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THE BOY-ARTIST.
[Illustration: THE PICTURE.]
[Illustration]
THE BOY ARTIST
A TALE FOR THE YOUNG
T. NELSON AND SONS,
LONDON, EDINBURGH AND NEW YORK
[Illustration]
THE BOY-ARTIST.
A Tale for the Young.
_BY THE AUTHOR OF_
_"HOPE ON," "KING JACK OF HAYLANDS," ETC._
* * * * *
"When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me
up."
PSALM xxvii. 10.
* * * * *
LONDON:
T. NELSON AND SONS, PATERNOSTER ROW;
EDINBURGH; AND NEW YORK.
1872.
Contents.
THE BOY-ARTIST--
I. THE PICTURE, 7
II. THE RESOLVE, 20
III. THE FEVER, 29
IV. THE FRIEND, 45
V. THE INVITATION, 57
VI. THE SURPRISE, 66
VII. THE SUCCESS, 82
TOWN DAISIES--
I. A LONELY LIFE, 87
II. TRANSPLANTED DAISIES, 106
[Illustration]
THE BOY-ARTIST.
CHAPTER I.
THE PICTURE.
"Oh, Madge, just stay as you are; there--your head a little more turned
this way."
"But, Raymond, I can't possibly make the toast if I do."
"Never mind the toast; I shan't be many minutes," said the boy who was
painting in the window, while he mixed some colours in an excited, eager
manner.
"The fire is very hot. Mayn't I move just to one side?"
"No; it is the way that the firelight is falling on your hair and cheek
that I want. Please, Madge; five minutes."
"Very well," and the patient little sister dropped the toasting-fork,
and folded her hands in her lap, with the scorching blaze playing on her
forehead and cheek, and sparkling in her deep brown eyes.
The boy went on with rapid, bold strokes, while a smile played over his
compressed lips as he glanced at Madge every few moments.
"The very thing I have been watching for--that warm, delicious
glow--that red light slanting over her face;--glorious!" and he shook
back the hair from his forehead, and worked on unconscious of how the
minutes flew by.
"Raymond, it is very hot."
"There--one moment more, please, Madge."
One minute--two--three, fled by, and then Raymond threw down his brush
and came over to his sister's side.
"Poor little Madge," and he laid his hand coaxingly on her silky hair.
"Perhaps you have made my fortune."
This was some small consolation for having roasted her face, and she
went to look at the picture. "I'm not as pretty as that, Raymond."
[Illustration: "FACES IN THE FIRE."]
"Well, artists may idealize a little; may they not?"
"Yes. What is this to be called?"
"Faces in the Fire."
"Shall you sell it?"
"I shall try."
[Illustration: THE COTTAGE IN THE COUNTRY.]
Raymond Leicester had not a prepossessing face; it was heavy, and to a
casual observer, stupid. He had dark hazel eyes, shaded by an
overhanging brow and rather sweeping eyelashes; a straight nose, and
compressed lips, hiding a row of defective teeth; a high massive
forehead and light hair, which was seldom smooth, but very straight.
This he had a habit of tossing back with a jerk when he was excited; and
sometimes the dull eyes flashed with a very bright sparkle in them when
he caught an idea which pleased him,--for Raymond was an artist, not by
profession, but because it was in his heart to paint, and he could not
help himself. He was sixteen now, and Madge was twelve. Madge was the
only thing in the world that he really cared for, except his pictures.
Their mother was dead, Madge could hardly remember her; but Raymond
always had an image before him of a tender, sorrowful woman, who used
to hold him in her arms, and whisper to him, while the hot tears fell
upon his baby cheeks,--"_You_ will comfort me, my little son. _You_ will
take care of your mother and of baby Madge." And he remembered the
cottage in the country where they had lived, the porch where the
rose-tree grew, the orchard and the moss-grown well, the tall white
lilies in the garden that stood like fairies guarding the house, and the
pear-tree that was laden with fruit.
He remembered how his mother had sat in that porch with him, reading
stories to him out of the Bible, but often lifting her sad pale face and
looking down the road as if watching for some one.
And then there came a dark, dreary night, when the wind was howling
mournfully round the cottage and their mother lay dying. She had called
Raymond to her, and had pressed her cold lips on his forehead, telling
him to take care of Madge; and if his father ever came, to say that she
had loved him to the end, and she had prayed God to bless him and to
take care of her children. Then she had died, and the neighbours told
Raymond that he was motherless.
[Illustration: THE DYING MOTHER.]
He recollected how the sun shone brightly on the day that she was
buried, and that he and Madge stood by the grave crying, when she was
put down in the cold earth; and that a man rode up to the paling of the
quiet green churchyard, and threw the reins over his horse's neck, and
came with hurried footsteps to the grave just as the last sod was thrown
upon the coffin; and how this man had sobbed and cried, and had caught
them in his arms, and said, "My poor little motherless ones," and had
kissed them and cried again so piteously and wildly, that the clergyman
had stopped in the service and had tried to comfort him. And when the
funeral was over, and the neighbours were taking the little ones home,
how the man had held them tightly and said, "No; mine now, never to
leave me again. I am their father. Margaret, I will try to make up to
them what I withheld from you; is it too late?"
This was the father whom their mother had spoken of with her dying
breath; but who had come too late to implore her forgiveness for having
left her in want, while he squandered his money upon his own pleasure.
But now, in the impulse of grief and remorse, he had determined to act
differently, and returned to London with his children.
Here they had lived ever since. Their father had returned to his old gay
life, and left the children very much to take care of themselves.
Sometimes carelessly kind to them, more often harsh and impatient, Mr.
Leicester supposed that he fulfilled the vow which he had made about her
children, beside his wife's grave.
Raymond and Madge had no very definite idea as to what their father did
with his time. From time to time they changed their lodgings, always
coming to some quieter ones, and now they had got to the highest flight
of a tall house in a very shady street. Their father was not at home
very often, but they did not mind this much, and were very happy
together.
Raymond made a little money by drawing pictures for a cheap periodical,
and with this he bought materials for his darling pursuit. Madge watched
him and gloried in him, and dusted the rooms, and laid the table for
meals, and mended his clothes, and thought hopefully of the time when
Raymond should be a famous painter, and she should leave the dingy
London lodging and live in the fresh breezy country which her brother
told her about.
Madge was not beautiful; her little face was sallow and pinched: but she
had two pretty things about her. One was her hair, which was of a rich
warm brown colour, with a dash of chestnut in it, and when unbound it
fell in ripples nearly to her feet; the other was her eyes--large,
lustrous, brown eyes--with an intense earnestness in them, seldom to be
seen in one so young. These eyes appeared in every one of Raymond's
pictures, for they haunted him.
"Now, Raymond, come to breakfast," Madge said when she had finished
making the toast.
He did not appear to hear her, for he went to a little distance and
surveyed his picture with his head on one side.
Madge poured out the tea, and then came over to him, laid her hand on
his which held the brush, and said entreatingly, "Come."
"Well, it is too bad," he said laughingly, "first to make you roast your
face, and then to keep you from eating your breakfast;" and he laid down
his brush and pallette and came to the table; but he ate hurriedly and
soon returned to his work.
Madge put away the things and brought her sewing to the window, where
she sat all the morning watching Raymond's busy fingers. Then she went
out to the colour-shop at the end of the next street, to buy something
which her brother wanted, and to see if the picture he had left there
was sold.
Alas! it was still in the window along with several others; a few
butchers' boys, working-men, and ragged little girls were eagerly
pressing their faces against the glass looking at the pictures, but none
of them were likely to be purchasers. Raymond's picture was called "The
Welcome." There was a cottage room, and an open door, through which a
working man was coming in, while a little girl sprang to meet him. The
girl had Madge's eyes; but no one in that wondering throng knew that.
They were saying how well the workman's dress and the tools which he
carried were done.
[Illustration: BUSY FINGERS.]
Madge went into the shop. Mr. Jeffery was talking to a gentleman who
stood by the counter; but he turned to serve her as soon as she
appeared.
She laid down her money and took her tiny parcel, then said
falteringly, while the colour came into her pale cheeks, "Please, sir,
is my brother's picture sold yet?"
"No, my dear, nor likely to be," said Mr. Jeffery, laughing.
"Poor Raymond," thought Madge, and as she turned away, she raised her
hand to brush away the tears which filled her eyes.
The gentleman who had been standing, now stepped forward and opened the
door for the little girl to go out.
She raised her face timidly and said, "Thank you, sir," in a soft, low
tone, then hurried off without trusting herself again to look in at the
shop window.
"Who's that, Jeffery?"
"A little girl who comes here very often, sir. Her brother paints a
little, and he's left a picture here to try and get it sold."
"I should like to have her hair and eyes for a model," the artist said.
"Jeffery, if that child comes again send her up to me; she would exactly
do for my Ruth."
But it was many and many a long day before little Madge came to that
shop again.
[Illustration]