They had never done me
any wrong, poor things; they suffered unjustly. You take them to a shop,
swear they are a tree and a cow, and some fool, that never really looked
into a cow or a tree, will give you ten shillings for them."

"Are ye sure, lad?"

"I am sure. Mr. Groove, sir, if you can not sell a lie for ten shillings
you are not fit to live in this world; where is the lie that will not
sell for ten shillings?"

"I shall think the better o' lees all my days; sir, your words are
inspeeriting." And away went Groove with the sketch.

Gatty reflected and stopped him.

"On second thoughts, Groove, you must not ask ten shillings; you must
ask twenty pounds for that rubbish."

"Twenty pund! What for will I seek twenty pund?"

"Simply because people that would not give you ten shillings for it will
offer you eleven pounds for it if you ask twenty pounds."

"The fules," roared Groove. "Twenty pund! hem!" He looked closer into
it. "For a'," said he, "I begin to obsairve it is a work of great merit.
I'll seek twenty pund, an' I'll no tak less than fifteen schell'n, at
present."

The visit of this routine painter did not cheer our artist.

The small child got a coal and pounded the floor with it like a machine
incapable of fatigue. So the wished-for pose seemed more remote than
ever.

The day waxed darker instead of lighter; Mr. Gatty's reflections took
also a still more somber hue.

"Even Nature spites us," thought he, "because we love her."

"Then cant, tradition, numbers, slang and money are against us; the
least of these is singly a match for truth; we shall die of despair or
paint cobwebs in Bedlam; and I am faint, weary of a hopeless struggle;
and one man's brush is truer than mine, another's is bolder--my hand and
eye are not in tune. 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."

"And I want that little brute just to do so, and he'd die first."

"Oh, ye villain, to ca' a bairn a brute; there's but ae brute here, an'
it's no you, Jamie, nor me--is it, my lamb?"

She then stepped to the window.

"It's clear to windward; in t