Christie Johnstone Part 14

"Worse than any Jack Adams!"

"Who can that be? Jenkyns, mother, because he does the same things as Jack, and pretends to be religious."

"It is a female--a fishwife. Oh, my son!"

"Christie Johnstone an improper acquaintance," said he; "why! I was good for nothing till I knew her; she has made me so good, mother; so steady, so industrious; you will never have to find fault with me again."

"Nonsense--a woman that sells fish in the streets!"

"But you have not seen her. She is beautiful, her mind is not in fish; her mind grasps the beautiful and the good--she is a companion for princes! What am I that she wastes a thought or a ray of music on me?

Heaven bless her. She reads our best authors, and never forgets a word; and she tells me beautiful stories--sometimes they make me cry, for her voice is a music that goes straight to my heart."

"A woman that does not even wear the clothes of a lady."

"It is the only genuine costume in these islands not beneath a painter's notice."

"Look at me, Charles; at your mother."

"Yes, mother," said he, nervously.

"You must part with her, or kill me."

He started from his seat and began to flutter up and down the room; poor excitable creature. "Part with her!" cried he; "I shall never be a painter if I do; what is to keep my heart warm when the sun is hid, when the birds are silent, when difficulty looks a mountain and success a molehill? What is an artist without love? How is he to bear up against his disappointments from within, his mortification from without? the great ideas he has and cannot grasp, and all the forms of ignorance that sting him, from stupid insensibility down to clever, shallow criticism?"

"Come back to common sense," said the old lady, coldly and grimly.

He looked uneasy. Common sense had often been quoted against him, and common sense had always proved right.

"Come back to common sense. She shall not be your mistress, and she cannot bear your name; you must part some day, because you cannot come together, and now is the best time."

"Not be together? all our lives, all our lives, ay," cried he, rising into enthusiasm, "hundreds of years to come will we two be together before men's eyes--I will be an immortal painter, that the world and time may cherish the features I have loved. I love her, mother," added he, with a tearful tenderness that ought to have reached a woman's heart; then flus.h.i.+ng, trembling, and inspired, he burst out, "And I wish I was a sculptor and a poet too, that Christie might live in stone and verse, as well as colors, and all who love an art might say, 'This woman cannot die, Charles Gatty loved her.'"

He looked in her face; he could not believe any creature could be insensible to his love, and persist to rob him of it.

The old woman paused, to let his eloquence evaporate.

The pause chilled him; then gently and slowly, but emphatically, she spoke to him thus:

"Who has kept you on her small means ever since you were ten years and seven months old?"

"You should know, mother, dear mother."

"Answer me, Charles."

"My mother."

"Who has pinched herself, in every earthly thing, to make you an immortal painter, and, above all, a gentleman?"

"My mother."

"Who forgave you the little faults of youth, before you could ask pardon?"

"My mother! Oh, mother, I ask pardon now for all the trouble I ever gave the best, the dearest, the tenderest of mothers."

"Who will go home to Newcastle, a broken-hearted woman, with the one hope gone that has kept her up in poverty and sorrow so many weary years, if this goes on?"

"n.o.body, I hope."

"Yes, Charles; your mother."

"Oh, mother; you have been always my best friend."

"And am this day."

"Do not be my worst enemy now. It is for me to obey you; but it is for you to think well before you drive me to despair."

And the poor womanish heart leaned his head on the table, and began to sorrow over his hard fate.

Mrs. Gatty soothed him. "It need not be done all in a moment. It must be done kindly, but firmly. I will give you as much time as you like."

This bait took; the weak love to temporize.

It is doubtful whether he honestly intended to part with Christie Johnstone; but to pacify his mother he promised to begin and gradually untie the knot.

"My mother will go," whispered his deceitful heart, "and, when she is away, perhaps I shall find out that in spite of every effort I cannot resign my treasure."

He gave a sort of half-promise for the sake of peace.

His mother instantly sent to the inn for her boxes.

"There is a room in this same house," said she, "I will take it; I will not hurry you, but until it is done, I stay here, if it is a twelvemonth about."

He turned pale.

"And now hear the good news I have brought you from Newcastle."

Oh! these little iron wills, how is a great artist to fight three hundred and sixty-five days against such an antagonist?

Every day saw a repet.i.tion of these dialogues, in which genius made gallant bursts into the air, and strong, hard sense caught him on his descent, and dabbed glue on his gauzy wings.

Old age and youth see life so differently. To youth, it is a story-book, in which we are to command the incidents, and be the bright exceptions to one rule after another.

To age it is an almanac, in which everything will happen just as it has happened so many times.

To youth, it is a path through a sunny meadow.

To age, a hard turnpike:

Whose travelers must be all sweat and dust, when they are not in mud and drenched: