Christie Johnstone Part 15

Which wants mending in many places, and is mended with sharp stones.

Gatty would not yield to go down to Newhaven and take a step against his love, but he yielded so far as to remain pa.s.sive, and see whether this creature was necessary to his existence or not. Mrs. G. scouted the idea. "He was to work, and he would soon forget her." Poor boy! he wanted to work; his debt weighed on him; a week's resolute labor might finish his first picture and satisfy his creditor. The subject was an interior. He set to work, he stuck to work, he glued to work, his body--but his heart?

Ah, my poor fellow, a much slower horse than Gatty will go by you, ridden as you are by a leaden heart.

Tu nihil invita facies pingesve Minerva.

It would not lower a mechanical dog's efforts, but it must yours.

He was unhappy. He heard only one side for days; that side was recommended by his duty, filial affection, and diffidence of his own good sense.

He was brought to see his proceedings were eccentric, and that it is destruction to be eccentric.

He was made a little ashamed of what he had been proud of.

He was confused and perplexed; he hardly knew what to think or do; he collapsed, and all his spirit was fast leaving him, and then he felt inclined to lean on the first thing he could find, and nothing came to hand but his mother.

Meantime, Christie Johnstone was also thinking of him, but her single anxiety was to find this eighty pounds for him.

It is a Newhaven idea that the female is the natural protector of the male, and this idea was strengthened in her case.

She did not fully comprehend his character and temperament, but she saw, by instinct, that she was to be the protector. Besides, as she was twenty-one, and he only twenty-two, she felt the difference between herself, a woman, and him, a boy, and to leave him to struggle unaided out of his difficulties seemed to her heartless.

Twice she opened her lips to engage the charitable "vile count" in his cause, but shame closed them again; this would be asking a personal favor, and one on so large a scale.

Several days pa.s.sed thus; she had determined not to visit him without good news.

She then began to be surprised, she heard nothing from him.

And now she felt something that prevented her calling on him.

But Jean Carnie was to be married, and the next day the wedding party were to spend in festivity upon the island of Inch Coombe.

She bade Jean call on him, and, without mentioning her, invite him to this party, from which, he must know, she would not be absent.

Jean Carnie entered his apartment, and at her entrance his mother, who took for granted this was his sweetheart, whispered in his ear that he should now take the first step, and left him.

What pa.s.sed between Jean Carnie and Charles Gatty is for another chapter.

CHAPTER IX.

A YOUNG viscount with income and person cannot lie _perdu_ three miles from Edinburgh.

First one discovers him, then another, then twenty, then all the world, as the whole clique is modestly called.

Before, however, Lord Ipsden was caught, he had acquired a browner tint, a more elastic step, and a stouter heart.

The Aberford prescription had done wonders for him.

He caught himself pa.s.sing one whole day without thinking of Lady Barbara Sinclair.

But even Aberford had misled him; there were no adventures to be found in the Firth of Forth; most of the days there was no wind to speak of; twice it blew great guns, and the men were surprised at his lordship going out, but n.o.body was in any danger except himself; the fishermen had all slipped into port before matters were serious.

He found the merchantmen that could sail creeping on with three reefs in their mainsail; and the Dutchmen lying to and breasting it, like ducks in a pond, and with no more chance of harm.

On one of these occasions he did observe a little steam-tug, going about a knot an hour, and rolling like a washing-tub. He ran down to her, and asked if he could a.s.sist her; she answered, through the medium of a sooty animal at her helm, that she was (like our universities) "satisfied with her own progress"; she added, being under intoxication, "that, if any danger existed, her scheme was to drown it in the bo-o-owl;" and two days afterward he saw her puffing and panting, and fiercely dragging a gigantic three-decker out into deep water, like an industrious flea pulling his phaeton.

And now it is my office to relate how Mr. Flucker Johnstone comported himself on one occasion.

As the yacht worked alongside Granton Pier, before running out, the said Flucker calmly and scientifically drew his lordship's attention to three points:

The direction of the wind--the force of the wind--and his opinion, as a person experienced in the Firth, that it was going to be worse instead of better; in reply, he received an order to step forward to his place in the cutter--the immediate vicinity of the jib-boom. On this, Mr.

Flucker instantly burst into tears.

His lordship, or, as Flucker called him ever since the yacht came down, "the skipper," deeming that the higher appellation, inquired, with some surprise, what was the matter with the boy.

One of the crew, who, by the by, squinted, suggested, "It was a slight ill.u.s.tration of the pa.s.sion of fear."

Flucker confirmed the theory by gulping out: "We'll never see Newhaven again."

On this the skipper smiled, and ordered him ash.o.r.e, somewhat peremptorily.

Straightway he began to howl, and, saying, "It was better to be drowned than be the laughing-stock of the place," went forward to his place; on his safe return to port, this young gentleman was very severe on open boats, which, he said "bred womanish notions in hearts naturally dauntless. Give me a lid to the pot," added he, "and I'll sail with Old Nick, let the wind blow high or low."

The Aberford was wrong when he called love a cutaneous disorder.

There are cutaneous disorders that take that name, but they are no more love than verse is poetry;

Than patriotism is love of country;

Than theology is religion;

Than science is philosophy;

Than paintings are pictures;

Than reciting on the boards is acting;

Than physic is medicine

Than bread is bread, or gold gold--in shops.

Love is a state of being; the beloved object is our center; and our thoughts, affections, schemes and selves move but round it.