Christie Johnstone Part 9

The song, in itself, does not contain above seventy stock verses, but these perennial lines are a nucleus, round which the men improvise the topics of the day, giving, I know not for what reason, the preference to such as verge upon indelicacy.

The men and women are musical and narrative; three out of four can sing a song or tell a story, and they omit few opportunities.

Males and females suck whisky like milk, and are quarrelsome in proportion. The men fight (round-handed), the women fleicht or scold, in the form of a teapot--the handle fixed and the spout sawing the air.

A singular custom prevails here.

The maidens have only one sweetheart apiece!!!

So the whole town is in pairs.

The courting is all done on Sat.u.r.day night, by the lady's fire. It is hard to keep out of a groove in which all the town is running; and the Johnstone had possessed, as mere property--a lad!

She was so wealthy that few of them could pretend to aspire to her, so she selected for her chattel a young man called w.i.l.l.y Liston; a youth of an unhappy turn--he contributed nothing to hilarity, his face was a kill-joy--n.o.body liked him; for this female reason Christie distinguished him.

He found a divine supper every Sat.u.r.day night in her house; he ate, and sighed! Christie fed him, and laughed at him.

Flucker ditto.

As she neither fed nor laughed at any other man, some twenty were bitterly jealous of w.i.l.l.y Liston, and this gave the blighted youth a cheerful moment or two.

But the bright alliance received a check some months before our tale.

Christie was _heluo librorum!_ and like others who have that taste, and can only gratify it in the interval of manual exercise, she read very intensely in her hours of study. A book absorbed her. She was like a leech on these occasions, _non missura cutem._ Even Jean Carnie, her co-adjutor or "neebor," as they call it, found it best to keep out of her way till the book was sucked.

One Sat.u.r.day night w.i.l.l.y Liston's evil star ordained that a gentleman of French origin and Spanish dress, called Gil Blas, should be the Johnstone's companion.

w.i.l.l.y Liston arrived.

Christie, who had bolted the door, told him from the window, civilly enough, but decidedly, "She would excuse his company that night."

"Vara weel," said w.i.l.l.y, and departed.

Next Sat.u.r.day--no w.i.l.l.y came.

Ditto the next. w.i.l.l.y was waiting the _amende._

Christie forgot to make it.

One day she was pa.s.sing the boats, w.i.l.l.y beckoned her mysteriously; he led her to his boat, which was called "The Christie Johnstone"; by the boat's side was a paint pot and brush.

They had not supped together for five Sat.u.r.days.

Ergo, Mr. Liston had painted out the first four letters of "Christie,"

he now proceeded to paint out the fifth, giving her to understand, that, if she allowed the whole name to go, a letter every blank Sat.u.r.day, her image would be gradually, but effectually, obliterated from the heart Listonian.

My reader has done what Liston did not, antic.i.p.ate her answer. She recommended him, while his hand was in, to paint out the entire name, and, with white paint and a smaller brush, to subst.i.tute some other female appellation. So saying, she tripped off.

Mr. Liston on this was guilty of the following inconsistency; he pressed the paint carefully out of the brush into the pot. Having thus economized his material, he hurled the pot which contained his economy at "the Johnstone," he then adjourned to the "Peac.o.c.k," and "away at once with love and reason."

Thenceforth, when men asked who was Christie Johnstone's lad, the answer used to be, "She's seeking ane." _Quelle horreur!!_

Newhaven doesn't know everything, but my intelligent reader suspects, and, if confirming his suspicions can reconcile him to our facts, it will soon be done.

But he must come with us to Edinburgh; it's only three miles.

CHAPTER VI.

A LITTLE band of painters came into Edinburgh from a professional walk.

Three were of Edinburgh--Groove, aged fifty; Jones and Hyacinth, young; the latter long-haired.

With them was a young Englishman, the leader of the expedition, Charles Gatty.

His step was elastic, and his manner wonderfully animated, without loudness.

"A bright day," said he. "The sun forgot where he was, and shone; everything was in favor of art."

"Oh, dear, no," replied old Groove, "not where I was"

"Why, what was the matter?"

"The flies kept buzzing and biting, and sticking in the work. That's the worst of out o' doors!"

"The flies! is that all? Swear the spiders in special constables next time," cried Gatty. "We shall win the day;" and light shone into his hazel eye.

"The world will not always put up with the humbugs of the brush, who, to imitate Nature, turn their back on her. Paint an out o' door scene indoors! I swear by the sun it's a lie! the one stupid, impudent lie that glitters among the lies of vulgar art, like Satan among Belial, Mammon and all those beggars.

"Now look here; the barren outlines of a scene must be looked at, to be done; hence the sketching system slop-sellers of the Academy! but the million delicacies of light, shade, and color can be trusted to memory, can they?

"It's a lie big enough to shake the earth out of her course; if any part of the work could be trusted to memory or imagination, it happens to be the bare outlines, and they can't. The million subtleties of light and color; learn them by heart, and say them off on canvas! the highest angel in the sky must have his eye upon them, and look devilish sharp, too, or he shan't paint them. I give him Charles Gatty's word for that."

"That's very eloquent, I call it," said Jones.

"Yes," said poor old Groove, "the lad will never make a painter."

"Yes, I shall, Groove; at least I hope so, but it must be a long time first."

"I never knew a painter who could talk and paint both," explained Mr.

Groove.

"Very well," said Gatty. "Then I'll say but one word more, and it is this. The artifice of painting is old enough to die; it is time the art was born. Whenever it does come into the world, you will see no more dead corpses of trees, gra.s.s and water, robbed of their life, the sunlight, and flung upon canvas in a studio, by the light of a cigar, and a lie--and--"

"How much do you expect for your picture?" interrupted Jones.

"What has that to do with it? With these little swords" (waving his brush), "we'll fight for nature-light, truth light, and sunlight against a world in arms--no, worse, in swaddling clothes."