KENELM knocked at the cottage door; a voice said faintly, “Come in.”
He stooped his head, and stepped over the threshold.
Since his encounter with Tom Bowles his sympathies had gone with that
unfortunate lover: it is natural to like a man after you have beaten
him; and he was by no means predisposed to favour Jessie’s preference
for a sickly cripple.
Yet, when two bright, soft, dark eyes, and a pale intellectual
countenance, with that nameless aspect of refinement which delicate
health so often gives, especially to the young, greeted his quiet gaze,
his heart was at once won over to the side of the rival. Will Somers was
seated by the hearth, on which a few live embers despite the warmth of
the summer evening still burned; a rude little table was by his side,
on which were laid osier twigs and white peeled chips, together with an
open book. His hands, pale and slender, were at work on a small basket
half finished. His mother was just clearing away the tea-things from
another table that stood by the window. Will rose, with the good
breeding that belongs to the rural peasant, as the stranger entered; the
widow looked round with surprise, and dropped her simple courtesy,--a
little thin woman, with a mild, patient face.
The cottage was very tidily kept, as it is in most village homes where
the woman has it her own way. The deal dresser opposite the door had
its display of humble crockery. The whitewashed walls were relieved with
coloured prints, chiefly Scriptural subjects from the New Testament,
such as the Return of the Prodigal Son, in a blue coat and yellow
inexpressibles, with his stockings about his heels.
At one corner there were piled up baskets of various sizes, and at
another corner was an open cupboard containing books,--an article of
decorative furniture found in cottages much more rarely than coloured
prints and gleaming crockery.
All this, of course, Kenelm could not at a glance comprehend in detail.
But as the mind of a man accustomed to generalization is marvellously
quick in forming a sound judgment, whereas a mind accustomed to dwell
only on detail is wonderfully slow at arriving at any judgment at all,
and when it does, the probability is that it will arrive at a wrong one,
Kenelm judged correctly when he came to this conclusion: “I am among
simple English peasants; but, for some reason or other, not to be
explained by the relative amount of wages, it is a favourable specimen
of that class.”
“I beg your pardon for intruding at this hour, Mrs. Somers,” said
Kenelm, who had been too familiar with peasants from his earliest
childhood not to know how quickly, when in the presence of their
household gods, they appreciate respect, and how acutely they feel the
want of it. “But my stay in the village is very short, and I should not
like to leave without seeing your son’s basket-work, of which I have
heard much.”
“You are very good, sir,” said Will, with a pleased smile that
wonderfully brightened up his face. “It is only just a few common things
that I keep by me. Any finer sort of work I mostly do by order.”
“You see, sir,” said Mrs. Somers, “it takes so much more time for pretty
work-baskets, and such like; and unless done to order, it might be
a chance if he could get it sold. But pray be seated, sir,” and Mrs.
Somers placed a chair for her visitor, “while I just run up stairs for
the work-basket which my son has made for Miss Travers. It is to go home
to-morrow, and I put it away for fear of accidents.”
Kenelm seated himself, and, drawing his chair near to Will’s, took up
the half-finished basket which the young man had laid down on the table.
“This seems to me very nice and delicate workmanship,” said Kenelm; “and
the shape, when you have finished it, will be elegant enough to please
the taste of a lady.”
“It is for Mrs. Lethbridge,” said Will: “she wanted something to hold
cards and letters; and I took the shape from a book of drawings which
Mr. Lethbridge kindly lent me. You know Mr. Lethbridge, sir? He is a
very good gentleman.”
“No, I don’t know him. Who is he?”
“Our clergyman, sir. This is the book.”
To Kenelm’s surprise, it was a work on Pompeii, and contained woodcuts
of the implements and ornaments, mosaics and frescos, found in that
memorable little city.
“I see this is your model,” said Kenelm; “what they call a _patera_,
and rather a famous one. You are copying it much more truthfully than I
should have supposed it possible to do in substituting basket-work for
bronze. But you observe that much of the beauty of this shallow bowl
depends on the two doves perched on the brim. You can’t manage that
ornamental addition.”
“Mrs. Lethbridge thought of putting there two little stuffed
canary-birds.”
“Did she? Good heavens!” exclaimed Kenelm.
“But somehow,” continued Will, “I did not like that, and I made bold to
say so.”
“Why did not you do it?”
“Well, I don’t know; but I did not think it would be the right thing.”
“It would have been very bad taste, and spoiled the effect of your
basket-work; and I’ll endeavour to explain why. You see here, in the
next page, a drawing of a very beautiful statue. Of course this statue
is intended to be a representation of nature, but nature idealized. You
don’t know the meaning of that hard word, idealized, and very few people
do. But it means the performance of a something in art according to the
idea which a man’s mind forms to itself out of a something in nature.
That something in nature must, of course, have been carefully studied
before the man can work out anything in art by which it is faithfully
represented. The artist, for instance, who made that statue, must have
known the proportions of the human frame. He must have made studies
of various parts of it,--heads and hands, and arms and legs, and so
forth,--and having done so, he then puts together all his various
studies of details, so as to form a new whole, which is intended to
personate an idea formed in his own mind. Do you go with me?”
“Partly, sir; but I am puzzled a little still.”
“Of course you are; but you’ll puzzle yourself right if you think over
what I say. Now if, in order to make this statue, which is composed of
metal or stone, more natural, I stuck on it a wig of real hair, would
not you feel at once that I had spoilt the work; that as you clearly
express it, ‘it would not be the right thing’? and instead of making the
work of art more natural, I should have made it laughably unnatural, by
forcing insensibly upon the mind of him who looked at it the contrast
between the real life, represented by a wig of actual hair, and the
artistic life, represented by an idea embodied in stone or metal. The
higher the work of art (that is, the higher the idea it represents as a
new combination of details taken from nature), the more it is degraded
or spoilt by an attempt to give it a kind of reality which is out
of keeping with the materials employed. But the same rule applies to
everything in art, however humble. And a couple of stuffed canary-birds
at the brim of a basket-work imitation of a Greek drinking-cup would be
as bad taste as a wig from the barber’s on the head of a marble statue
of Apollo.”
“I see,” said Will, his head downcast, like a man pondering,--“at least
I think I see; and I’m very much obliged to you, sir.”
Mrs. Somers had long since returned with the work-basket, but stood with
it in her hands, not daring to interrupt the gentleman, and listening to
his discourse with as much patience and as little comprehension as if it
had been one of the controversial sermons upon Ritualism with which on
great occasions Mr. Lethbridge favoured his congregation.
Kenelm having now exhausted his critical lecture--from which certain
poets and novelists who contrive to caricature the ideal by their
attempt to put wigs of real hair upon the heads of stone statues might
borrow a useful hint or two if they would condescend to do so, which
is not likely--perceived Mrs. Somers standing by him, took from her
the basket, which was really very pretty and elegant, subdivided
into various compartments for the implements in use among ladies, and
bestowed on it a well-merited eulogium.
“The young lady means to finish it herself with ribbons, and line it
with satin,” said Mrs. Somers, proudly.
“The ribbons will not be amiss, sir?” said Will, interrogatively.
“Not at all. Your natural sense of the fitness of things tells you
that ribbons go well with straw and light straw-like work such as this;
though you would not put ribbons on those rude hampers and game-baskets
in the corner. Like to like; a stout cord goes suitably with them: just
as a poet who understands his art employs pretty expressions for poems
intended to be pretty and suit a fashionable drawing-room, and carefully
shuns them to substitute a simple cord for poems intended to be strong
and travel far, despite of rough usage by the way. But you really
ought to make much more money by this fancy-work than you could as a
day-labourer.”
Will sighed. “Not in this neighbourhood, sir; I might in a town.”
“Why not move to a town, then?”
The young man coloured, and shook his head.
Kenelm turned appealingly to Mrs. Somers. “I’ll be willing to go
wherever it would be best for my boy, sir. But--” and here she checked
herself, and a tear trickled silently down her cheeks.
Will resumed, in a more cheerful tone, “I am getting a little known
now, and work will come if one waits for it.” Kenelm did not deem it
courteous or discreet to intrude further on Will’s confidence in the
first interview; and he began to feel, more than he had done at first,
not only the dull pain of the bruises he had received in the recent
combat, but also somewhat more than the weariness which follows long
summer-day’s work in the open air. He therefore, rather abruptly, now
took his leave, saying that he should be very glad of a few specimens of
Will’s ingenuity and skill, and would call or write to give directions
about them.
Just as he came in sight of Tom Bowles’s house on his way back to Mr.
Saunderson’s, Kenelm saw a man mounting a pony that stood tied up at the
gate, and exchanging a few words with a respectable-looking woman
before he rode on. He was passing by Kenelm without notice, when that
philosophical vagrant stopped him, saying, “If I am not mistaken, sir,
you are the doctor. There is not much the matter with Mr. Bowles?”
The doctor shook his head. “I can’t say yet. He has had a very ugly blow
somewhere.”
“It was just under the left ear. I did not aim at that exact spot:
but Bowles unluckily swerved a little aside at the moment, perhaps in
surprise at a tap between his eyes immediately preceding it: and so, as
you say, it was an ugly blow that he received. But if it cures him of
the habit of giving ugly blows to other people who can bear them less
safely, perhaps it may be all for his good, as, no doubt, sir, your
schoolmaster said when he flogged you.”
“Bless my soul! are you the man who fought with him,--you? I can’t
believe it.”
“Why not?”
“Why not! So far as I can judge by this light, though you are a tall
fellow, Tom Bowles must be a much heavier weight than you are.”
“Tom Spring was the champion of England; and according to the records of
his weight, which history has preserved in her archives, Tom Spring was
a lighter weight than I am.”
“But are you a prize-fighter?”
“I am as much that as I am anything else. But to return to Mr. Bowles,
was it necessary to bleed him?”
“Yes; he was unconscious, or nearly so, when I came. I took away a few
ounces; and I am happy to say he is now sensible, but must be kept very
quiet.”
“No doubt; but I hope he will be well enough to see me to-morrow.”
“I hope so too; but I can’t say yet. Quarrel about a girl,--eh?”
“It was not about money. And I suppose if there were no money and no
women in the world, there would be no quarrels and very few doctors.
Good-night, Sir.”
“It is a strange thing to me,” said Kenelm, as he now opened the
garden-gate of Mr. Saunderson’s homestead, “that though I’ve had nothing
to eat all day, except a few pitiful sandwiches, I don’t feel the least
hungry. Such arrest of the lawful duties of the digestive organs never
happened to me before. There must be something weird and ominous in it.”
On entering the parlour, the family party, though they had long since
finished supper, were still seated round the table. They all rose at
the sight of Kenelm. The fame of his achievements had preceded him. He
checked the congratulations, the compliments, and the questions
which the hearty farmer rapidly heaped upon him, with a melancholic
exclamation, “But I have lost my appetite! No honours can compensate for
that. Let me go to bed peaceably, and perhaps in the magic land of sleep
Nature may restore me by a dream of supper.”