Christie Johnstone Part 3

This scene, then, curled round his heart a little, and he felt the good physician was wiser than the tribe that go by that name, and strive to build health on the sandy foundation of drugs.

"Saunders! do you know what Dr. Aberford means by the lower cla.s.ses?"

"Perfectly, my lord."

"Are there any about here?"

"I am sorry to say they are everywhere, my lord."

"Get me some"--_(cigarette)._

Out went Saunders, with his usual graceful _empress.e.m.e.nt,_ but an internal shrug of his shoulders.

He was absent an hour and a half; he then returned with a double expression on his face--pride at his success in diving to the very bottom of society, and contempt of what he had fished up thence.

He approached his lord mysteriously, and said, _sotto voce,_ but impressively, "This is low enough, my lord." Then glided back, and ushered in, with polite disdain, two lovelier women than he had ever opened a door to in the whole course of his perfumed existence.

On their heads they wore caps of Dutch or Flemish origin, with a broad lace border, stiffened and arched over the forehead, about three inches high, leaving the brow and cheeks unenc.u.mbered.

They had cotton jackets, bright red and yellow, mixed in patterns, confined at the waist by the ap.r.o.n-strings, but bobtailed below the waist; short woolen petticoats, with broad vertical stripes, red and white, most vivid in color; white worsted stockings, and neat, though high-quartered shoes. Under their jackets they wore a thick spotted cotton handkerchief, about one inch of which was visible round the lower part of the throat. Of their petticoats, the outer one was kilted, or gathered up toward the front, and the second, of the same color, hung in the usual way.

Of these young women, one had an olive complexion, with the red blood mantling under it, and black hair, and glorious black eyebrows.

The other was fair, with a ma.s.sive but shapely throat, as white as milk; glossy brown hair, the loose threads of which glittered like gold, and a blue eye, which, being contrasted with dark eyebrows and lashes, took the luminous effect peculiar to that rare beauty.

Their short petticoats revealed a neat ankle, and a leg with a n.o.ble swell; for Nature, when she is in earnest, builds beauty on the ideas of ancient sculptors and poets, not of modern poetasters, who, with their airy-like sylphs and their smoke-like verses, fight for want of flesh in woman and want of fact in poetry as parallel beauties.

_They are,_ my lads.--_Continuez!_

These women had a grand corporeal trait; they had never known a corset!

so they were straight as javelins; they could lift their hands above their heads!--actually! Their supple persons moved as Nature intended; every gesture was ease, grace and freedom.

What with their own radiance, and the snowy cleanliness and brightness of their costume, they came like meteors into the apartment.

Lord Ipsden, rising gently from his seat, with the same quiet politeness with which he would have received two princes of the blood, said, "How do you do?" and smiled a welcome.

"Fine! hoow's yoursel?" answered the dark la.s.s, whose name was Jean Carnie, and whose voice was not so sweet as her face.

"What'n lord are ye?" continued she; "are you a juke? I wad like fine to hae a crack wi' a juke."

Saunders, who knew himself the cause of this question, replied, _sotto voce,_ "His lordship is a viscount."

"I didna ken't," was Jean's remark. "But it has a bonny soond."

"What mair would ye hae?" said the fair beauty, whose name was Christie Johnstone. Then, appealing to his lordship as the likeliest to know, she added, "n.o.beelity is jist a soond itsel, I'm tauld."

The viscount, finding himself expected to say something on a topic he had not attended much to, answered dryly: "We must ask the republicans, they are the people that give their minds to such subjects."

"And yon man," asked Jean Carnie, "is he a lord, too?"

"I am his lordship's servant," replied Saunders, gravely, not without a secret misgiving whether fate had been just.

"Na!" replied she, not to be imposed upon, "ye are statelier and prooder than this ane."

"I will explain," said his master. "Saunders knows his value; a servant like Saunders is rarer than an idle viscount."

"My lord, my lord!" remonstrated Saunders, with a shocked and most disclamatory tone. "Rather!" was his inward reflection.

"Jean," said Christie, "ye hae muckle to laern. Are ye for herrin' the day, vile count?"

"No! are you for this sort of thing?"

At this, Saunders, with a world of _empress.e.m.e.nt,_ offered the Carnie some cake that was on the table.

She took a piece, instantly spat it out into her hand, and with more energy than delicacy flung it into the fire.

"Augh!" cried she, "just a sugar and saut b.u.t.ter thegither; buy nae mair at yon shoep, vile count."

"Try this, out of Nature's shop," laughed their entertainer; and he offered them, himself, some peaches and things.

"Hech! a medi--cine!" said Christie.

"Nature, my lad," said Miss Carnie, making her ivory teeth meet in their first nectarine, "I didna ken whaur ye stoep, but ye beat the other confectioners, that div ye."

The fair la.s.s, who had watched the viscount all this time as demurely as a cat cream, now approached him.

This young woman was the thinker; her voice was also rich, full, and melodious, and her manner very engaging; it was half advancing, half retiring, not easy to resist or to describe.

"Noo," said she, with a very slight blush stealing across her face, "ye maun let me catecheeze ye, wull ye?"

The last two words were said in a way that would have induced a bear to reveal his winter residence.

He smiled a.s.sent. Saunders retired to the door, and, excluding every shade of curiosity from his face, took an att.i.tude, half majesty, half obsequiousness.

Christie stood by Lord Ipsden, with one hand on her hip (the knuckles downward), but graceful as Antinous, and began.

"Hoo muckle is the queen greater than y' are?"

His lordship was obliged to reflect.

"Let me see--as is the moon to a wax taper, so is her majesty the queen to you and me, and the rest."

"An' whaur does the Juke* come in?"

* Buceleuch.

"On this particular occasion, the Duke** makes one of us, my pretty maid."

**Wellington