Some delightful friends of the Castletons were also spending a holiday in rooms at Chagmouth—Miss Lindsay, an artist, and Lorraine Forrester, a chum of Claudia's, both of whom were sketching the quaint streets and the quay and the harbour with the wildest enthusiasm. Morland had also taken a sudden fancy for painting, and insisted upon going out with them daily, producing some quite pretty little impressionistic pictures, with a touch of his father's style about them. In Morland the family talent ran high but never rose to genius. His touch on the piano was perfect. He scribbled poems in private. His achievements, however, in either music, art, or poetry were insufficient to justify taking one of them for a vocation.
"I'd rather make him a chimney-sweep!" declared Mr. Castleton eloquently. "The public nowadays don't appreciate pictures! They'll look at them in galleries, especially when the admission is free, but you can't get them to buy. They hang their drawing-rooms with cheap prints instead of water- colours, and go to the photographers instead of the portrait-painter. If you can design something to advertise mustard or cocoa you may make a little money, but not by pure art! It's as dead as the ancient Greeks. This is a commercial age. Music's as bad. Your pianists are glad to take posts to play at the cinemas! I wish Claudia success; but her training is the business of the college, not mine, and they'll have to bring her out. I've nothing to do with it. No; Morland must realise he's living in the twentieth century, and has to earn his bread and butter. Art doesn't pay, and that's the fact! Have it as a hobby if you wish, but don't depend upon it!"
So Morland, who, like many young fellows of artistic calibre, had a general affection for the muses but no very marked vocation for anything, had been pitchforked into engineering, and was making quite tolerable progress, and would possibly support himself later on, but always with the feeling that life was commonplace and unromantic, and that a splendid vision had been somewhere just round the corner, only unfortunately missed. He allowed his artistic temperament to run loose during the holidays. He would go up to Bella Vista and play for hours on the Macleods' new grand piano, improvising beautiful airs, and sending Fay into raptures.
"Why don't you write them down right away?" she demanded.
"What's the use? No one would publish them if I did. The publishers are fed up with young composers wanting a hearing. I've made up my mind to be just an amateur—nothing more."
"I'm not sure," ventured Mrs. Macleod, "whether you won't have the best of it. After all, 'amateur' means 'lover,' and the art and the music that you pursue for pure pleasure will be more to you than what you might have had to produce for the sake of bread and butter. Why must our standard in these things always be the commercial one, 'does it pay?' The fact of making it pay often degrades it. My theory is that a man can have his business, and love his hobby just as he loves his wife, without turning it into £ s. d. Look at my husband! In his own office there isn't any one in America knows more about motor fittings, but once outside the office his heart and soul is in painting. I believe he's a happier man for doing both!"
"Do you really think so? It cheers me up! When I'm a full-blown engineer, perhaps I'll make enough to buy a grand piano at any rate. That's one way of looking at it. It's awfully kind of you to let me come here and thump away on yours."
"We enjoy having you, so use it whenever you like. It's always absolutely at your disposal."
Morland was not the only one of the party who was amusing his leisure hours. Bevis also had hobbies. He had taken up photography, had turned an attic at Grimbal's Farm into a dark room, and was trying many experiments. Moreover, his lawyers had at last yielded to his urgent entreaties and had allowed him to buy a small sailing yacht. She was not a racing craft, or remarkably smart in any way, but she was his own, and the joy of possession was supreme. He rechristened her The Kittiwake, painting in her new name with much satisfaction, and he made trial trips in her along the coast as far as Port Sennen. He was extremely anxious to take Mavis and Merle and Clive with him, but that was strictly prohibited by Mrs. Tremayne, who would not allow either her son or her visitors to venture.
"It's too big a risk, and I know what Clive is! Young Talland can swim like a fish if he upsets his yacht, but you can't!"