Christie Johnstone Part 16

We may diverge hither or thither, but the golden thread still holds us.

Is fair or dark beauty the fairest? The world cannot decide; but love shall decide in a moment.

A halo surrounds her we love, and makes beautiful to us her movements, her looks, her virtues, her faults, her nonsense, her affectation and herself; and that's love, doctor!

Lord Ipsden was capable of loving like this; but, to do Lady Barbara justice, she had done much to freeze the germ of n.o.ble pa.s.sion; she had not killed, but she had benumbed it.

"Saunders," said Lord Ipsden, one morning after breakfast, "have you entered everything in your diary?"

"Yes, my lord."

"All these good people's misfortunes?"

"Yes, my lord."

"Do you think you have spelled their names right?"

"Where it was impossible, my lord, I subst.i.tuted an English appellation, hidentical in meaning."

"Have you entered and described my first interview with Christie Johnstone, and somebody something?"

"Most minutely, my lord."

"How I turned Mr. Burke into poetry--how she listened with her eyes all glistening--how they made me talk--how she dropped a tear, he! he!

he! at the death of the first baron--how shocked she was at the king striking him when he was dying, to make a knight-banneret of the poor old fellow?"

"Your lords.h.i.+p will find all the particulars exactly related," said Saunders, with dry pomp.

"How she found out that t.i.tles are but breath--how I answered--some nonsense?"

"Your lords.h.i.+p will find all the topics included."

"How she took me for a madman? And you for a prig?"

"The latter circ.u.mstance eluded my memory, my lord."

"But when I told her I must relieve only one poor person by day, she took my hand."

"Your lords.h.i.+p will find all the items realized in this book, my lord."

"What a beautiful book!"

"Alba are considerably ameliorated, my lord."

"Alba?"

"Plural of alb.u.m, my lord," explained the refined factotum, "more delicate, I conceive, than the vulgar reading."

Viscount Ipsden read from

"MR. SAUNDERS'S ALb.u.m.

"To ill.u.s.trate the inelegance of the inferior cla.s.ses, two juvenile venders of the piscatory tribe were this day ushered in, and instantaneously, without the accustomed preliminaries, plunged into a familiar conversation with Lord Viscount Ipsden.

"Their vulgarity, shocking and repulsive to myself, appeared to afford his lords.h.i.+p a satisfaction greater than he derives from the graceful amenities of fas.h.i.+onable a.s.sociation--"

"Saunders, I suspect you of something."

"Me, my lord!"

"Yes. Writing in an annual."

"I do, my lord," said he, with benignant _hauteur._ "It appears every month--_The Polytechnic."_

"I thought so! you are polysyllabic, Saunders; _en route!"_

"In this hallucination I find it difficult to partic.i.p.ate; a.s.sociated from infancy with the aristocracy, I shrink, like the sensitive plant, from contact with anything vulgar."

"I see! I begin to understand you, Saunders. Order the dog-cart, and Wordsworth's mare for leader; we'll give her a trial. You are an a.s.s, Saunders."

"Yes, my lord; I will order Robert to tell James to come for your lords.h.i.+p's commands about your lords.h.i.+p's vehicles. (What could he intend by a recent observation of a discourteous character?)"

His lords.h.i.+p soliloquized.

"I never observed it before, but Saunders is an a.s.s! La Johnstone is one of Nature's d.u.c.h.esses, and she has made me know some poor people that will be richer than the rich one day; and she has taught me that honey is to be got from bank-notes--by merely giving them away."

Among the objects of charity Lord Ipsden discovered was one Thomas Harvey, a maker and player of the violin. This man was a person of great intellect; he mastered every subject he attacked. By a careful examination of all the points that various fine-toned instruments had in common, he had arrived at a theory of sound; he made violins to correspond, and was remarkably successful in insuring that which had been too hastily ascribed to accident--a fine tone.

This man, who was in needy circ.u.mstances, demonstrated to his lords.h.i.+p that ten pounds would make his fortune; because with ten pounds he could set up a shop, instead of working out of the world's sight in a room.

Lord Ipsden gave him ten pounds!

A week after, he met Harvey, more ragged and dirty than before.

Harvey had been robbed by a friend whom he had a.s.sisted. Poor Harvey!

Lord Ipsden gave him ten pounds more!

Next week, Saunders, entering Harvey's house, found him in bed at noon, because he had no clothes to wear.

Saunders suggested that it would be better to give his wife the next money, with strict orders to apply it usefully.

This was done!

The next day, Harvey, finding his clothes upon a chair, his tools redeemed from p.a.w.n, and a beefsteak ready for his dinner, accused his wife of having money, and meanly refusing him the benefit of it. She acknowledged she had a little, and appealed to the improved state of things as a proof that she knew better than he the use of money. He demanded the said money. She refused--he leathered her--she put him in prison.

This was the best place for him. The man was a drunkard, and all the riches of Egypt would never have made him better off.

And here, gentlemen of the lower cla.s.ses, a word with you. How can you, with your small incomes, hope to be well off, if you are more extravagant than those who have large ones?