Christie Johnstone Part 11

"I am sure. Mr. Groove, sir, if you can not sell a lie for ten s.h.i.+llings you are not fit to live in this world; where is the lie that will not sell for ten s.h.i.+llings?"

"I shall think the better o' lees all my days; sir, your words are inspeeriting." And away went Groove with the sketch.

Gatty reflected and stopped him.

"On second thoughts, Groove, you must not ask ten s.h.i.+llings; you must ask twenty pounds for that rubbish."

"Twenty pund! What for will I seek twenty pund?"

"Simply because people that would not give you ten s.h.i.+llings for it will offer you eleven pounds for it if you ask twenty pounds."

"The fules," roared Groove. "Twenty pund! hem!" He looked closer into it. "For a'," said he, "I begin to obsairve it is a work of great merit.

I'll seek twenty pund, an' I'll no tak less than fifteen sch.e.l.l'n, at present."

The visit of this routine painter did not cheer our artist.

The small child got a coal and pounded the floor with it like a machine incapable of fatigue. So the wished-for pose seemed more remote than ever.

The day waxed darker instead of lighter; Mr. Gatty's reflections took also a still more somber hue.

"Even Nature spites us," thought he, "because we love her."

"Then cant, tradition, numbers, slang and money are against us; the least of these is singly a match for truth; we shall die of despair or paint cobwebs in Bedlam; and I am faint, weary of a hopeless struggle; and one man's brush is truer than mine, another's is bolder--my hand and eye are not in tune. Ah! no! I shall never, never, never be a painter."

These last words broke audibly from him as his head went down almost to his knees.

A hand was placed on his shoulder as a flake of snow falls on the water.

It was Christie Johnstone, radiant, who had glided in un.o.bserved.

"What's wrang wi' ye, my lad?"

"The sun is gone to the Devil, for one thing."

"Hech! hech! ye'll no be long ahint him; div ye no think shame."

"And I want that little brute just to do so, and he'd die first."

"Oh, ye villain, to ca' a bairn a brute; there's but ae brute here, an'

it's no you, Jamie, nor me--is it, my lamb?"

She then stepped to the window.

"It's clear to windward; in ten minutes ye'll hae plenty sun. Tak your tools noo." And at the word she knelt on the floor, whipped out a paper of sugar-plums and said to him she had christened "Jamie." "Heb! Here's sweeties till ye." Out went Jamie's arms, as if he had been a machine and she had pulled the right string.

"Ah, that will do," said Gatty, and sketched away.

Unfortunately, Jamie was quickly arrested on the way to immortality by his mother, who came in, saying:

"I maun hae my bairn--he canna be aye wasting his time here."

This sally awakened the satire that ever lies ready in piscatory bosoms.

"Wasting his time! ye're no blate. Oh, ye'll be for taking him to the college to laern pheesick--and teach maenners."

"Ye need na begin on me," said the woman. "I'm no match for Newhaven."

So saying she cut short the dispute by carrying off the gristle of contention.

"Another enemy to art," said Gatty, hurling away his pencil.

The young fishwife inquired if there were any more griefs. What she had heard had not accounted, to her reason, for her companion's depression.

"Are ye sick, laddy?" said she.

"No, Christie, not sick, but quite, quite down in the mouth."

She scanned him thirty seconds.

"What had ye till your dinner?"

"I forget."

"A choep, likely?"

"I think it was."

"Or maybe it was a steak?"

"I dare say it was a steak."

"Taste my girdle cake, that I've brought for ye."

She gave him a piece; he ate it rapidly, and looked gratefully at her.

"Noo, div ye no think shame to look me in the face? Ye hae na dined ava." And she wore an injured look.

"Sit ye there; it's ower late for dinner, but ye'll get a cup tea. Doon i' the mooth, nae wonder, when naething gangs doon your--"

In a minute she placed a tea-tray, and ran into the kitchen with a teapot.

The next moment a yell was heard, and she returned laughing, with another teapot.

"The wife had maskit tea till hersel'," said this lawless forager.

Tea and cake on the table--beauty seated by his side--all in less than a minute.

He offered her a piece of cake.

"Na! I am no for any."