Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume XIII Part 14

Peter was generally admitted to be a young man of great talents, and bade fair to rise to eminence in his profession as an artist. There was to be an exhibition of the works of living artists in Edinburgh; and Peter went through to it, taking with him more than a dozen pictures, on all subjects and of all sizes. He had landscapes, sea pieces, historical paintings, portraits, fish, game, and compositions, the grouping of which would have done credit to a master. In size, they were from five feet square to five inches. His brother Paul, who was still at the college, and who now supported himself by private teaching, was surprised when one morning Peter arrived at his lodgings, with three cadies at his back, bearing his load of pictures. Paul welcomed him with open arms, for he was proud of his brother; he had admired his early talents, and had heard of the progress he had made in his art.

With a proud heart and a delighted eye, Peter unpacked his paintings, and placed them round the room for the inspection of his brother; and great was his brother's admiration.

"What may be their value, Peter?" inquired Paul.

"Between ourselves, Paul," replied Peter, "I would not part with the lot under a thousand guineas."

"A thousand guineas!" ejeculated the student, in surprise; "do you say so?"

"Yes, I say it," answered the painter, with importance. "Look ye, Paul--observe this bridal party at the alter--see the blush on the bride's cheek, the joy in the bride-groom's eye--is it not natural? And look at the grouping! observe the warmth of the colouring, the breadth of effect, the depth of shade, the freedom of touch! Now, tell me candidly, as a brother, is it not a gem?"

"It is certainly beautiful," answered Paul.

"I tell you what," continued the artist--"though I say it who should not say it--I have seen worse things sold for a thousand guineas."

"You don't say so!" responded the astonished student, and he wished that he had been an artist instead of a scholar.

"I do," added Peter; "and now, Paul, what do you think I intend to do with the money which this will bring?"

"How should I know, brother?" returned the other.

"Why, then," said he, "I'm resolved to pay off the mortgage on our father's property, that the old man may spend the remainder of his days in comfort."

Paul wept, and taking his brother's hand, said, "And if you do, the property shall be yours, Peter."

"Never, brother!" replied the other--"rather than rob you of your birth-right I would cut my hand off."

The pictures were again packed up, and the brothers went out in quest of the secretary to the exhibition, in order to have them submitted to the committee for admission. The secretary received them with politeness; he said he was afraid that they could not find room for so many pieces as Mr Donaldson mentioned, for they wished to give every one a fair chance; but he desired him to forward the pictures, and he would see what could be done for them. The paintings were sent, and Peter heard no more of them for a week, when a printed catalogue and perpetual ticket were sent to him, with the secretary's compliments. Peter's eyes ran over the catalogue--at length they fell upon "_No. 210. A Bridal Party--P.

Donaldson_," and again, "_No. 230. Dead Game--P. Donaldson_;" but his name did not again occur in the whole catalogue. This was a disappointment; but it was some consolation that his favourite piece had been chosen.

Next day the exhibition opened, and Peter and Paul visited it together.

The _Bridal Party_ was a small picture with a modest frame, and they anxiously sought round the room in which it was said to be placed; but they saw it not. At length, "Here it is," said Paul--and there indeed it was, thrust into a dark corner of the room, the frame touching the floor, literally crushed and overshadowed beneath a glaring battle piece, six feet in length, and with a frame seven inches in depth. It was impossible to examine it without going upon your knees. Peter's indignation knew no bounds. He would have torn the picture from its hiding-place, but Paul prevented him. They next looked for No. 230: and, to increase the indignation of the artist, it, with twenty others, was huddled into the pa.s.sage, where, as Milton saith, there

"No light, but rather darkness visible;"

or, as Spenser hath it--

"A little gloomy light, much like a shade."

For fourteen days did Peter visit the exhibition, and return to the lodgings of his brother, sorrowful and disappointed. The magical word SOLD was not yet attached to the painting which was to redeem his father's property.

One evening, Paul being engaged with his pupils, the artist had gone into a tavern, to drown the bitterness of his disappointment for a few moments with a bottle of ale. The keenness of his feelings had rendered him oblivious; and in his abstraction and misery he had spoken aloud of his favourite painting, the _Bridal Party_. Two young _gentlemen_ sat in the next box; they either were not in the room when he entered, or he did not observe them. They overheard the monologue to which the artist had unconsciously given utterance, and it struck them as a prime jest to lark with his misery. The words "Splendid piece, yon _Bridal Party_!"--"Beautiful!"--"Production of a master!"--"Wonderful that it _sold_ in such a bad light and shameful situation!" fell upon Peter's ears. He started up--he hurried round the box where they sat--

"Gentlemen," he exclaimed, eagerly, "do you speak of the painting No.

210 in the exhibition?"

"Of the same, sir," was the reply.

"I am the artist--I painted it," cried Peter.

"You, sir--you!" cried both the gentlemen at once. "Give us your hand, sir, we are proud of having the honour of seeing you."

"Yes, sir," returned one of them; "we left the exhibition to-day just before it closed, and had the pleasure of seeing the porter attach the ticket to it."

"Glorious!--joy! joy!" cried Peter, running in ecstasy to the bell, and ringing it violently; and, as the waiter entered, he added, "A bottle of claret! claret, boy!--claret!" And he sat down to treat the gentlemen who had announced to him the glad tidings. They drank long and deep, till Peter's head came in contact with the table, and sleep sealed up his eyelids. When aroused by the landlord, who presented his bill, his companions were gone; and, stupid as Peter was, he recollected for the first time that his pocket did not contain funds to discharge the reckoning; and he left his watch with the tavern-keeper, promising to redeem it the next day, when he received the price of his picture. I need not tell you what a miserable day that next day was to him, when, with his head aching with the fumes of the wine, he found that he had been duped--that his picture was not sold. The exhibition closed for the season; he had spent his last s.h.i.+lling--and Paul was as poor as Peter: but the former borrowed a guinea, to pay his brother's fare on the outside of the coach to----.

Andrew Donaldson continued to struggle hard; but, struggle as he would, he could not pay the interest of the mortgage. Disappointment, sorrow, humbled vanity, and the laugh of the world, were too much for him; and, shortly after Peter's visit to Edinburgh, he died, repenting that he had ever pursued the phantom Fas.h.i.+on, or sought after the rottenness of wealth.

"And what," inquired I, "became of Mrs Donaldson, and her sons Paul and Peter?"

"Peter, sir," continued the narrator, "rose to eminence in his profession; and, redeeming the mortgage on Lottery Hall, he gave it as a present to his brother Paul, who opened it as an establishment for young gentlemen. His mother resides with him; and, sir, Paul hath spoken unto you--he hath given you the history of Lottery Hall."

THE DOMINIE AND THE SOUTER.

THE DOMINIE'S COURTs.h.i.+P.

"Weel, I dinna ken how it is, Richard," said a Selkirk dominie to his friend Richard Blackwell, a souter of the same royal borough--"I dinna ken how it is, but there's naething pleases me mair than some o' them Border Tales--they're so uncommonly natural. I've often thought, indeed, in my ain mind, that the writers must get silly, stupid folk to sit doun and repeat their little histories to them in their ain language; for I can hardly believe that such true delineations o' character, and such remarkable instances o' the ups and downs o' human affairs, are mere inventions. Frequently, when I finish a tale, I exclaim, 'I ken the man that's meant for;' and for a that, though the picture may be as like him as your ain face to its reflection in a looking-gla.s.s, it's ten to ane if the author is aware o' such a character being in existence. This is what puzzles me, Richard. The 'Henpecked Man,' for instance, was a _dead hit_; but unfortunately every village on the Borders claimed the bickermaker as well as Birgham; while ilk guidwife might hae been heard bawling to her next-door neighbour, as she shook the tale in her clenched hand, 'Filthy fallow! that's our John or your Ned he's been taking aff.'"

"It wadna be worth their while putting ony o' us twa into prent,"

rejoined the souter.

"I differ with you there, neighbour," replied the dominie; "for there is no calculating the value that clever and skilly hands can give to rude materials. Would ye believe, now, to use a funny ill.u.s.tration, that a farthing's worth o' pig-iron, made into steel chains, rises to mair than twa hundred times its value? Ye stare incredulously, Richard; but it's the truth I'm telling you;--so it follows that out o' the raw material o' our lives, value o' anither kind may be gotten by a proper adaptation o' incidents and the like: and it often occurs to me, there is that about my courts.h.i.+p that would make no that ill a story, were it a wee thocht embellished. Ye shall hear it, however, as it is, and judge for yoursel:"--

Love, ye must be informed, Richard, did not communicate itself to my heart till I was well up in years--probably when I was seven-and-twenty, or thereabouts--nor did it blaze up a' at once, like a sudden flame--for it seemed at first but a sma' sma' spark, which often threatened to go out o' its ain accord, like coals kindled with green sticks--till Margery Johnson--that's my wife's maiden name--would have come across my path again like a bonny blink o' suns.h.i.+ne, and presently the dying embers would grow het once more at the heart, and burn away for a' the world like a blown-up fire. Now, though Margery, when I went a-courting her, didna possess ony great personal attractions to make a sang about--like the f.e.c.k o' your grand romance leddies--yet she had that life and buoyancy about her, and blowsy healthiness o' countenance, which can make a deeper impression on the heart, at least, according to my liking, than a' the fine complexions, blue een, and artificial forms in the world. Margery was a little above the middle height--a plump, robust, guid-looking la.s.s--the apple o' her faither's eye, and the pride o' her mother--whom everybody spoke well o'. And it was not without either choice or reflection that my pa.s.sion for Margery Johnson was imbibed. Her faither, who is as guid a man as ever broke the world's bread, attended the Rev. Mr Heslop as weel as mysel; and as the seat which I occupied gave me a full command o' him and his family--for they only sat about an arm's-length from me--I had the pleasure o' seeing Margery, with the lave, every returning Sabbath. I dinna ken rightly how it was, but when she slipped along the aisle, I felt like a shortness o' breath, and a queer tingling sensation steal owre my whole body. In the time o' the singing, too, I could not help from keeking off the psalm-book, had it been to save me, to see if she were looking at me; and when our glances happened to encounter, I would have instantly reddened to the bottom o' the haffets, and impudently pretended, by casting my eyes carelessly up to the big front window, that it was merely a casual contact. I cannot take upon me to say how far this was sinful; but I ken that at such times I sat in a sort o' religious fervour, on terms o' kindness with my bitterest enemy--for weel can love teach a moral to the mind--while my heart seemed rinning owre with grat.i.tude to the Deity for this new proof o' his benevolence and goodness, in the provision made for puir erring mankind.

I'm no sure whether I have mentioned that Margery was in the service o'

the minister--if no, ye must understand that she was his housemaid; and the manse, ye may weel conceive, Richard, was not the best place in the world for carrying on a courts.h.i.+p. I happened to be muckle thought on, however, by the minister and his wife--for my learning, ye see, brought me within a very little o' the minister himsel--indeed, we were nearly a buckle; and I, accordingly, had frequent invitations from him on a week-day night, to drink tea and spend the evening. On those occasions, unfortunately, I only saw Margery when she brought in and carried out the tea things; but one night, when the minister and I were indulging ourselves after the four-hours was owre (I may mention, for your edification, Richard, that _four-hours_ signifies the time o' drinking tea,--_four_, according to Watson, being the ancient _hour_ for the afternoon beverage)--it was after our tea was done, as I was saying, that the minister and I sat down to a gla.s.s o' whisky-toddy; and, as we both got very cracky, the minister says to me, jocularly, for he was a pleasant, agreeable man, Mr Heslop--

"I wonder, James, ye never think o' changing your life!"

Now, it did not just strike me, at first, what he meant; so I bluntly replied, "Yes, sir; I am weel aware, as the heathen philosopher has beautifully observed, _Proba vita est via in coelum_--which signifies, A good life is the way to heaven."

With that the minister and his wife kinked and laughed a guid ane; and the latter at last cried out to me--

"Mr Heslop means, James, that you should get married."

"Oh, is that what he's driving at?" says I, colouring at my ain want o'

gumption--"truly it's no a slight matter to get married, though I'll no be after denying that, could I fall in with a likely, serious young woman, I should have no great objections to make her my wife."

"What think you o' Margery, my housemaid?" says Mrs Heslop, archly--"I think she would make you a guid wife."

Had I been convicted o' the theft o' a silver spoon, I could not have felt more confused than I did at this moment--I found the very perspiration, Richard, oozing out in large drops from every pore o' my frame; while Mr Heslop, in the midst o' my embarra.s.sment, chimed in--