IV

By this time we had reached the encampment, which was close by a

waterfall among ferns and wild-flowers. Little Jerry Lovell, a child

of about four years of age, came running to meet me with a dead

water-wagtail in his hand which he had knocked down.

'Me kill de Romany Chiriklo,' said he, and then proceeded to tell me

very gravely that, having killed the 'Gypsy magpie,' he was bound to

have a great lady for his sweetheart.

'Jerry,' said I bitterly, 'you begin with love and superstition

early; you are an incipient "Aylwinian": take care.'

When I explained to Wilderspin that this was one of the Romany

beliefs, he said that he did not at present see the connection

between a dead water-wagtail and a live lady, but that such a

connection might doubtless exist. Panuel Lovell now came forward to

greet and welcome Wilderspin. Sinfi and Cyril had evidently walked at

a brisk rate, for already tea was spread out on a cloth. The fire was

blazing beneath a kettle slung from the 'kettle-prop.' The party were

waiting for us. Sinfi, however, never idle, was filling up the time

by giving lessons in riding to Euri and Sylvester Lovell, two dusky

urchins in their early teens, while her favourite bantam-cock

Pharaoh, standing on a donkey's back, his wattles gleaming like coral

in the sun, was crowing lustily. Cyril, who lay stretched among the

ferns, his chin resting in his hands and a cigarette in his mouth,

was looking on with the deepest interest. As I passed behind him to

introduce Wilderspin to Videy Lovell (who was making tea), I heard

Cyril say, 'Lady Sinfi, you must and shall teach me how to make an

adversary's bed--the only really essential part of a liberal

education.'

'Brother,' said Sinfi, turning to me, 'your thoughts are a-flyin' off

agin; keep your spirits up afore all these.'

The leafy dingle was recalling Graylingham Wilderness and 'Fairy

Dell,' where little Winifred used to play Titania to my childish

Oberon, and dance the Gypsy 'shawl-dance' Sinfi's mother had taught

her!

So much was I occupied with these reminiscences that I had not

observed that during our absence our camp had been honoured by

visitors. These were Jericho Boswell, christened, I believe, Jasper,

his daughter Rhona, and James Herne, called on account of his

accomplishments as a penman the Scollard. Although Jasper Boswell and

Panuel Lovell were rival Griengroes, there was no jealousy between

them--indeed, they were excellent friends.

There were many points of similarity between their characters. Each

had risen from comparative poverty to what might be called wealth,

and risen in the same way, that is to say, by straightforward dealing

with the Gorgios, although as regarded Jericho, Rhona was generally

credited with having acted as a great auxiliary in amassing his

wealth. All over the country the farmers and horse-dealers knew that

neither Jasper nor Panuel ever bishoped a gry, or indulged in any

other horse-dealing tricks. Their very simplicity of character had

done what all the crafty tricks of certain compeers of theirs had

failed to do. They were also very much alike in their good-natured

and humorous, way of taking all the ups and downs of life.

A very different kind of Romany was the Scollard--so different,

indeed, that it was hard to think that he was of the same race:

Romany guile incarnate was the Scollard. He suggested even in his

personal appearance the typical Gypsy of the novel and the stage,

rather than the true Gypsy as he lives and moves. The Scollard was

well known to be half-crazed with a passion for Rhona Boswell, who

was _the fiancée_ of that cousin of mine, Percy Aylwin, before

mentioned. Percy was considered to be a hopelessly erratic character.

Much against the wish of his parents, he had been brought up as a

sailor; but on seeing Rhona Boswell he promptly fell in love with

her, and quitted the sea in order to be near her. And no man who ever

heard Rhona's laugh professed to wonder at Percy's infatuation. As a

Griengro her father, Jericho Boswell, who had no son, was said to

have owed his prosperity to Rhona's instinctive knowledge of

horseflesh.

While our guests, Romany and Gorgio, were doing justice to the trout,

Welsh brown bread and butter and jam which Videy had spread before

them, Sinfi went to the back of the camp to look at the ponies, and I

got into conversation with Rhona Boswell, whom I remembered so well

as a child. At first she was shy and embarrassed, doubtful, as I

perceived, whether or not she ought to talk about Winnie. She waited

to see whether I introduced the subject, and finding that I did not,

she began to talk about Sinfi and plied me with questions as to what

we two had been doing and where we had been during our wanderings

through Wales.

When tea was over and Cyril was in lively talk with Sinfi, Wilderspin

grew restless, and I perceived that he wanted to resume his

conversation with me about his picture. I said to him: 'This idea o

f my father's which has inspired you, and resulted in such great

work, what is its nature?'

'I am a painter, Mr. Aylwin, and nothing more,' he replied. 'I could

only express Philip Aylwin's ideas by describing my picture and the

predella beneath it. Will you permit me to do so?'

'May I ask you,' I said, 'as a favour to do so?'

Immediately his face became very bright, and into his eyes returned

the far-off look already described.

'I will first take the predella, which represents Isis behind the

Veil,' said he. 'Imagine yourself thousands of years away from this

time. Imagine yourself thousands of miles away, among real

Egyptians.'

'Real 'Gyptians!' cried Sinfi. 'Who says the Romanies ain't real

'Gyptians? Anybody as says my daddy ain't a real 'Gyptian duke'll ha'

to set to with Sinfi Lovell.'

'Nonsense,' said Cyril, smiling, and playing idly with a coral amulet

dangling from Sinfi's neck; 'he's talking about the ancient

Egyptians: Egyptian mummies, you silly Lady Sinfi. You're not a

mummy, are you?'

'Well, no, I ain't a mummy as fur as I knows on,' said Sinfi, only

half-appeased; 'but my daddy's a 'Gyptian duke for all that,--ain't

you, dad?'

'So it seems, Sin,' said Panuel, 'but I ommust begin to wish I

worn't; it makes you feel so blazin' shy bein' a duke all of a

suddent.'

'Dabla!' said the guest Jericho Boswell. 'What, Pan, has she made a

dook on ye?'

The Scollard began to grin.

'Pull that ugly mug o' yourn straight, Jim Herne,' said Sinfi, 'else

I'll come and pull it straight for you.'

Wilderspin took no notice of the interruption, but addressed me as

though no one else were within earshot.

'Imagine yourself standing in an Egyptian city, where innumerable

lamps of every hue are shining. It is one of the great lamp-fêtes of

Sais, which all Egypt has come to see. There, in honour of the feast,

sits a tall woman, covered by a veil. But the painting is so

wonderful, Mr. Aylwin, that, though you see a woman's face expressed

behind the veil--though you see the warm flesh-tints and the light of

the eyes through the aerial film--you cannot judge of the character

of the face--you cannot see whether it is that of woman in her noblest,

or woman in her basest, type. The eyes sparkle, but you cannot say

whether they sparkle with malignity or benevolence--whether they are

fired with what Philip Aylwin calls "the love-light of the seventh

heaven," or are threatening with "the hungry flames of the seventh

hell"! There she sits in front of a portico, while, asleep, with

folded wings, is crouched on one side of her the figure of Love, with

rosy feathers, and on the other the figure of Faith, with plumage

of a deep azure. Over her head, on the portico, are written the

words:--"I am all that hath been, is, and shall be, and no mortal

hath uncovered my veil." The tinted lights falling on the group are

shed, you see, from the rainbow-coloured lamps of Sais, which are

countless. But in spite of all these lamps, Mr. Aylwin, no mortal can

see the face behind that veil. And why? Those who alone could uplift

it, the figures with folded wings--Faith and Love--are fast asleep at

the great Queen's feet. When Faith and Love are sleeping there, what

are the many-coloured lamps of science?--of what use are they to the

famished soul of man?'

'A striking idea!' I exclaimed.

'Your father's,' replied Wilderspin, in a tone of such reverence that

one might have imagined my father's spectre stood before him. 'It

symbolises that base Darwinian cosmogony which Carlyle spits at, and

the great and good John Ruskin scorns. But this design is only the

predella beneath the picture "Faith and Love." Now look at the

picture itself, Mr. Aylwin,' he continued, as though it were upon an

easel before me. 'You are at Sais no longer: you are now, as the

architecture around you shows, in a Greek city by the sea. In the

light of innumerable lamps, torches, and wax tapers, a procession is

moving through the streets. You see Isis, as Pelagia, advancing

between two ranks, one of joyous maidens in snow-white garments,

adorned with wreaths, and scattering from their bosoms all kinds of

dewy flowers; the other of youths, playing upon pipes and flutes,

mixed with men with shaven shining crowns, playing upon sistra of

brass, silver, and gold. Isis wears a Dorian tunic, fastened on her

breast by a tasselled knot,--an azure-coloured tunic bordered with

silver stars,--and an upper garment of the colour of the moon at

moonrise. Her head is crowned with a chaplet of sea-flowers, and

round her throat is a necklace of seaweeds, wet still with sea-water,

and shimmering with all the shifting hues of the sea. On either side

of her stand the awakened angels, uplifting from her face a veil

whose folds flow soft as water over her shoulders and over the wings

of Faith and Love. A symbol of the true cosmogony which Philip Aylwin

gave to the world!'

'Why, that's esackly like the wreath o' seaweeds as poor Winnie Wynne

used to make,' said Rhona Boswell.

'The photograph of Raxton Fair!' I cried. 'Frank and Winnie, and

little Bob Milford, and the seaweeds!' The terrible past came upon my

soul like an avalanche, and I leapt up and walked frantically towards

my own waggon. The picture, which was nothing but an idealisation of

the vignette upon the title-page of my father's book--the vignette

taken from the photograph of Winnie, my brother Frank, and one of my

fisher-boy playmates--brought back upon me--all!

Sinfi came to me.

'What is it, brother?' said she.

'Sinfi,' I cried, 'what was that saying of your mother's about

fathers and children?'

'My poor mammy's daddy, when she wur a little chavi, beat her so

cruel that she was a ailin' woman all her life, and she used to say,

"For good or for ill, you must dig deep to bury your daddy."'

I went back and resumed my seat by Wilderspin's side, while Sinfi

returned to Cyril.

Wilderspin evidently thought that I had been overcome by the

marvellous power of his description, and went on as though there had

been no interruption.

'Isis,' said he,' stands before you; Isis, not matronly and stern as

the mother of Horus, nor as the Isis of the licentious orgies; but

(as Philip Aylwin says) "Isis, the maiden, gazing around her, with

pure but mystic eyes."'

'And you got from my father's book,--_The Veiled Queen_, all this'--I

was going to add--'jumble of classic story and mediæval

mysticism,'--but I stopped short in time.

'All this and more--a thousand times more than could be rendered by

the art of any painter. For the age that Carlyle spits at and the

great and good John Ruskin scorns is gross, Mr. Aylwin; the age is

grovelling and gross. No wonder, then, that Art in our time has

nothing but technical excellence; that it despises conscience,

despises aspiration, despises soul, despises even ideas--that it is

worthless, all worthless.'

'Except as practised in a certain temple of art in a certain part of

London that shall be nameless, whence Calliope, Euterpe, and all the

rhythmic sisters are banished,' interposed Cyril.

'But how did you attain to this superlative excellence, Mr.

Wilderspin?' I asked.

'That would indeed be a long story to tell,' said he. 'Yet Philip

Aylwin's son has a right to know all that I can tell. My dear friend

here knows that, though famous now, I climbed the ladder of Art from

the bottom rung; nay, before I could even reach the bottom rung, what

a toilsome journey was mine to get within sight of the ladder at all!

The future biographer of the painter of "Faith and Love" will have to

record that he was born in a hovel; that he was nursed in a smithy;

that his cradle was a piece of board suspended from the smithy

ceiling by a chain, which his mother--his widowed mother--kept

swinging by an occasional touch in the intervals of her labours at

the forge.'

I did not even smile at this speech, so entirely was the effect of

its egotism killed by the wonderful way of pronouncing the word

'mother.'

'You have heard,' he continued in a voice whose intense earnestness

had an irresistible fascination for the ear, like that of a Hindoo

charmer--'you have heard of the mother-bird who feeds her young from

the blood of her own breast; that bird but feebly typifies her whom

God, in His abundant love of me, gave me for a mother. There were ten

of us--ten little children. My mother was a female blacksmith of Old

Hill, who for four shillings and sixpence a week worked sixteen hours

a day for the fogger, hammering hot iron into nails. The scar upon my

forehead--look! it is shaped like the red-hot nail that one day leapt

upon me from her anvil, as I lay asleep in my swing above her head. I

would not lose it for all the diadems of all the monarchs of this

world. She was much too poor to educate us. When the wolf is at the

door, Mr. Aylwin, and the very flesh and blood of the babes in danger

of perishing, what mother can find time to think of education, to

think even of the salvation of the soul,--to think of anything but

food--food? Have you ever wanted food, Mr. Aylwin?' he suddenly said,

in a voice so magnetic from its very earnestness that I seemed for

the moment to feel the faintness of hunger.

'No, no,' I said, a tide of grief rushing upon me; 'but there is one

who perhaps--there is one I love more dearly than your mother loved

her babes--'

Sinfi rose, and came and placed her hand upon my shoulder and

whispered,

'She ain't a-starvin', brother; she never starved on the hills. She's

only jest a-beggin' her bread for a little while, that's all.'

And then, after laying her hand upon my forehead, soft and soothing,

she returned to Cyril's side.

'No one who has never wanted food knows what life is,' said

Wilderspin, taking but little heed of even so violent an interruption

as this.'No one has been entirely educated, Mr. Aylwin--no one knows

the real primal meaning of that pathetic word Man--no one knows the

true meaning of Man's position here among the other living creatures

of this world, if he has never wanted food. Hunger gives a new seeing

to the eyes.'

'That's as true as the blessed stars,' muttered old Mrs. Boswell,

Rhona's beloved granny, who was squatting on a rug next to her son

Jericho, with a pipe in her mouth, weaving fancy baskets, and

listening intently. 'The very airth under your feet seems to be

a-sinkin' away, and the sweet sunshine itself seems as if it all

belonged to the Gorgios, when you're a-follerin' the patrin with the

emp'y belly.'

'I thank God,' continued Wilderspin, 'that I once wanted food.'

'More nor I do,' muttered old Mrs. Boswell, as she went on weaving;

'no mammy as ever felt a little chavo [Footnote 1] a-suckin' at her

burk [Footnote 2] never thanked God for wantin' food: it dries the

milk, or else it sp'iles it.'

[Footnote 1: Child.]

[Footnote 2: Bosom.]

'In no way,' said Wilderspin, 'has the spirit-world neglected the

education of the apostle of spiritual beauty. I became a "blower" in

the smithy. As a child, from early sunrise till nearly midnight, I

blew the bellows for eighteen pence a week. But long before I could

read or write my mother knew that I was set apart for great things.

She knew, from the profiles I used to trace with the point of a nail

on the smithy walls, that, unless the heavy world pressed too heavily

upon me, I should become a great painter. Except anxiety about my

mother and my little brothers and sisters, I, for my part, had no

thought besides this of being some day a painter. Except love for her

and for them, I had no other passion. By assiduous attendance at

night-schools I learnt to read and write. This enabled me to take a

better berth in Black Waggon Street, where I earned enough to take

lessons in drawing from the reduced widow of a once prosperous

fogger. But ah! so eager was I to learn, that I did not notice how my

mother was fading, wasting, dying slowly. It was not till too late

that I learnt the appalling truth, that while the babes had been

nourished, the mother had starved--starved! On a few ounces of bread

a day no woman can work the Oliver and prod the fire. Her last

whispers to me were, "I shall see you, dear, a great painter yet;

Jesus will let me look down and watch my boy." Ah, Sinfi Lovell! that

makes you weep. It is long, long since I ceased to weep at that.

"Whatsoever is not of faith is sin."'

Rhona Boswell, down whose face also the tears were streaming, nodded

in a patronising way to Wilderspin, and said, 'Reia, my mammy lives

in the clouds, and I'll tell her to show you the Golden Hand, I

will.'

'From the moment when I left my mother in the grave,' said

Wilderspin, 'I had but one hope, that she who was watching my

endeavours might not watch in vain. Art became now my religion:

success in it my soul's goal. I went to London; I soon began to

develop a great power of design, in illustrating penny periodicals.

For years I worked at this, improving in execution with every design,

but still unable to find an opening for a better class of work. What

I yearned for was the opportunity to exercise the gift of colour.

That I did possess this in a rare degree I knew. At last I got a

commission. Oh! the joy of painting that first picture! My progress

was now rapid. But I had few purchasers till Providence sent me a

good man and great gentleman, my dear friend--'

'This is a long-winded speech of yours, _mon cher_,' yawned Cyril.

'Lady Sinfi is going to strike up with the Welsh riddle unless you

get along faster.'

'Don't stop him,' I heard Sinfi mutter, as she shook Cyril angrily;

'he's mighty fond o' that mother o' his'n, an', if he's ever sich a

horn nataral, I likes him.'

'I never exhibited in the Academy,' continued Wilderspin, without

heeding the interruption, 'I never tried to exhibit; but, thanks to

the dear friend I have mentioned, I got to know the Master himself.

People came to my poor studio, and my pictures were bought from my

easel as fast as I could paint them. I could please my buyers, I

could please my dear friend, I could please the Master himself; I

could please every person in the world but one--myself. For years I

had been struggling with what cripples so many artists--with

ignorance--ignorance, Mr. Aylwin, of the million points of detail

which must be understood and mastered before ever the sweetness, the

apparent lawlessness and abandonment of Nature can be expressed by

Art. But it was now, when I had conquered these,--it was now that I

was dissatisfied, and no man living was so miserable as I. I dare say

you are an artist yourself, Mr. Aylwin, and will understand me when I

say that artists--figure-painters, I mean,--are divided into two

classes--those whose natural impulse is to paint men, and those who

are sent into the world expressly to paint women. My mother's death

taught me that my mission was to paint women, women whom I--being the

son of Mary Wilderspin--love and understand better than other men,

because my soul (once folded in her womb) is purer than other men's

souls.'

'Is not modesty a Gorgio virtue, Lady Sinfi?' murmured Cyril.

'Nothin' like a painter for thinkin' strong beer of hisself,' she

replied; 'but I likes him--oh, I likes him.'

'No man whose soul is stained by fleshly desire shall render in art

all that there is in a truly beautiful woman's face,' said

Wilderspin. 'I worked hard at imaginative painting; I worked for

years and years, Mr. Aylwin, but with scant success. It shames me to

say that I was at last discouraged. Hut, after a time, I began to

feel that the spirit-world was giving me a strength of vision second

only to the Master's own, and a cunning of hand greater than any

vouchsafed to man since the death of Raphael. This was once

stigmatised as egotism; but "Faith and Love," and the predella "Isis

behind the Veil," have told another story. I did not despair, I say;

for I knew the cause of my failure. Two sources of inspiration were

wanting to me--that of a superlative subject and that of a

superlative model. For the first I am indebted to Philip Aylwin; for

the second I am indebted to--'

'A greater still, Miss Gudgeon, of Primrose Court,' interjected

Cyril.

'For the second I'm indebted to my mother. And yet something else was

wanting,' continued Wilderspin, 'to enable me for many months to

concentrate my life upon one work--the self-sacrificing generosity of

such a friend as I think no man ever had before.

'Wilderspin,' said Cyril, rising, 'the Duke of Little Egypt sleeps,

as you see. His Grace of the Pyramids snores, as you hear. The

autobiography of a man of genius is interesting; but I fear that

yours will have to be continued in our next.'

'But Mr. Aylwin wants to hear--'

'He and our other idyllic friends are early to bed and early to rise;

they have, in the morning, trout to catch for breakfast, and we have

a good way to walk to-night.'

'That's just like my friend,' said Wilderspin. 'That's my friend all

over.'

With this they left us, and we betook ourselves to our usual evening

occupations.

Next morning the two painters called upon us. Wilderspin sketched

alone, while Sinfi, Rhona, Cyril, and I went trout-fishing in one of

the numerous brooks.

'What do you think of my friend by this time?' said Cyril to me.

'He is my fifth mystic,' I replied; 'I wonder what the sixth will be

like. Is he really as great a painter as he takes himself to he, or

does his art begin and end with flowery words?'

'I believe,' said Cyril, pointing across to where Wilderspin sat at

work, 'that the strange creature under that white umbrella is the

greatest artistic genius now living. The death of his mother by

starvation has turned his head, poor fellow, but turned it to good

purpose: "Faith and Love" is the greatest modern picture in Europe.

To be sure, he has the advantage of painting from the finest model

ever seen, the lovely, if rather stupid, Miss Gudgeon, of Primrose

Court, whom he monopolises.'

Cyril had already, during the morning, told me that my mother, who

was much out of health, was now staying in London, where he had for

the first time in his life met her at Lord Sleaford's house.

Notwithstanding their differences of opinion, my mother and he

seemed to have formed a mutual liking. He also told me that my uncle

Cecil Aylwin of Alvanley (who in this narrative must not, of course,

be confounded with another important relative, Henry Aylwin, Earl of

Aylwin) having just died and left me the bulk of his property, I had

been in much request. I consequently determined to start for London

on the following day, leaving my waggon in charge of Sinfi, who was

to sit to Wilderspin in the open air.

During this conversation Sinfi was absorbed in her fishing, and

wandered away up the brook, and I could see that Cyril's eyes were

following her with great admiration.

Turning to me and looking at me, he said, 'Lucky dog!' and then,

looking again across at Sinfi, he said, 'The finest girl in England.'

V