“My dear mother,” said Rob, “many a man could fight a battle that could not draw the Kirkton, with all the hills behind it, and the clouds, and the air.”
“Air! ye can paint air, ye clever lad!” cried Mrs. Glen, with a laugh. “Maybe you can paint the coos mowing and the sheeps baaing? I would not wonder. It’s as easy as the air, which every bairn kens is no a thing you can see.”
“I don’t say I can do it myself,” said Rob; “but I’ve seen pictures where you would think you heard the cows and the sheep—yes, and the skylarks up in the sky, and the hare plashing about in the wet woods.”
“Just that,” said his mother, “and the country gomerel that believes all you like to tell her. Among a’ thae bonnie things there should be a place for the one that’s to be imposed upon; but you’ll no put me there, I’ll warrant you,” she cried, flouncing away in sudden wrath.
This interruption roused Rob and put him upon his mettle. If it was well to have thus dignified his work in her eyes so that she should be concerned in its progress, the result was not an unmitigated good. Hitherto he had worked as the spirit moved him, and when he was not sufficiently stirred had let his pencil alone. But this would not do, now that his labor had become a recognized industry. He betook himself to his task with a sigh.
Rob’s artist-powers were not great. He drew like an amateur, not even an amateur of a high order, and would not have impressed any spectator who had much knowledge of art. But he had a certain amount of that indescribable quality which artists call “feeling,” a quality which sometimes makes the most imperfect of sketches more attractive than the skilfullest piece of painting. This is a gift which is more dependent upon moods and passing impulses than upon knowledge and skill; and no doubt the subtlety of those flying shadows, the breadth of the infinite morning light, so pure, so delicate, yet brilliant, put them beyond the hand of the untrained craftsman. The consequence of this morning’s work, the first undertaken with legitimate sanction and authority, was accordingly a failure. Rob put the Kirkton upon his paper very faithfully; he drew the church and the houses so that nobody could fail to recognize them; but as for the air of which he had boasted! alas, there was no air in it. He worked till the hour of the farm dinner; worked on, getting more eager over it as he felt every line to fail, and walked home, flushed and excited, when he heard his name called through the mid-day brightness. The broth was on the table when he went in, putting down his materials on a side-table; and Mrs. Glen was impatient of the moment he spent in washing his hands.
“You have as many fykes as a fine leddy,” she said. It had not occurred to her to make this preparation for her meal. She drew her chair to the table, and said grace in the same breath with this reproach. “Bless these mercies,” she said; and then, “Ye canna say but you’ve had a lang morning, and naebody to disturb you. I hope you have something to show for it now.”
“Not much,” said Rob.
“No much! It’s a pretence, then, like a’ the rest! Lord bless me, I couldna spend the whole blessed day without doing a hand’s turn, no, if you would pay me for it. Eh, but we’re deceived creatures,” cried Mrs. Glen; “as glad when a bairn comes into the world as if it brought a fortune with it! A bonnie fortune! anxiety and care; and if there’s a moment’s pleasure, it’s aye ransomed by days of trouble. Sup your broth; they’re very good broth, far better than the like of you deserve; but maybe you think it’s no a grand enough dinner for such a fine gentleman? Na, when I was just making up my mind to let you take your will and see what you could do your ain way—and you set up your face and tell me, no much! No much! if it’s not enough to anger a saint!”
“There it is; you can judge for yourself,” cried Rob, with sudden exasperation. He jumped up from the table so quickly that his mother had no time to point out his want of manners in getting up in the midst of his dinner. The words were stopped on her lips, when he suddenly placed the block on which he had been drawing before her. Mrs. Glen had not condescended to look at any of these performances before. It would have seemed a sort of acceptance of his excuse had she taken any notice of the “rubbitch” with which he “played himself,” and she had really felt the contempt she expressed. Drawing pictures! it was a kind of childish occupation, an amusement to be pursued on a wet day, when nothing else was possible, or as a solace in the tedium of illness. But when Rob put down before her, relieved against the white table-cloth, the Kirkton itself in little, a very reproduction of the familiar scene she had beheld every day for years, the words were stopped upon his mother’s lips.