Christie Johnstone

“ Christie Johnstone was the narrator. She had found the tale in one of the viscount's books—it had made a great impression on her.
The rest were listening intently. In a room which had lately been all noise, not a sound was now to be heard but the narrator's voice.
“Aweel, lasses, here are the three wee kists set, the lads are to chuse—the ane that chuses reicht is to get Porsha, an' the lave to get the bag, and dee baitchelars—Flucker Johnstone, you that's sae clever—are ye for gowd, or siller, or leed?”
1st Fishwife. “Gowd for me!”
2d ditto. “The white siller's my taste.” ”

“ 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 Willy Liston; a youth of an unhappy turn—he contributed nothing to hilarity, his face was a kill-joy—nobody liked him; for this female reason Christie distinguished him.
He found a divine supper every Saturday night in her house; he ate, and sighed! Christie fed him, and laughed at him.
Flucker ditto. ”

“ Ah! no! I shall never, never, never be a painter.”
These last words broke audibly from him as his head went down almost to his knees.
A hand was placed on his shoulder as a flake of snow falls on the water. It was Christie Johnstone, radiant, who had glided in unobserved.
“What's wrang wi' ye, my lad?”
“The sun is gone to the Devil, for one thing.”
“Hech! hech! ye'll no be long ahint him; div ye no think shame.” ”

“ At this question the poetry died out of Christie Johnstone's face, she gave her companion a rapid look, indiscernible by male eye, and answered:
“Three a penny, sirr; they are no plenty the day,” added she, in smooth tones that carried conviction.
(Little liar; they were selling six a penny everywhere.)
“Saunders, buy them all, and be ever so long about it; count them, or some nonsense.”
“He's daft! he's daft! Oh, ye ken, Jean, an Ennglishman and a lorrd, twa daft things thegither, he could na' miss the road. Coont them, lassie.” ”

“ As for Gatty, he hurried home in a fever of passion, begged his mother's pardon, and reproached himself for ever having disobeyed her on account of such a perfidious creature as Christie Johnstone.
He then told her what he had seen, as distance and imagination had presented it to him; to his surprise the old lady cut him short.
“Charles,” said she, “there is no need to take the girl's character away; she has but one fault—she is not in the same class of life as you, and such marriages always lead to misery ”

“ I love her, mother,” added he, with a tearful tenderness that ought to have reached a woman's heart; then flushing, 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. ”

“ Suddenly she stopped, and said:
“I'm daft; ye'll accept a lane o' the siller fra me, will ye no?”
“No!” said he. “And where could you find eighty pound?”
“Auchty pund,” cried she, “it's no auchty pund that will ding Christie Johnstone, laddy. I hae boats and nets worth twa auchtys; and I hae forty pund laid by; and I hae seven hundred pund at London, but that I canna meddle. My feyther lent it the king or the queen, I dinna justly mind; she pays me the interest twice the year. Sac ye ken I could na be sae dirty as seek my siller, when she pays me th' interest. To the very day, ye ken. ”

“ Flucker began to sob at this.
Christie could not cry; her heart was like a lump of lead in her bosom; but she put her arm round his neck, and at the sight of his sympathy she panted heavily, but could not shed a tear—she was sore stricken.
Presently Jean came in, and, as the poor girl's head ached as well as her heart, they forced her to go and sit in the air. She took her creepie and sat, and looked on the sea; but, whether she looked seaward or landward, all seemed unreal; not things, but hard pictures of things, some moving, some still. Life seemed ended—she had lost her love. ”

“ Christie, who stood amidships, saw the error; she sprang aft, flung the boy from the helm and jammed it hard-a-starboard with her foot. The boat answered the helm, but too late for Flucker; the man was four yards from him as the boat drifted by.
“He's a deed mon!” cried Liston, on shore.
The boat's length gave one more little chance; the after-part must drift nearer him—thanks to Christie. Flucker flew aft; flung himself on his back, and seized his sister's petticoats.
“Fling yourself ower the gunwale,” screamed he. “Ye'll no hurt; I'se haud ye.” ”

“ There is no rival among Reade’s novels to The Cloister and the Hearth; but several of them nevertheless are of high quality. Christie Johnstone, a remarkably clever and successful study of the fisher population of the east of Scotland, is perhaps the freshest and least laboured of all his works; and Griffith Gaunt, an analysis of the workings of the passion of jealousy, is the subtlest as a psychological study; while It is Never Too Late to Mend stands pretty near the head of its own class, the novel of purpose. ”

“ At the foot of the stairs, she said to her brother:
“Puir lad! I'll sune draw auchty punds fra' the sea for him, with my feyther's nets.”
As she disappeared, Mrs. Gatty appeared. “And this is the woman whose mind was not in her dirty business,” cried she. “Does not that open your eyes, Charles?”
“Ah! Charles,” added she, tenderly, “there's no friend like a mother.”
And off she carried the prize—his vanity had been mortified.
And so that happened to Christie Johnstone which has befallen many a woman—the greatness of her love made that love appear small to her lover. ”

“ The earnest man first; and Flucker announced the skipper's insanity to the whole town of Newhaven, for, of course, these tacks were all marine solecisms.
The other discontented Picnician was Christie Johnstone. Gatty never came; and this, coupled with five or six days' previous neglect, could no longer pass unnoticed.
Her gayety failed her before the afternoon was ended; and the last two hours were spent by her alone, watching the water on all sides for him.
At last, long after the departure of his lordship's yacht, the Newhaven boat sailed from Inch Coombe with the wedding party. ”

“ MR. MILLER'S APOTHEGM.
“Friends and neighbors! when a man's heed is gray with age and thoucht (pause) he's just fit to go to schule to a young lass o' twenty.”
There was a certain middle-aged fishwife, called Beeny Liston, a tenant of Christie Johnstone's; she had not paid her rent for some time, and she had not been pressed for it; whether this, or the whisky she was in the habit of taking, rankled in her mind, certain it is she had always an ill word for her landlady.
She now met her, envied her success, and called out in a coarse tone:
“Oh, ye're a gallant quean ”

“ 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. ”

“ Christie. “He just said, 'My deeds upon my heed. I claim the law,' says he; 'there is no power in the tongue o' man to alter me. I stay here on my boend.'”
Sandy Liston. “I hae sat quiet!—quiet I hae sat against my will, no to disturb Jamie Drysel's weddin'; but ye carry the game ower far, Shylock, my lad. I'll just give yon bluidy-minded urang-utang a hidin', and bring Tony off, the gude, puir-spirited creature. And him, an' me, an' Bassanee, an' Porshee, we'll all hae a gill thegither.” ”

“ Oh! perilous venture of those who love one object with the whole heart.
This great but tender heart was breaking day by day.
Well, Christie and Jean, strolling slowly into the New Town of Newhaven, found an assemblage of the natives all looking seaward; the fishermen, except Sandy Liston, were away at the herring fishery, but all the boys and women of the New Town were collected; the girls felt a momentary curiosity; it proved, however, to be only an individual swimming in toward shore from a greater distance than usual. ”

“ Lord Ipsden, having reminded Gatty of his engagement, begged him to add his mother and Christie to the party, and escorted Lady Barbara to her phaeton.
So then the people dispersed by degrees.
“That old lady's face seems familiar to me,” said Lord Ipsden, as he stood on the little natural platform by the “Peacock.” “Do you know who she is, Saunders?”
“It is Peggy, that was cook in your lordship's uncle's time, my lord. She married a green-grocer,” added Saunders, with an injured air.
“Hech! hech!” cried Flucker, “Christie has ta'en up her head wi' a cook's son.” ”

“ And since we ought to dwell as little as possible upon scenes in which unguarded innocence is exposed to artful conspiracies, we will put a page or two into the brute form of dramatic dialogue, and so sail through it quicker.
1st Merchant. “Where are ye going, Meggie?”
Christie Johnstone. “If onybody asks ye, say ye dinna ken.”
1st Mer. “Will ye sell your fish?”
Christie. “Suner than gie them.”
1st Mer. “You will be asking fifteen shillin' the cran.”
Christie. “And ten to that.”
1st Mer. “Good-morning.”
2d Mer. “Would he not go over fifteen shillings? ”

“ Christie read, blushed, and put the verses in her bosom.
“Come awa, Custy,” said Jean.
“Hets,” said Christie, “gie the puir lads twarree oysters, what the waur will we be?”
So they opened the oysters for them; and Hyacinth the long-haired looked down on the others with sarcastico-benignant superiority. He had conducted a sister art to the aid of his brother brushes.
“The poet's empire, all our hearts allow; But doggrel's power was never known till now.” ”

“ Jean heard him out, and then, with the air of a lunatic-asylum keeper to a rhodomontading patient, told him “he was one fool, and his mother was another.” First she took him up on the score of prudence.
“You,” said she, “are a beggarly painter, without a rap; Christie has houses, boats, nets, and money; you are in debt; she lays by money every week. It is not prudent on her part to take up with you—the better your bargain, my lad.” ”

“ Beeny's eye fell upon her.
“Ay! here's the Queen o' Newhaven,” cried she, in a loud and rather coarse voice. “The men will hae ta leave the place now y' are turned fisherman, I daur say.”
“Oh, dinna fieicht on me! dinna fieicht on me!” cried Christie, trembling.
“Maircy on us,” said the other, “auld Flucker Johnstone's dochter turned humble. What next?”
“I'm vexed for speaking back till ye the morn,” faltered Christie.
“Hett,” said the woman carelessly, “let yon flea stick i' the wa'. I fancy I began on ye. Aweel, Cirsty,” said she, falling into a friendlier tone ”

“ The fisherman and the viscount held on by each other.
“He does na see her, or maybe he'd tak hairt.”
“I'd give ten thousand pounds if only he could see her. My God, the man will be drowned under our eyes. If he but saw her!!!”
The words had hardly left Lord Ipsden's lips, when the sound of a woman's voice came like an AEolian note across the water.
“Hurraih!” roared Liston, and every creature joined the cheer.
“She'll no let him dee. Ah! she's in the bows, hailing him an' waving the lad's bonnet ower her head to gie him coorage. Gude bless ye, lass; Gude bless ye!” ”

“ Christie saw nothing. With another cry, the very keynote of her great and loving heart, she flung her arms round—Mrs. Gatty, who was on the same errand as herself.
“Hearts are not steel, and steel is bent; Hearts are not flint, and flint is rent.”
The old woman felt Christie touch her. She turned from her son in a moment and wept upon her neck. Her lover took her hand and kissed it, and pressed it to his bosom, and tried to speak to her ”

“ How much faith such a narrative deserves we leave others to decide. It, however, has the virtue, as Una declares again, of plausibly explaining Mr. Reade's entire misapprehension of the feminine portion of humanity,—since, during the whole course of such a career, it would have been impossible that he should have made intimate acquaintance with a single specimen of the sex. It is true that in "Christie Johnstone" he speaks of the musical performances of certain female relatives of his own; but of course that is to be taken only as a part of the fiction. ”

“ A little matter excites curiosity in such places.
The man's head looked like a spot of ink.
Sandy Liston was minding his own business, lazily mending a skait-net, which he had attached to a crazy old herring-boat hauled up to rot.
Christie sat down, pale and languid, by him, on a creepie that a lass who had been baiting a line with mussels had just vacated; suddenly she seized Jean's arm with a convulsive motion; Jean looked up—it was the London steamboat running out from Leith to Granton Pier to take up her passengers for London. Charles Gatty was going by that boat ”

“ Jean Carnie. “I'm saying, mairriage is quick wark, in some pairts—here there's an awfu' trouble to get a man.”
A young Fishwife. “Ay, is there.”
Omnes. “Haw! haw! haw!” (The fish-wife hides.)
Christie. “Fill your taupsels, lads and lasses, and awa to Veneece.”
Sandy Liston (sturdily) . “I'll no gang to sea this day.”
Christie. “Noo, we are in the hall o' judgment. Here are set the judges, awfu' to behold; there, on his throne, presides the Juke.”
Flucker. “She's awa to her Ennglish.”
Lizzy Johnstone. “Did we come to Veeneece to speak Scoetch, ye useless fule?” ”