures are flung in, and little inspiring cries flung out.
His lordship soon entered into the spirit of it. Deep in the mystery of the hornpipe, he danced one or two steps Jean and Christie had never seen, but their eyes were instantly on his feet, and they caught in a minute and executed these same steps.
To see Christie Johnstone do the double-shuffle with her arms so saucily akimbo, and her quick elastic foot at an angle of forty-five, was a treat.
The dance became inspiriting, inspiring, intoxicating; and, when the fiddles at last left off, the feet went on another seven bars by the enthusiastic impulse.
And so, alternately spinning yarns, singing songs, dancing, and making fun, and mingling something of heart and brain in all, these benighted creatures made themselves happy instead of peevish, and with a day of stout, vigorous, healthy pleasure, refreshed, indemnified, and warmed themselves for many a day of toil.
Such were the two picnics of Inch Coombe, and these rival cliques, agreeing in nothing else, would have agreed in this: each, if allowed (but we won't allow either) to judge the other, would have pronounced the same verdict:
“Ils ne savent pas vivre ces gens-l'a.”
Two of our personages left Inch Coombe less happy than when they came to it.
Lord Ipsden encountered Lady Barbara with Mr.——, who had joined her upon the island.
He found them discoursing, as usual, about the shams of the present day, and the sincerity of Cromwell and Mahomet, and he found himselfde trop.
They made him, for the first time, regret the loss of those earnest times when, “to avoid the inconvenience of both addressing the same lady,” you could cut a rival's throat at once, and be smiled on by the fair and society.
That a book-maker should blaspheme high civilization, by which alone he exists, and one of whose diseases and flying pains he is, neither surprised nor moved him; but that any human being's actions should be affected by such tempestuous twaddle was ridiculous.
And that the witty Lady Barbara should be caught by this chaff was intolerable; he began to feel bitter.
He had the blessings of the poor, the good opinion of the world; every living creature was prepossessed in his favor but one, and that one despised him; it was a diabolical prejudice; it was the spiteful caprice of his fate.
His heart, for a moment, was in danger of deteriorating. He was miserable; the Devil suggested to him, “make others miserable too;” and he listened to the advice.
There was a fine breeze, but instead of sailing on a wind, as he might have done, he made a series of tacks, and all were ill.
The earnest man first; and Flucker announced the skipper's insanity to the whole town of Newhaven, for, of course, these tacks were all marine solecisms.
The other discontented Picnician was Christie Johnstone. Gatty never came; and this, coupled with five or six days' previous neglect, could no longer pass unnoticed.
Her gayety failed her before the afternoon was ended; and the last two hours were spent by her alone, watching the water on all sides for him.
At last, long after the departure of his lordship's yacht, the Newhaven boat sailed from Inch Coombe with the wedding party. There was now a strong breeze, and the water every now and then came on board. So the men set the foresail with two reefs, and drew the mainsail over the women; and there, as they huddled together in the dark, Jean Carnie discovered that our gay story-teller's eyes were wet with tears.
Jean said nothing; she embraced her; and made them flow faster.
But, when they came alongside the pier, Jean, who was the first to get her head from under the sail, whipped it back again and said to Christie:
“Here he is, Christie; dinna speak till him.”
And sure enough there was, in the twilight, with a pale face and an uneasy look—Mr. Charles Gatty!
He peered timidly into the boat, and, when he saw Christie, an “Ah!” that seemed to mean twenty different things at once, burst from his bosom. He held out his arm to assist her.
She cast on him one glance of mute reproach, and, placing her foot on the boat's gunwale, sprang like an antelope upon the pier, without accepting his assistance.
Before going further, we must go back for this boy, and conduct him from where we left him up to the present point.
The moment he found himself alone with Jean Carnie, in his own house, he began to tell her what trouble he was in; how his mother had convinced him of his imprudence in falling in love with Christie Johnstone; and how she insisted on a connection being broken off which had given him his first glimpse of heaven upon earth, and was contrary to common sense.
Jean heard him out, and then, with the air of a lunatic-asylum keeper to a rhodomontading patient, told him “he was one fool, and his mother was another.” First she took him up on the score of prudence.
“You,” said she, “are a beggarly painter, without a rap; Christie has houses, boats, nets, and money; you are in debt; she lays by money every week. It is not prudent on her part to take up with you—the better your bargain, my lad.”
Under the head of common sense, which she maintained was all on the same side of the question, she calmly inquired:
“How could an old woman of sixty be competent to judge how far human happiness depends on love, when she has no experience of that passion, and the reminiscences of her youth have become dim and dark? You might as well set a judge in court, that has forgotten the law—common sense,” said she, “the old wife is sixty, and you are twenty—what can she do for you the forty years you may reckon to outlive her? Who is to keep you through those weary years but the wife of your own choice, not your mother's? You English does na read the Bible, or ye'd ken that a lad is to 'leave his father and mother, and cleave until his wife,'” added she; then with great contempt she repeated, “common sense, indeed! ye're fou wi' your common sense; ye hae the name o' 't pat eneuch—but there's na muckle o' that mairchandise in your harns.”
Gatty was astonished. What! was there really common sense on the side of bliss? and when Jean told him to join her party at Inch Coombe, or never look her in the face again, scales seemed to fall from his eyes; and, with a heart that turned in a moment from lead to a feather, he vowed he would be at Inch Coombe.
He then begged Jean on no account to tell Christie the struggle he had been subjected to, since his scruples were now entirely conquered.
Jean acquiesced at once, and said: “Indeed, she would be very sorry to give the lass that muckle pain.”
She hinted, moreover, that her neebor's spirit was so high, she was quite capable of breaking with him at once upon such an intimation; and she, Jean, was “nae mischief-maker.”
In the energy of his gratitude, he kissed this dark-browed beauty, professing to see in her a sister.
And she made no resistance to this way of showing gratitude, but muttered between her teeth, “He's just a bairn!”
And so she went about her business.
On her retreat, his mother returned to him, and, with a sad air, hoped nothing that that rude girl had said had weakened his filial duty.
“No, mother,” said he.
She then, without explaining how she came acquainted with Jean's arguments, proceeded to demolish them one by one.
“If your mother is old and experienced,” said she, “benefit by her age and experience. She has not forgotten love, nor the ills it leads to, when not fortified by prudence. Scripture says a man shall cleave to his wife when he has left his parents; but in making that, the most important step of life, where do you read that he is to break the fifth commandment? But I do you wrong, Charles, you never could have listened to that vulgar girl when she told you your mother was not your best friend.”
“N—no, mother, of course not.”
“Then you will not go to that place to break my heart, and undo all you have done this week.”
“I should like to go, mother.”
“You will break my heart if you do.”
“Christie will feel herself slighted, and she has not deserved this treatment from me.”
“The other will explain to her, and if she is as good a girl as you say—”
“She is an angel!”
“How can a fishwife be an angel? Well, then, she will not set a son to disobey his mother.”
“I don't think she would! but is all the goodness to be on her side?”
“No, Charles, you do your part; deny yourself, be an obedient child, and your mother's blessing and the blessing of Heaven will rest upon you.”
In short, he was not to go to Inch Coombe.
He stayed at home, his mother set him to work; he made a poor hand of it, he was so wretched. She at last took compassion on him, and in the evening, when it was now too late for a sail to Inch Coombe, she herself recommended a walk to him.
The poor boy's feet took him toward Newhaven, not that he meant to go to his love, but he could not forbear from looking at the place which held her.
He was about to return, when a spacious blue jacket hailed him. Somewhere inside this jacket was Master Flucker, who had returned in the yacht, leaving his sister on the island.
Gatty instantly poured out a flood of questions.
The baddish boy reciprocated fluency. He informed him “that his sister had been the star of a goodly company, and that, her own lad having stayed away, she had condescended to make a conquest of the skipper himself.
“He had come in quite at the tag-end of one of her stories, but it had been sufficient to do his business—he had danced with her, had even whistled while she sung. (Hech, it was bonny!)
“And when the cutter sailed, he, Flucker, had seen her perched on a rock, like a mermaid, watching their progress, which had been slow, because the skipper, infatuated with so sudden a passion, had made a series of ungrammatical tacks.”
“For his part he was glad,” said the gracious Flucker; “the lass was a prideful hussy, that had given some twenty lads a sore heart and him many a sore back; and he hoped his skipper, with whom he naturally identified himself rather than with his sister, would avenge the male sex upon her.”
In short, he went upon this tack till he drove poor Gatty nearly mad.
Here was a new feeling superadded; at first he felt injured, but on reflection what cause of complaint had he?
He had neglected her; he might have been her partner—he had left her to find one where she could.
Fool, to suppose that so beautiful a creature would ever be neglected—except by him!
It was more than he could bear.
He determined to see her, to ask her forgiveness, to tell her everything, to beg her to decide, and, for his part, he would abide by her decision.
Christie Johnstone, as we have already related, declined his arm, sprang like a deer upon the pier, and walked toward her home, a quarter of a mile distant.
Gatty followed her, disconsolately, hardly knowing what to do.
At last, observing that she drew near enough to the wall to allow room for another on the causeway, he had just nous enough to creep alongside and pull her sleeve somewhat timidly.
“Christie, I want to speak to you:”
“What can ye hae to say till me?”
“Christie, I am very unhappy; and I want to tell you why, but I have hardly the strength or the courage.”
“Ye shall come ben my hoose if ye are unhappy, and we'll hear your story; come away.”
He had never been admitted into her house before.
They found it clean as a snowdrift.
They found a bright fire, and Flucker frying innumerable steaks.
The baddish boy had obtained them in his sister's name and at her expense, at the flesher's, and claimed credit for his affection.
Potatoes he had boiled in their jackets, and so skillfully, that those jackets hung by a thread.
Christie laid an unbleached table-cloth, that somehow looked sweeter than a white one, as brown bread is sweeter than white.
But lo! Gatty could not eat; so then Christie would not, because he refused her cheer.
The baddish boy chuckled, and addressed himself to the nice brown steaks with their rich gravy.
On such occasions a solo on the knife and fork seemed better than a trio to the gracious Flucker.
Christie moved about the room, doing little household matters; Gatty's eye followed her.
Her beauty lost nothing in this small apartment; she was here, like a brilliant in some quaint, rough setting, which all earth's jewelers should despise, and all its poets admire, and it should show off the stone and not itself.
Her beauty filled the room, and almost made the spectators ill.
Gatty asked himself whether he could really have been such a fool as to think of giving up so peerless a creature.
Suddenly an idea occurred to him, a bright one, and not inconsistent with a true artist's character—he would decline to act in so doubtful a case. He would float passively down the tide of events—he would neither desert her, nor disobey his mother; he would take everything as it came, and to begin, as he was there, he would for the present say nothing but what he felt, and what he felt was that he loved her.
He told her so accordingly.
She replied, concealing her satisfaction, “that, if he liked her, he would not have refused to eat when she asked him.”
But our hero's appetite had returned with his change of purpose, and he instantly volunteered to give the required proof of affection.
Accordingly two pound of steaks fell before him. Poor boy, he had hardly eaten a genuine meal for a week past.
Christie sat opposite him, and every time he looked off his plate he saw her rich blue eyes dwelling on him.
Everything contributed to warm his heart, he yielded to the spell, he became contented, happy, gay.
Flucker ginger-cordialed him, his sister bewitched him.
She related the day's events in a merry mood.
Mr. Gatty burst forth into singing.
He sung two light and somber trifles, such as in the present day are deemed generally encouraging to spirits, and particularly in accordance with the sentiment of supper—they were about Death and Ivy Green.
The dog's voice was not very powerful, but sweet and round as honey dropping from the comb.
His two hearers were entranced, for the creature sang with an inspiration good singers dare not indulge.
He concluded by informing Christie that the ivy was symbolical of her, and the oak prefigured Charles Gatty, Esq.
He might have inverted the simile with more truth.
In short, he never said a word to Christie about parting with her, but several about being buried in the same grave with her, sixty years hence, for which the spot he selected was Westminster Abbey.
And away he went, leaving golden opinions behind him.
The next day Christie was so affected with his conduct, coming as it did after an apparent coolness, that she conquered her bashfulness and called on the “vile count,” and with some blushes and hesitation inquired, “Whether a painter lad was a fit subject of charity.”
“Why not?” said his lordship.
She told him Gatty's case, and he instantly promised to see that artist's pictures, particularly an “awfu' bonny ane;” the hero of which she described as an English minister blessing the bairns with one hand, and giving orders to kill the puir Scoetch with the other.
“C'est e'gal,” said Christie in Scotch, “it's awfu' bonny.”
Gatty reached home late; his mother had retired to rest.
But the next morning she drew from him what had happened, and then ensued another of those dialogues which I am ashamed again to give the reader.
Suffice it to say, that she once more prevailed, though with far greater difficulty; time was to be given him to unsew a connection which he could not cut asunder, and he, with tearful eyes and a heavy heart, agreed to take some step the very first opportunity.
This concession was hardly out of his mouth, ere his mother made him kneel down and bestowed her blessing upon him.
He received it coldly and dully, and expressed a languid hope it might prove a charm to save him from despair; and sad, bitter, and dejected, forced himself to sit down and work on the picture that was to meet his unrelenting creditor's demand.
He was working on his picture, and his mother, with her needle, at the table, when a knock was heard, and gay as a lark, and fresh as the dew on the shamrock, Christie Johnstone stood in person in the apartment.
She was evidently the bearer of good tidings; but, before she could express them, Mrs. Gatty beckoned her son aside, and announcing, “she should be within hearing,” bade him take the occasion that so happily presented itself, and make the first step.
At another time, Christie, who had learned from Jean the arrival of Mrs. Gatty, would have been struck with the old lady's silence; but she came to tell the depressed painter that the charitable viscount was about to visit him and his picture; and she was so full of the good fortune likely to ensue, that she was neglectful of minor considerations.
It so happened, however, that certain interruptions prevented her from ever delivering herself of the news in question.
First, Gatty himself came to her, and, casting uneasy glances at the door by which his mother had just gone out, said:
“Christie!”
“My lad!”
“I want to paint your likeness.”
This was for asouvenir,poor fellow!
“Hech! I wad like fine to be painted.”
“It must be exactly the same size as yourself, and so like you, that, should we be parted, I may seem not to be quite alone in the world.”
Here he was obliged to turn his head away.
“But we'll no pairt,” replied Christie, cheerfully. “Suppose ye're puir, I'm rich, and it's a' one; dinna be so cast down for auchty pund.”
At this, a slipshod servant entered, and said: “There's a fisher lad, inquiring for Christie Johnstone.”
“It will be Flucker,” said Christie; “show him ben. What's wrang the noo I wonder!”
The baddish boy entered, took up a position and remained apparently passive, hands in pockets.
Christie.“Aweel, what est?”
Flucker.“Custy.”
Christie.“What's your will, my manny?”
Flucker.“Custy, I was at Inch Keith the day.”
Christie.“And hae ye really come to Edinbro' to tell me thaat?”
Flucker (dryly).“Oh! ye ken the lasses are a hantle wiser than we are—will ye hear me? South Inch Keith, I played a bowl i' the water, just for divairsion—and I catched twarree fish!”
Christie.“Floonders, I bet.”
Flucker.“Does floonders swim high? I'll let you see his gills, and if ye are a reicht fishwife ye'll smell bluid.”
Here he opened his jacket, and showed a bright little fish.
In a moment all Christie's nonchalance gave way to a fiery animation. She darted to Flucker's side.
“Ye hae na been sae daft as tell?” asked she.
Flucker shook his head contemptuously.
“Ony birds at the island, Flucker?”
“Sea-maws, plenty, and a bird I dinna ken; he moonted sae high, then doon like thunder intil the sea, and gart the water flee as high as Haman, and porpoises as big as my boat.”
“Porr-poises, fulish laddy—ye hae seen the herrin whale at his wark, and the solant guse ye hae seen her at wark; and beneath the sea, Flucker, every coedflsh and doegfish, and fish that has teeth, is after them; and half Scotland wad be at Inch Keith Island if they kenned what ye hae tell't me—dinna speak to me.”
During this, Gatty, who did not comprehend this sudden excitement, or thought it childish, had tried in vain to win her attention.
At last he said, a little peevishly, “Will you not attend to me, and tell me at least when you will sit to me?”
“Set!” cried she. “When there's nae wark to be done stanning.”
And with this she was gone.
At the foot of the stairs, she said to her brother:
“Puir lad! I'll sune draw auchty punds fra' the sea for him, with my feyther's nets.”
As she disappeared, Mrs. Gatty appeared. “And this is the woman whose mind was not in her dirty business,” cried she. “Does not that open your eyes, Charles?”
“Ah! Charles,” added she, tenderly, “there's no friend like a mother.”
And off she carried the prize—his vanity had been mortified.
And so that happened to Christie Johnstone which has befallen many a woman—the greatness of her love made that love appear small to her lover.
“Ah! mother,” cried he, “I must live for you and my art; I am not so dear to her as I thought.”
And so, with a sad heart, he turned away from her; while she, with a light heart, darted away to think and act for him.
IT was some two hours after this that a gentleman, plainly dressed, but whose clothes seemed a part of himself (whereas mine I have observed hang upon me; and the Rev. Josiah Splitall's stick to him)—glided into the painter's room, with an inquiry whether he had not a picture or two disposable.
“I have one finished picture, sir,” said the poor boy; “but the price is high!”
He brought it, in a faint-hearted way; for he had shown it to five picture-dealers, and all five agreed it was hard.
He had painted a lime-tree, distant fifty yards, and so painted it that it looked something like a lime-tree fifty yards off.
“That wasmesquin,”said his judges; “the poetry of painting required abstract trees, at metaphysical distance, not the various trees of nature, as they appear under positive accidents.”
On this Mr. Gatty had deluged them with words.
“When it is art, truth, or sense to fuse a cow, a horse, and a critic into one undistinguishable quadruped, with six legs, then it will be art to melt an ash, an elm, and a lime, things that differ more than quadrupeds, into what you call abstract trees, that any man who has seen a tree, as well as looked at one, would call drunken stinging-nettles. You, who never look at nature, how can you judge the arts, which are all but copies of nature? At two hundred yards' distance, full-grown trees are more distinguishable than the animal tribe. Paint me an abstract human being, neither man nor a woman,” said he, “and then I will agree to paint a tree that shall be no tree; and, if no man will buy it, perhaps the father of lies will take it off my hands, and hang it in the only place it would not disgrace.”
In short, he never left off till he had crushed the non-buyers with eloquence and satire; but he could not crush them into buyers—they beat him at the passive retort.
Poor Gatty, when the momentary excitement of argument had subsided, drank the bitter cup all must drink awhile, whose bark is alive and strong enough to stem the current down which the dead, weak things of the world are drifting, many of them into safe harbors.
And now he brought out his picture with a heavy heart.
“Now,” said he to himself, “this gentleman will talk me dead, and leave me no richer in coin, and poorer in time and patience.”
The picture was placed in a light, the visitor sat down before it.
A long pause ensued.
“Has he fainted?” thought Gatty, ironically; “he doesn't gabble.”
“If you do not mind painting before me,” said the visitor, “I should be glad if you would continue while I look into this picture.”
Gatty painted.
The visitor held his tongue.
At first the silence made the artist uneasy, but by degrees it began to give him pleasure; whoever this was, it was not one of the flies that had hitherto stung him, nor the jackdaws that had chattered him dead.
Glorious silence! he began to paint under its influence like one inspired.
Half an hour passed thus.
“What is the price of this work of art?”
“Eighty pounds.”
“I take it,” said his visitor, quietly.
What, no more difficulty than that? He felt almost disappointed at gaining his object so easily.
“I am obliged to you, sir; much obliged to you,” he added, for he reflected what eighty pounds were to him just then.
“It is my descendants who are obliged to you,” replied the gentleman; “the picture is immortal!”
These words were an epoch in the painter's life.
The grave, silent inspection that had preceded them, the cool, deliberate, masterly tone in which they were said, made them oracular to him.
Words of such import took him by surprise.
He had thirsted for average praise in vain.
A hand had taken him, and placed him at the top of the tree.
He retired abruptly, or he would have burst into tears.
He ran to his mother.
“Mother,” said he, “I am a painter; I always thought so at bottom, but I suppose it is the height of my ideas makes me discontented with my work.”
“What has happened?'
“There is a critic in my room. I had no idea there was a critic in the creation, and there is one in my room.
“Has he bought your picture, my poor boy?” said Mrs. Gatty, distrustfully.
To her surprise he replied:
“Yes! he has got it; only eighty pounds for an immortal picture.”
Mrs. Gatty was overjoyed, Gatty was a little sad; but, reviving, he professed himself glad; the picture was going to a judge.
“It is not much money,” said he, “but the man has spoken words that are ten thousand pounds to me.”
He returned to the room; his visitor, hat in hand, was about to go; a few words were spoken about the art of painting, this led to a conversation, and then to a short discussion.
The newcomer soon showed Mr. Charles Gatty his ignorance of facts.
This man had sat quietly before a multitude of great pictures, new and old, in England.
He cooled down Charles Gatty, Esq., monopolist of nature and truth.
He quoted to him thirty painters in Germany, who paint every stroke of a landscape in the open air, and forty in various nations who had done it in times past.
“You, sir,” he went on, “appear to hang on the skirts of a certain clique, who handle the brush well, but draw ill, and look at nature through the spectacles of certain ignorant painters who spoiled canvas four hundred years ago.
“Go no further in that direction.
“Those boys, like all quacks, have one great truth which they disfigure with more than one falsehood.
“Hold fast their truth, which is a truth the world has always possessed, though its practice has been confined to the honest and laborious few.
“Eschew their want of mind and taste.
“Shrink with horror from that profaneculte de laideur,that 'love of the lopsided,' they have recovered from the foul receptacles of decayed art.”
He reminded him further, that “Art is not imitation, but illusion; that a plumber and glazier of our day and a medieval painter are more alike than any two representatives of general styles that can be found; and for the same reason, namely, that with each of these art is in its infancy; these two sets of bunglers have not learned how to produce the illusions of art.”
To all this he added a few words of compliment on the mind, as well as mechanical dexterity, of the purchased picture, bade him good morning, and glided away like a passing sunbeam.
“A mother's blessing is a great thing to have, and to deserve,” said Mrs. Gatty, who had rejoined her son.
“It is, indeed,” said Charles. He could not help being struck by the coincidence.
He had made a sacrifice to his mother, and in a few hours one of his troubles had melted away.
In the midst of these reflections arrived Mr. Saunders with a note.
The note contained a check for one hundred and fifty pounds, with these lines, in which the writer excused himself for the amendment: “I am a painter myself,” said he, “and it is impossible that eighty pounds can remunerate the time expended on this picture, to say nothing of the skill.”
We have treated this poor boy's picture hitherto with just contempt, but now that it is gone into a famous collection, mind, we always admired it; we always said so, we take our oath we did; if we have hitherto deferred framing it, that was merely because it was not sold.
MR. GATTY'S PICTURE, AT PRESENT IN THE COLLECTION OF LORD IPSDEN!
There was, hundreds of years ago, a certain Bishop of Durham, who used to fight in person against the Scotch, and defeat them. When he was not with his flock, the northern wolves sometimes scattered it; but when the holy father was there with his prayers and his battle-ax, England won the day!
This nettled the Scottish king, so he penetrated one day, with a large band, as far as Durham itself, and for a short time blocked the prelate up in his stronghold. This was the period of Mr. Gatty's picture.
Whose title was:
“Half Church of God, half Tower against the Scot.”
In the background was the cathedral, on the towers of which paced to and fro men in armor, with the western sun glittering thereon. In the center, a horse and cart, led by a boy, were carrying a sheaf of arrows, tied with a straw band. In part of the foreground was the prelate, in a half suit of armor, but bareheaded; he was turning away from the boy to whom his sinking hand had indicated his way into the holy castle, and his benignant glance rested on a child, whom its mother was holding up for his benediction. In the foreground the afternoon beams sprinkled gold on a long grassy slope, corresponding to the elevation on which the cathedral stood, separated by the river Wear from the group; and these calm beauties of Nature, with the mother and child, were the peaceful side of this twofold story.
Such are the dry details. But the soul of its charm no pen can fling on paper. For the stately cathedral stood and lived; the little leaves slumbered yet lived; and the story floated and lived, in the potable gold of summer afternoon.
To look at this painted poem was to feel a thrill of pleasure in bare existence; it went through the eyes, where paintings stop, and warmed the depths and recesses of the heart with its sunshine and its glorious air.